Last year we walked a bit of the Water Rail Way, which runs from Lincoln to Boston along the River Witham). On this trip, we walked the other end, from Anton's Gowt to Boston, stopping for coffee at the Malcolm Arms pub.

All very beautiful...







And also all very interesting, as this area is yet another example of the massive social and environmental change that has been going on for centuries in these parts. (We so readily assume, in our era, that we're the only ones ever to have to cope with dislocation and disruption. We're so wrong.)

As riverside signs point out, drains are man-made channels that both drew water away from the fens, and provided means of transport. Anton's Gowt -- and the word "gowt" refers to the outlet of a drain or watercourse -- is the gateway to the Witham Navigable Drains, a network of channels dug as early as the 17th century. Later, the railway, offering much quicker travel options than waterborne transport, made possible the "annihilation of time and space" trumpeted by a contemporary edition of the Stamford Mercury. And now the railway has gone too...


We took this photo last year, at the other end of the Water Rail Way.

You'll notice the anti-EU graffiti... We'll get onto that in a minute, but before we do, take a look at Boston. I was totally unaware that Boston Massachusetts was named after this settlement in Lincolnshire, because of the role it played in the Puritan migration to America. It would merit much more exploration than we had time for.









When we got back from Boston, my father-in-law mentioned that this town topped the entire country in its percentage of voters backing exit from the EU. The figure voting "leave" was a whopping 75.6%.

More generally, Lincolnshire people were among the most enthusiastic Brexiteers in the country.

This circumstance is generally attributed to the rapid demographic change brought about by migration from eastern Europe. One source puts the increase in Boston's population between 2001 and 2011 at 15.9%, which is quite a surge to accommodate, even in terms of numbers. But it's not just numbers. The share of the population born elsewhere in the EU in 2011 was 13%, while in 2001, 97% of the population were "white British".

Many would argue that the problem was not really competition for jobs, since Lincolnshire needed workers for its farms and factories (and, it seems, for its tourist industry). Rather, the bone of contention seems to have been pressures on housing and infrastructure, and "the kind of street behaviour that often accompanies groups of youngish single males".

And old prejudices die hard. One British-born "remain" supporter, of Polish ethnicity, recounts: "My wife has an elderly aunt living outside Skegness in a village... I asked her why she voted leave. 'To get rid of all these Poles.' I asked her how many Poles she had met. 'None.'"

A short walk around Boston reveals signs in a range of mostly eastern European languages, and you frequently hear these languages on the streets. There are numerous eastern European grocers (where, for just over GBP 2, you can buy enough kaiser rolls and tasty cheese for an evening picnic...). These all seem like good things to me, but I guess if you're not used to diversity, you're going to need a bit of a change of mindset.

And the economics is complicated. Nationally, immigration is reported to promote an increase in average wages, but the effects are far from even: "[B]usinesses [in Boston] have created an unusual number of jobs and richer local people have done very well -- but the squeeze on the poorer end is more extreme. You can see that in the local pay statistics. Boston has always been a low-pay town. But it is now an exceptionally low-paid place."

So why, you might ask, were the powers-that-be not anticipating and mitigating some of these problems? Good question...

Ingoldmells, also in Lincolnshire, offers a similar contrast, this time between fun-at-the-seaside and underlying problems. Descriptors such as "severely deprived" abound. (A 2013 study ascribed to Skegness and Ingoldmells "deprivation levels" about 2.5 times the English average.)

None of which makes the bright-and-breezy atmosphere any less enjoyable. But it does make it somewhat poignant...