REGARDING the piece about “Mystery Tourists” in Brakespeare (August 6 edition). Sixty years ago I published the first account of the Fens for the interest of tourists.
REGARDING the piece about “Mystery Tourists” in Brakespeare (August 6 edition).
Sixty years ago I published the first account of the Fens for the interest of tourists. I based this on the number of cars coming into the region and have produced books aimed at tourists ever since.
A lot of my publications go to Holland and people there are very interested in the story of the Cambridgeshire Fens. Most do not know that Dutch prisoners-of-war helped to dig out our drains and make the country roads in Fenland.
Nor do they realise that one of their own countrymen, Cornelius Vermuyden, planned the drainage and that many of the prisoners including Scots taken prisoners at Worcester and Dunbar in the Civil War, died of malaria etc, and were buried in the river banks and nearby.
This fascinates our friends overseas and several come to the Fens to learn more. I receive a lot of enquiries from Scots, Australias and Americans concerning captive ancestors brought to the Fens hundreds of years ago. We live in a very historic ara which has had far-reaching effects on Britain and abroad.
TREVOR BEVIS
St Peter’s Road
March
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