Len Pick (1909-2004)

Thomas Leonard Pick

1909-2004

Len Pick
Photo: Courtesy The Local newspaper

The life of Len Pick almost spanned the entire 20^th century and was devoted entirely to Bourne, the town he was proud to call home and where he gained a reputation as the leading supporter of Bourne Town Football Club which he followed with enthusiasm as both fan and official for more than 80 years.

Thomas Leonard Pick was born at a cottage in Eastgate on 31st December 1909, the son of Thomas Pick, a farmer and potato merchant, and his wife Frances. He attended the Abbey Primary and then Bourne Grammar School but education, particularly mathematics, was not to his liking and he was glad to leave at the age of 14, going to work for his father who had then set up as a coal merchant. In 1926, at the height of the general strike, he took charge of the business when he was only 16 and the task of emptying wagons shunted into the sidings at Bourne railway station taught him the meaning of hard labour.

A few years later he took over his father’s wholesale potato business and was soon running a fleet of 14 lorries while his farming interests extended over 500 acres in the nearby fens. In 1935, he married Freda, the girl he met soon after leaving school, with a ceremony at the Abbey Church and they remained together for more than 50 years until her death in 1991. They lived in a large house he built for her in Mill Drove in 1951 and after she suffered a stroke and could not manage the stairs any longer, he built her a bungalow in the garden that remained his home after she had died.

Mr Pick was a dedicated member of the community, being elected to Bourne Urban District Council in 1936 and becoming its youngest member at the age of 27. He served on many committees, notably highways, eventually becoming its chairman, but he gave up his council work in 1948 because of the demands of his three businesses. He was a keen sportsman and from an early age bred and raced pigeons from his own loft from 1923 until 1985, becoming chairman then life president of the Bourne Pigeon Racing Club.

But his main love was football and over the years, he won a reputation as the most loyal and dedicated fan of Bourne Town Football Club. He was a founding member of the Supporters’ Club and was also instrumental in getting the first concrete stand built at the Abbey Lawn ground and at the time of his death, he had offered land in Meadow Drove for a new stadium headquarters. He was created an honorary life member of the club for his support and services and was later elected president and then patron in the two years before his death. His interest in the team's progress never wavered and during a spell in hospital for surgery during 2003, he insisted on being kept informed of the results.

He also had other interests and his support and financial help for many organisations and charitable causes in the town, notably the Outdoor Swimming Pool, were less well known.

Mr Pick retired in 1975 but always kept busy with his hobbies which included gardening, playing the piano and walking around the town he loved, becoming a familiar figure in his declining years, carrying a stick and wearing an old cap and long raincoat. He also deplored the loss of the old values. “The worst change I have seen is the lack of law and order”, he said in a newspaper interview in 1999. “There also seems to be a lot of vandalism but in my day we’d be running scared if ever we saw a policeman.”

He died in Peterborough District Hospital on Thursday 29^th January 2004, aged 94. The funeral was held the following week at the Abbey Church that was packed with mourners from the town and elsewhere.

His housekeeper, Mrs Janet Turner, who worked for him for 16 years, living in his former house in front of the bungalow, said: "He will be remembered as someone who was very generous and full of fun. He had a joke for every occasion."

Terry Bates, president of BTFC said in a tribute: “Len Pick was a shrewd, astute and successful businessman, not only in Bourne and district, but also over a much wider area. Len will be very much missed and our community is the poorer for his passing. We are grateful to him for the considerable contribution he has made to all aspects of life in our town.”

In July 2004, when the contents of his will were known, it was revealed that Mr Pick had left the bulk of his £4 million estate for the benefit of the town. During his lifetime, he had set up a trust fund to be known as the Len Pick Charitable Trust to be used for the general benefit of the inhabitants of Bourne. The trustees would use their discretion in awarding grants for local organisations and groups but several were singled out for special consideration including the Abbey Church, the Outdoor Swimming Pool, the Darby and Joan Club and the Butterfield Day Care Centre. A spokesman for the trust said: “In making these arrangements, Mr Pick expressed the wish that the town where he earned his living for so many years should benefit and it was only right that he should repay this debt in a tangible manner.”

THE PICK FAMILY IN 1914

The Pick family in 1914

Len Pick, aged 4, photographed with his mother and father and his elder sister Ethel.

THE LEN PICK TRUST

The trust was launched in the autumn of 2005 with a public meeting at the Corn Exchange, Bourne, on Wednesday 21st September, when the aims and objectives were explained to various charitable and voluntary organisations that might benefit, their location confined to Bourne and the villages of Cawthorpe, Dyke and Twenty, that lie within the parish..
The objects in accordance with the trust deed are:

. . . for the general benefit of the inhabitants of the town of Bourne,
Lincolnshire, to further such charitable purposes as the trustees in their
absolute discretion shall think fit and in particular the trustees shall make grants to local charitable organisations such as Bourne Abbey Church, the Outdoor Swimming Pool, the Darby and Joan Club, the Salvation Army and the Butterfield Day Care Centre.

The trustees are empowered to make grants, at their sole discretion, for general charitable purposes to charitable and voluntary organisations for the benefit of children, young people, elderly, old people, other charities/voluntary bodies within the town of Bourne, Lincolnshire.
The trustees are unable to support applications for projects that replace actual or potential funding from any government, local government, health authority or any statutory agency. In addition they will not support any activity where this would create precedence for the removal of current funding to similar organisations.
Grants cannot be made to individuals.
It will be appreciated that any grants are made on an annual basis only. Further grant aid for ensuing years is at the sole discretion of the trustees.
The trustees are anxious that the trust should provide significant and tangible benefits to fulfil the wishes and instructions of the late Len Pick and as a result they will, within the terms of the governing trust deed, seek to deliver assistance to improve the quality of life, environment and well being for the general benefit of the townspeople of Bourne. Particular attention will be paid therefore to the benefits resulting from any grant. For example, how would a grant enable your organisation to develop and if so, in what manner would this benefit the local community?
The trustees will also look for evidence that other sources of funding are being explored, in particular, they will be looking for evidence that the organisation is not purely reliant upon the trust for total funding.

Reproduced from the Len Pick Trust Internet web site

REVISED AUGUST 2005