Power To Small Town People

It’s not buildings or parks which make a Community

Swimmers in fancy dress striding down to the surf on New Year’s Day 2022. Image by Linda Acaster

My family lives in Hornsea, a small town on the Yorkshire coast where community is everything.

The town retains its Cottage Hospital, built by public donations after World War 1 to provide eight-bed healthcare and convalescence to the war-wounded and to families whose bread-winner had given their all for King & Country. A hundred years on it continues to serve the town, enabled by a formidable fund-raising Friends Of… group, almost in spite of the region’s overseeing National Health Service clinical commissioners.

Modern Hornsea Cottage Hospital, with its original two-storey “cottage” standing central above later extensions. Image by Paul Glazzard CC-BY-SA.20 via Wikimedia

When the hospital’s Minor Injuries department was abruptly scheduled for closure due to “lack of use”, the town refused to accept the fait acompli. The word went out and people rallied. Within days a local manufacturer donated a cabin to house a First Aid post, and the main supermarket offered space on its car park close enough to the building to be able to feed the cabin with electricity.

Joiners created a ramp for ease of access, decorators decorated its inside, kitchen fitters offered units and fitted it out. The art society created a mural to make its bland…