Bottesford in 1996

The church of St Mary the Virgin, Bottesford. Also known as 'The Lady of the Vale' due to its tall, elegant spire which can be seen for miles around the Vale of Belvoir.

Interviewer: Welcome to the school bus capital of the East Midlands. We’re in High Street, Bottesford, intermediate size best kept village in Leicestershire. It’s a quarter to eight on Monday morning. The postal address is Nottinghamshire, but it’s only a five minute bus ride to Lincolnshire. In Bottesford High Street, a dozen uniformed children are waiting for the bus to Grantham, the nearest market town. Bottesford, population about 2,500, is a village on the cusp of three counties.

(sound of recorders)

Sue Mottram: I think most of the children from the village do still come here, but yes we do lose some. It’s a shame because, this is a village community, and it’s a shame that the children aren’t all in the village school.

Interviewer: The head teacher of the Bottesford Church of England primary school, Sue Mottram, feels more like a marketing manager than a head some days, she has to sell her school hard.

Sue Mottram: The Government has made schools become like businesses now, so we are, yes, children are money.

Interviewer: One hundred and eighteen pupils, many of them in bright blue sweaters bearing the peacock emblem of the Duke of Rutland, Lord of the Vale of Belvoir. They are the sons and daughters of factory and office workers in the main. Bottesford’s moved on from its feudal, agricultural past.

Sue Mottram: Charlotte, she lives at, just by Belvoir Castle and her daddy works on the castle estate.

Interviewer: What does he do there?

Charlotte: He’s the head gardener for the Duke and Duchess of Rutland.

Interviewer: A few of the children still lead traditional lives, especially those from the Vale of Belvoir.

Charlotte: Our next door neighbour’s the chef for the castle, and then there’s a butler, the tea ladies.

Interviewer: The Duke of Rutland’s estate isn’t the agricultural fiefdom it once was. It depends on tourism for a large part of its income these days. Much of its farmland was sold in the 1920s to pay for death duties.

Director: …like making a cake, you put one ingredient after another and then just mix it all up…

Interviewer: Tuesday afternoon and the works director of Perfectos Inks is showing me around a small factory in the busy industrial estate at the back of the parish church. Left off the High Street, through the ford across the River Devon, past the clay pigeon works, next to the trailer factory, Perfectos Inks had 48 full time employees at the last count.

Director: And then we move to, it’s got to be refined down into, sort of, a micron size of five and ten microns, which is…

Interviewer: Virtually every label in the clothes I’m wearing is printed with inks from Bottesford. It’s the ink capital of Europe as far as garment labels are concerned. Four hundred customers including most of the big firms, like Marks and Spencer. Half its product is exported. In the company board room you can see a display of far eastern labels with incomprehensible English slogans such as ‘Smell of windows’, and ‘You have the leading role, passionate, plain and simple lively motion.’

Director: I mean, in a wash test, originally, you used to put it under the tap and shake it like that, and if it stayed on it was all right. Nowadays it’s got to sort of withstand 52 hours at the boil and still be perfect. The material might disappear but the ink’s got to be perfect.

©BBC