When Peter Lee took 8-13 for Great Bowden

Embed from Getty Images

Peter Lee, the former Northamptonshire and Lancashire seam bowler, has died at the age of 80.

He grew up near Market Harborough in the Northamptonshire village of Sibbertoft and made his debut for that county in 1967. 

But it was when he moved to Lancashire in 1972 that his career really took off. He twice took 100 wickets in a season for them in an era when the feat was already becoming vanishingly rare, but never won test selection.

A trawl of the British Newspaper Archive reveals this story from the Leicester Daily Mercury, 6 August 1980. Great Bowden is nearly, but not quite, part of Market Harborough:

Bowden's Secret Weapon Shocks Wigston

Wigston Town cricketers had a nasty shock in their match against Great Bowden for they found themselves facing Lancashire pace bowler Peter Lee.

After Great Bowden had made 131. Wigston were blasted out for 88 with Lee taking 8-13.

Lee hails from a village called Sibbertoft which is just over the border in Northamptonshire and has two brothers in the Bowden team.

He has been injured recently and his guest appearance was part of his build-up to regain full fitness.

Wigston were on the receiving end another top-line bowler some years ago when Harold Rhodes took all 10 wickets against them for just 11 runs in a match at Matlock.

The River Welland from its source to the sea

This is a lovely video that follows the Welland for 65 miles from its source at Sibbertoft in Northamptonshire, through Market Harborough, Stamford, Market Deeping, Crowland, Spalding and The Wash.

I once looked for the spring at Sibbertoft that is said to be the source of the Welland, but was unable to find it. The makers of this video seem to agree with the people behind the local rewilding project of 10 years ago: these days there is no sign of a flow above the village sewage works.

Don't tell Lord Bonkers, but the reason the river seems to shrink before it reaches Stamford is that water is pumped into Rutland Water.

Rewilding the River Welland through Market Harborough

Earlier this evening I went to a meeting held by the Welland Rivers Trust at The Angel, Market Harborough, to gain local views about its proposed £500,000 project to restore the riverscape and habitats along the River Welland through the town.

You can read more about the scheme on BBC News and on the Welland Rivers Trust website.

The project has come a long way since I went to a meeting about the Welland on the eve of the last general election, and there was a lot of support expressed this evening.

The middle reaches of the Welland suffered brutal flood prevention work from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s. As Dr David Harper said this evening, at the start of that period public policy was that we should grow enough food that we need not fear being starved by U-boats in the next world war. At the end of it we had signed up to the European Economic Community's common agricultural policy and its lakes and mountains of food.

So in rural areas the prevention work was designed so that farmers would be able to grow any crop they chose on the flood plain, even though the Welland Valley has traditionally been regarded as some of the finest grazing land in England.

And in Market Harborough the river was constrained, sometimes by concrete walls, to prevent the town flooding. Some flood prevention work here was necessary, but it would be done far more sympathetically today.

The good news is that there is much that can be done to reverse the worst excesses of that scheme. I asked about the River Jordan here in Little Bowden, which suffered at the same time, and the Trust has plans for it too.

One unlovely fact I learnt this evening is about the source of the Welland. It is somewhere near the village of Sibbertoft in Northamptonshire, but hard to find. I once spent an hour trudging around a muddy field where the Ordnance Survey map places it, but found nothing. One romantic tale had the river beginning in a spring that comes to light in the cellar of the village's vicarage.

The truth these days is that the Welland begins with the outflow from Sibbertoft's sewage treatment works. At least the forgiveness of nature means the water is a lot cleaner by the time it reaches Market Harborough.

I took the title of this post from a Leicestershire & Rutland Wildlife Trust leaflet about "Rewilding the Soar Valley". I like the idea of 'rewilding' - it is a concept we could extend to many areas of life. However, the man from the trust said that everything is being rewilded these days, so maybe I am a bit late with this bandwagon.

Anthony Blair found hiding out near Market Harborough

From the Harborough Mail:

A prisoner who walked out of an open prison was found hiding near Harborough, a court heard. Anthony Blair (25), reacted with anger and swore at Judge Richard Bray when three years’ imprisonment was added to his sentence. 

Northampton Crown Court heard on Friday last week that Blair was jailed for seven-and-a-half years at Teeside Crown Court in December 2008 for wounding with intent and stealing and handling stolen vehicles. 

He was serving the sentence at HMP Ford, an open prison in West Sussex, went he walked out on August 3 last year. 

Alex Bull, prosecuting, said while Blair was on the run, an £18,000 Ford Ranger was stolen from Lower Lodge Farm, Harborough on August 11. 

Yet when police officers went to the Brook Meadow lakeside retreat between Sibbertoft and Lubenham two days before Christmas, they found both it and Blair.