THE VILLAGE PUMP
	EVERY village used to have its own pump that kept the village from going thirsty.  There are still several dotted all over the place.  Eg. Aingers Green, Great Bentley, Frating etc have well houses.  Often the pumps or wells were pampered, given a special place with rails round them. In some parts of the country, Derbyshire for instance, wells are decorated with flowers for a few days every summer. In St Osyth, when council houses were built near the main well, it had its own pride of place fenced in a corner. Over the years water has been increasingly provided from reservoirs and pumps have lost their place of honour.  At first they stood idle but in the metal shortage early in the war (1940), the pumps were removed for salvage and gradually the site became a rubbish dump. St Osyth’s pump stood at the end of Warren Lane close against the church and the vicarage and directly opposite the Priory gatehouse, a sad reminder that it was once a place of honour.  Now it is just a blot on the landscape, no-one owns it and obviously no-one cares. Charles Langlands