ARE WE A SMUG LOT?

Ken Harrison, from Wrawby, who is a welcome contributor of snippets to Brigg Blog (remember the Wilkinson rock writing?), had a letter published in the Scunthorpe Telegraph's Viewpoint page yesterday in which he accused Brigg on 'making the error of being inwardly-fixed'.
Although stressing he finds Brigg 'quite quaint' and a 'friendly, functional market town with an ambience of the past', Ken says he has always had a suspicion Brigg is 'rather insular' and 'smug in its own perceived reflection of itself'.
Ken is quite entitled to his opinion, and what he wrote set me reflecting on his conclusions. I immediately thought of Coun Ivor Strudwick, long-serving urban district, town and Humberside county councillor, who lived on St Helen's Road.
'Stud' loved the days when we had Brigg Urban District Council. Back then (pre-1974) the town really was insular, in the sense the little authority, whose elected members we all living and/or working in the community, controlled just about everything except fire, police and education. We didn't need, or get, much outside help.
If the tap in your council house needed attention, you told the rent collector and he would pass on a message, resulting in a man with his tools in a bag slung over the handlebars of his bike popping round to fix things.
About 1980 - just a few years after Brigg UDC had been phased out and Glanford Borough Council brought in through what was virtually a merger of the Brigg Urban and Brigg Rural authorities - members of Brigg Town Council were meeting to discuss plans to close the Corn Exchange.
The fine old building was high on the Glanford agenda for action, due to rising costs...and some might say (rightly or wrongly) because it was in Brigg!
Strud caused furore in the Glanford ranks when he took a swipe at the folk from villages and small towns surrounding Brigg who by then held sway on much of what went on in our community.
He made reference to 'the backwoodsmen of Glanford from places you have hardly ever heard of'.
This comment, perhaps, fits in with Ken's point: Brigg has a long history of providing retail and educational services to the surrounding small towns and villages, which means, for many things, our community does not need to venture beyond its own boundaries...Unlike people living a few miles from us who come to Brigg for shopping and other purposes (as Ken himself often does).
If that makes us insular, as Ken suggests, then I take that as a compliment, rather than a criticism. Brigg has a proud history of standing on its own two feet.
So this is one long-standing resident who is going to thank Ken for his very interesting letter, although not everyone may take kindly to what he's written in a thought-provoking letter to Viewpoint, which I enjoyed.
It certainly took me back down memory lane!