Clifford Foster has shown us the January issue of the British Rail staff news-sheet, which carries good news for our line. The current electrification programme does not include Rye; but when it is finished, the Hastings-Ashford line is part of the next batch, due to be done by the mid-1990s - and Clifford says that the present programme is running well to time, so there is no reason to expect delays. What's more, there is absolutely nothing in the article to imply that the programme is in any way dependent on the future of the Tunnel!
Tonight Rother's Policy & Resources Committee considers the rates. ESCC is to levy 190.3p in the £, Rother has to choose between setting its share at 20.4p, 20.9p or 21.4p; but it is the purely local rate which concerns us now. Rye's parish expenses are divided into Special Expenses and Town Council Requirements.
Each year Rother charges Rye specifically with 20% of what is actually spent here on "recreation grounds, gardens, open spaces, playgrounds, public seats, allotments, war memorial and closed churchyard" and on our Ancient Monuments. (A similar arrangement applies to Bexhill.) In 1986/7 the estimates were £52,690 and £7,660, so £12,070 went down as Special Expenses. For 1987/8 the estimates are £64,990 and £9,280, so the Special Expenses charge is £14,854 - 23% up on the previous year (if our arithmetic is right).
The 16½% rise in the Town Council Requirements is not quite as high, but still startling. In February 1986, the Town Council precept was £20,837 - a rise of 84% on the previous year; the Town Clerk explained to us then that the Council was trying to build up a contingency fund to allow for salary restructuring, Town Hall repairs, and such unexpected expenses as the two by-elections which had recently taken place.
This year the Town Council precept is for £27,087. Inflation has not been enormous. There have been no apparent staff changes (though presumably both the Town Clerk and Town Sergeant have received standard salary increases). The repairs to the Town Hall cupola were estimated as costing a little under £3,000, of which Rother is contributing £1,000. There have been no by-elections. As for the Town Model, this not only pays for itself but makes a profit - last year (GAZETTE no. 192) £6,459, of which £3,000 was salted away against the day when a commercial rent could be payable, leaving £3,459 at the disposal of the Council.
This week we ask Rother and the Town Clerk the same question: why such a big rise? Next week we hope to give readers the answers.
Plans are in hand for the first Rye Players production for several years. The play chosen is "See How They Run", a farce which was extremely popular on the London stage, and well received here when the TPS staff put it on some years ago; it is set in a country vicarage early in WW2. Auditions are to be held next week - Joan Parkes was unable to confirm the date as we went to press, but it is likely to be Monday evening. New blood would still be wel- come, so if you are not already a member of Rye Players and would like to be considered for a part, ring the producer Anthony James or Mrs. Parkes to check the details.
Rother warns that people living near the Magdala House site are going to find life noisy for four weeks starting in March. Foundation problems for the new sheltered housing block (GAZETTE no. 184) mean that 46 piles have to be driven down 100ft. Starting time and working hours are not yet settled, but there will be no pile-driving on Saturday afternoons or Sundays.
2.
Mrs. Maude Catt, of East Guldeford, died at her home on 8 February. She was 84. Daughter, wife and mother of farmers, Mrs. Catt was born a Dunster at Moneypenny, and was a pupil at Rye Collegiate School under Miss Stonham. She is survived by her husband Bert, son Alan, four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Cremation on Friday will be private, but will be followed by a memorial service at East Guldeford Church at 2.45 - no flowers, but donations in her memory to the British Heart Foundation.
On two occasions recently, Camera Club members entertained other local groups with slide shows of local interest. Colin Page of Udimore Road drew a big audience at the January Natural History Society meeting just before the snow, with his admirable survey of the wildlife of the seashore and Rye Harbour Nature Reserve. He looked thoroughly and sometimes in great detail at all kinds of plants and animals, birds and insects, to be found in the area; and his picture of ducks on the frozen Ternery Pool preceded by only a few days a similar problem for the poor things this year. Warden Barry Yates was happy to be seeing someone else's view of his Reserve for a change!
On Friday last week George Delemare of Newenden took the Movie Society for a walk - in the comfort of the FE Centre - round the Isle of Oxney. For those who were not sure why it is referred to in this way, he started with a map, and then left home on a frosty morning, camera at the ready (he prefers taking pictures in the winter, he said - the light is more interesting). He stopped to look at buildings from time to time, but was chiefly interested in the natural life of the countryside, and had some amazing photographs of birds with their young - and an unforgettable one of ice patterns. To talk about "the Isle of Oxney", he was told recently, is quite wrong; the "isle" is included in the derivation of the word Oxney anyway. But however scholarly the argument, it doesn't seem likely that most of us will abandon the usage now.
Readers will like to know that a couple of years ago the Camera Club took a series of photographs of Rye's streets - not as works of art, but simply as records of what was where at the time. This was in response to a request by the Conservation Society, which now has the results in strips of small prints - which can be enlarged later as required. Wouldn't it be interesting now if someone had done just that in, say, 1925 and 1955?
This week sees two more applications for pairs of detached houses in Playden. The owners of Westwick on Point Hill are asking to put two houses in the garden of that house where it fronts the cul-de-sac leading off Rye Hill - opposite Goalthorpe and Vine Cottage. The work would include improvements to the junction with the main road. Two houses could also appear along Military Road on the land belonging to Hawthorne Dene, a small house on the cliff side of the road roughly halfway between The Mount and Yonder; this is a proposed renewal of a 1960 permission. The owner of 24 Kings Avenue is applying to build a garage and car access.
A London teacher is applying for change of use of part of Western Barn in Winchelsea Road, of which she and her husband are prospective purchasers, to playgroup accommodation for up to 16 children; she has already made satisfactory enquiries about whether the premises are suitable - and Rye mothers will hope very much that she gets permission, since this is something for which there is a real need here (the Ferry Road playgroup has a permanent queue).
The remaining - and, in its implications, far the most interesting - application is from J. Alsford & Co for alterations to the old bus garage in South Under-cliff; they want to insert a show-room window in the frontage, and a new sign, with the access at the side of the building only. We shall be able to say more about this next week; but Rye is rife with rumour about Strand Quay!
- 3 - THE RYE GAZETTE, 11 February 1987
In September 1938 Rye Grammar School was celebrating its Tercentenary (see GAZETTE no. 176). Among the first-year pupils starting at the school, in a brown gym-slip and a felt hat with the school badge, was Rosalie Green from Udimore Road; her sister Fat was Head Girl (Bob Huxstep, now of New Road, was Head Boy) and her brother John was midway up the school. The St. Mary's organist Mr. Williams, who had a lot to do with the school since many of the lads in the choir were its pupils, composed a school song specially for the anniversary:
"In Sixteen Hundred and Thirty-Eight
When Charles the First was on the throne,
A man of Rye stood forth alone
To found our school from his estate
And after him two others left their name
For no less honour and for no less fame.
Three Houses marching forward, behind their founders gone
Peacocke, Saunders, Meryon for ever lead us on!"
Hardly great verse - but we may not be doing the librettist justice, since the words were recalled for us against a buzz of conversation and reminiscence at the George Hotel on Saturday night.
Rosalie Green, now Mrs. Eldrid and living in Ealing, and her husband John had assembled a group of her Grammar School contemporaries and their spouses for a reunion evening - an event typical of the very close-knit bond which still links RGS pupils, even though it is almost twenty years since the school lost its identity. About two-thirds of the party still live in or around Rye, but some had come a considerable distance; the two Australian-based guests were, to be honest, living in London at present anyway - but there was a phone call from America from someone who couldn't quite manage to get to the Benson Room that evening in person.
Much of the talk centred on the evacuation to Bedford - recalled with a certain lack of enthusiasm, even so long afterwards. We were very glad to hear that one of the pupils who joined the exodus on 21 July 1940 is now trying to collect material for a history of those four years in which the life of the Grammar School suddenly became so very different. Bob Burnett would be glad to hear from anyone connected with the school's Bedford period - from parents, for instance, who must now mostly be in their 80s, as well as from staff and pupils. The Sussex Express referred him to the County Records Office in Lewes, in new premises up by the Castle, who were most helpful in letting him see microfilms of the paper for the period; he hopes to do equally well from the Bedford end, though the local paper there hasn't answered his letter. He seeks written accounts (or taped reminiscences), photographs, documents - anything which people still keep or remember. The kind of compilation he plans will be interesting not only now, some 45 years later, but 145 years later too - and we know the GAZETTE reaches a lot of ex-RGS pupils; so please, if you can contribute anything to Mr. Burnett's archive, find the time to phone him or write.
After dark, the sample lights in the Gun Garden clearly demonstrate the various options for the town centre. The third type, not seen at the Town Hall but now over the brick arch, is virtually indistinguishable from the tungsten one over the Museum gate; in our view, it would be very suitable for the cobbled streets - and, for that matter, in Church Square where ESCC was prepared to allow tungsten as a special concession. The amber light proposed for the High Street does look a bit yellow, but doesn't have the same disastrous effect on skin-tones as those round the bottom of the town; but could we not have the brick-arch light in the High Street too? Town Council members really need to study the choice before the next meeting of the Planning Committee on Monday.
4.
The Merrythought, the pretty shop at the very top of Lion Street beside the church, has now reopened under its new proprietors. Michael and Yvonne Webb still have Simon the Pieman, the restaurant almost next door, but they have not run a shop since they gave up the grocery opposite the Post Office (now John Ciccone's Spar) many years ago. Merrythought will continue to sell the same range of cards and gifts - gifts which many people buy for themselves rather than to give away! - Portmeirion table-ware (the very popular Botanic Garden design is well represented), Rye Pottery items including their delightful figures, lots of glass from Dartington and elsewhere - and some things of special Rye interest. John Putman added a model of the Mermaid to his Heritage Houses collection specially for Merrythought, and they still sell the map of Rye which was designed by a previous owner of the business, Percy White; they have, too, mats and coasters showing views of the town, taken from prints which are also available for framing. Locals will be glad to know that the good selection of Medici and other cards will continue. The shop is open from 10 on Mondays and from 9.30 on Tuesdays to Saturdays.
The new owners of the Strand Quay Cafe are Steve and Pat Benn, who have moved from Udimore Road and now live in the flat above; playing on the balcony or watching the boats will be Paul, now at Tilling Green, and little Danny. Mr. and Mrs. Benn don't intend to make any dramatic changes at the cafe - which will be good news to their many regular customers, and particularly to those who appreciate the excellent breakfasts available there.
Tony and Pauline Meyer are giving up The Decorator's Warehouse in Cinque Ports Street at the beginning of March, after 15; years in Rye. The new owners - whose name we hope to give after the shop changes hands on 2 March - are keeping both the name and the business intact, we are relieved to know. Mr. and Mrs. Meyer are not giving up their Peasmarsh home, but will be spending their time on their property interests in the area. Pauline is a local girl, Tony comes from Tonbridge, and they started in Rye in what was then a brand-new conversion of three derelict cottages at Bannister's Corner (now Squirrels); Tony's half of the shop sold paint and wallpaper as now, but Pauline had a separate children's clothes shop in the other half. They moved the decorating business to the old Gassons building in 1982, and picked the name to suit the premises (then one shop and "a vast amount of space"); three flats have been neatly slotted into the space since then, and the shop has been divided into two.
Rye Havana is open at last - with hardly any stock yet, but at least open! The owner lives in London, but behind the counter is Jane Jenkinson, whose parents have Graham's further along the High Street, and although she hadn't ml L to sell on Monday, further supplies may have arrived by the time you read this. Jane hopes that old customers of Len Stocks, and other smokers in the area, will call in and tell her what they would like to be able to buy locally, particularly in the way of different pipe tobaccos and cigars. She didn't know much about tobacco a week ago - but she's learning fast!
British Rail has a startling offer for anyone wanting a cheap February break; details and bookings from DFDS Seaways, 0255 552000. For just £10 a head you get transport from London to Harwich for "a three day luxury mini cruise and two nights' accommodation in a four-berth cabin ... a wide range of entertainments including a cinema, disco, restaurants and sauna". Food and drink (and entertainment?) are not included in the £10, and the BR release doesn't say if you can get off in Denmark; but as value for money goes nowadays...!
Rye & District Hotel & Caterers Association celebrated its 25th anniversary with a banquet after the AGM at the George Hotel on Monday. The guests were the Mayor, Nigel Embry of the SE Tourist Board, and Leslie Bulman of the RDA; founder members present were Barbara and Don McKenzie, and Tony Mann, the Association's life president. Healths were proposed, toasts were drunk, and 51 people spent a very enjoyable evening. The new chairman is Ron Dellar (Western House); James Menhinick continues as the secretary.
5.
Rye Police would like to point out that even though the police station is now closed at night, its phone number - Rye 222112 - remains awake. In fact it could still be a Rye policeman who answers your call, since the police do use the station at night when it suits them; it is the public entrance which is closed. But even when the station is deserted, 222112 will still get an answer - from the police at Bexhill, who take over the line at night. So this is still the number to ring when you are uneasy about something but don't think it quite rates a 999 call - if, for instance, a person or vehicle is behaving unusually in your road (and this includes, we gather, noisy kids keeping the whole street awake as they go home in the small hours after an evening out!) But it applies particularly to Neighbourhood Watchers; please don't fail to report something odd immediately, just because you think the station is closed - as far as the phone is concerned, it isn't, and you could be helping the police prevent a crime.
Readers without cars may be interested in coach excursions which Hastings & District are running during February and March, with Rye departures. The fares are the same wherever you join the coach, so the Brighton and Eastbourne trips are particularly good value for people starting from here.
Mondays: BRIGHTON (adult £3, child £1.50, OAP C2, Club £1.50)
Leave Rye 8.50, arrive Brighton 11.0, depart 16.30, back in Rye
18.30
Wednesdays: CANTERBURY (prices as for Brighton)
Leave Rye 10.10, arrive Canterbury 11.15, leave 16.15, back in Rye
17.20
Thursdays: FOLKESTONE AND DOVER (prices as for Brighton) Leave Rye 10.10, arrive Dover 11.30, depart 16.00, back in Rye
17.20
eave Rye 8.50, arrive Eastbourne 10.15, leave 17.15, back in Rye
18.40.
Baldwins Travel have the leaflet and will take bookings for these and other excursions, which include three from here to the Ideal Home Exhibition, several French hypermarket shopping trips, and others which don't call here.
The GAZETTE offers its best wishes to the Sussex Express, which last week celebrated its 150th birthday with a backward-looking supplement - and incidentally killed off a Rye legend. We have often been told by older readers that "the Sussex Express started in Rye" (they usually go on to remark that the paper ought therefore to take more account of the town now). But it did not start in Rye; it started where it is now, in Lewes. It was originally titled "The Sussex Agricultural Express" and was primarily for the farming community; the only mention of Rye in the facsimile first issue is at the tail-end of a page of across-the-county news.
In the course of a detailed and interesting history of the paper we learn the true position. The original newspaper was called "The South Eastern Advertiser and Rye Chronicle" and was started in 1853 by Rye printer Isaac Parsons (whether they were once two separate papers or all one title from the start is not clear). Isaac Parsons went on to found the Hastings printing firm which became F.J. Parsons Ltd., and in 1914 the current Parsons, Alfred, bought the Sussex Express from its Lewes owners and amalgamated with it the paper he already owned. The County Herald, which started in Eastbourne, was added in 1938.
The original "Rye Gazette", by the way, was not a newspaper at all in the modern sense. It ran for two years from November 1826, theoretically monthly, and was started by reform party members in the town as an outlet for their views on the ruling Lamb family. Leopold Vidler describes it as "a somewhat scandalous little newspaper"! We checked with Stationers' Hall that no-one had registered the title since, and appropriated it as being catchy but not (we hope) catchpenny.
6.
This time last year we surveyed various major planning applications, or likely applications, for the town. How are they doing now? (And have we forgotten any - perfectly possible, with so much going on at the moment round the bottom of the town?)
Work on the supermarket had been expected to start in September 1985, so it has run roughly a year late (it is due to open in time for Christmas 1987). The Sports Centre has also run a little late, but is now almost ready. The sheltered housing on the Magdala House site failed to strike rock where it expected to - but work is due to start next month (page 1). Work on the fire station is likely to begin in April, or possibly earlier (the site, of course, is the Drill Hall on the way to the Mill). The Head's Christmas newsletter said that he hoped to see the new craft block at Upper School under way before the end of the academic year - a year ago, both these ESCC projects had looked extremely chancy in view of newly-announced cuts in rate support grants.
The only complete non-starter is Rother's proposed temporary car park on the land beside the lane to the Mill, on the railway side.
So much for the hard news. Other things are less certain. Industrial development and job prospects in Harbour Road don't seem noticeably greater than they were a year ago, but perhaps there are plans over which a veil is still drawn? The marina feasibility study is still under wraps - but not, we gather, for very much longer now. Nothing has been said lately about a new Clinic for Rye - and nothing about the future of the hospital, where Miss Pembleton has now been charge for a year; until the new Hastings hospital opens, anyway, doubtless no news is good news. As for the railway, we said a year ago that the Channel Tunnel was likely to be its salvation, and added in jest "it could even be electrified". Many a true word is spoken in jest; see front page!
A year ago there was talk of a Heritage Centre and other development down at the Strand. There is still talk, and not much more now, but it does tie in with other possibilities which it is not the GAZETTE'S place to discuss yet though there is likely to be at least one spectacular planning application for part of that area before long.
Finally, the bypass. In November 1985 Lynda Chalker had told Ken Warren that our public consultation would be "spring at the earliest". (She didn't add that what she meant was spring 1987!) Much of the town has now been shadowed, and some specifically blighted, by possible bypass routes ever since the Winchelsea public consultation in November 1983. The preferred route for Winchelsea was eventually announced in April 1986 as the one along the railway, debouching into Strand Quay. However, within two months the Minister had written to Ken Warren "There is still a long way to go before the Winchelsea route will be finally decided, probably following a public enquiry" - so even Winchelsea was back to square one. On this basis, even if our consultation were to be held imminently, it could still be years before we reached the stage of a public enquiry - which will certainly be required for the Rye route, whichever one is "preferred". In the meantime, more and more building is planned for the perimeter of the town, all making more and more complications for the bypass consultants. (And more and more people say they doubt they will live to see anything actually happen..!)
Recently several people better informed than we are assured us that the route was already decided and would go alongside the railway - whatever else the public consultation offered would merely be a polite fiction. We asked Ken Warren about this on Friday, and he said categorically that neither he nor even the Minister has any knowledge of what route will ultimately be chosen, and that there is still a real choice. He spoke about a possible northern route for Winchelsea and Rye, connecting with the route leaving Hastings from The Ridge; people coming here would then be those who really want to come here which would certainly be a very welcome thought to many of us.
• The state of the footpath alongside the building site in Rock Channel is causing concern. Complaints to ESCC Highways at Bexhill before Christmas brought an assurance from the developers (not, be it said, Le Fevre Wood & Royle - they are the architects) that something would be done, but when the snow melted it was apparent that nothing had. A week ago we walked the path in stout shoes, picking our way across the ankle-turning brickbats bedded into it; on Monday after the rain, it was a morass of muddy ruts not really passable at all, and even in dry weather it would be very difficult to take a pushchair or shopping trolley along it. The pressure from Highways is being kept up, and we hope to report better news soon.
• As well as being a statement of fact, "Conservation Matters" is the title of a new tabloid-size newspaper which Southern Water is producing, both for its own staff and so that people outside can see what the Authority is doing for conservation in its enormous area (Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight). The Editor is the Regional Information Officer, Paddy Welsh, based at Southern Water's Worthing HQ. The first issue makes attractive reading, not too technical and with lots of pictures in colour and black-and-white, and the articles include a piece about the Pett Level pools and another on the Rye Harbour Nature Reserve - though it is a pity that the writer didn't find space for a mention of the flourishing Friends organisation for this. There is a copy of "Conservation Matters" in the Library, and another at the Council Offices; Rye Wholefoods have a few to hand out to people specially interested.
• Specialist advisers are to be at the Thursday morning RDA clinics at the Council Offices in the next few weeks. Tomorrow, on 26 February and on 12 March, rural field worker Sandie Lazarus will be available with information for those who care for relatives and friends at home - there is a new DHSS-funded project which may help to relieve some of the stress for them.
Tomorrow, too, a management accountant - Stewart Dart - will be available for consultation, not on nitty-gritty things like tax problems but on how accounts can best be structured for a particular business. On 12 March, Martin Ritchie will be glad to meet anyone with proposals for adapting an unused building for commercial use - or, indeed, anyone who has an unused building, full stop! The phone number is an extension from the Council Offices, Rye 222293.
Vidler & Co's monthly auction sale on Friday was not one of their largest, but there were some extremely enthusiastic bidders - particularly for the prize lot, a 5'6” antique oak dressed (considerably restored) which sold for £1,225. Physically the largest piece on sale was a Victorian oak secretaire bookcase an imposing 99” high (£230); at the other end of the scale, 3 ozs of silver sold for £195 in the form of a charming little Victorian chamber candlestick which is never again likely to be lighting someone's way to bed.
There was a great deal of mahogany furniture: a C19 French inlaid bureau (£320), an Edwardian ebonised display cabinet (£260), a reproduction sofa table (£100), a snap-top oval dining table (£380) a fluted Victorian night-commode (£105), a Georgian drop-flap table (£100), a bookcase cabinet (£150), an Edwardian Sutherland table (£170) and a Victorian dressing table and washstand (£120). Oak also sold well - a 5' pedestal desk fetched £370, a 6' refectory table £260, just the top half of an antique dresser (£100) and a carved side table £340. Six oak dining chairs went for £220, while four Victorian mahogany ones cost £330. Other lots selling well were an inlaid walnut table (£290), a cheval mirror (£200), a toilet mirror (£100), a 13'5” Persian runner (£240), a pair of oval ormolu-framed wall mirrors (£480), a silver cake-basket (£460) and a three-piece silver tea set (£300) and a pair of small cloisonne vases (£145). The tea-pot and sugar-bowl of the tea-set dated from the 1850s; the the hallmark on the milk-jug revealed that it had been made in 1925 to match the rest!
Thursday, 12th Action for Epilepsy Group, open meeting with video and discussion (all welcome, see GAZETTE no. 211), Freight Express offices in Market Street, 7.30
Coin Club, talk by CW Banks, FEC, 7.30
Friday, 13th Civil Service Retirement Fellowship AGM (Bob Swann, chairman of the SE Sussex Branch), FEC, 11
Labour Party open meeting, with slides of Nicaragua taken by a new member who has lived there, FEC, 8.30
Nat.His.Soc. "Travels in Australia" (Brian Soper), FEC, 7.30
Saturday, 14th Greenpeace Benefit Gig, Ma Beeton's, 8 (GAZETTE no. 211)
Monday, 16th Town Council Planning Committee, TH
Camera Club, competitions, "Autumn" and "Open", FEC, 7.30
Wednesday, 18th Thrift Shop, Red Cross (handing-in only), 10 to 12
Landgate WI, "Women as Auctioneers and Valuers" (Pauline Chalk, FSVA), CC, 10.30
Community Lunch Group, Anthony Wade of the CHC, Clinic, 1
• The National Trust members' evening on Thursday, 19th, which was to have been held in Winchelsea, will now be at the Community Centre, at 7.30.
• We gave the wrong phone number last week in connection with the Lions guide-dog event at the George on 25 February; it should have been Dennis Kemp. Apologies!
• The Young Farmers Club dance (with finger buffet) to celebrate their 25th birthday is on Friday, 27 February (not the following day as given in Fixtures). Tickets £5 from Jean Bull-Marshall at Martin Channon's in the Market.
• The recent bad weather meant that Natural History Society speakers had to be switched round. Mr. and Mrs. Burt gave their talk on the Dolomites on 23 January; Brian Soper is the speaker on Friday of this week, and Mary Briggs will be speaking about the Seychelles on 27 February. Will members please alter their diaries?
• The Hospice Shop in Wish Street regains its normal appearance on Wednesday, 25 February, after a month of selling children's clothes and toys. Once again there will be clothing for all ages and both sexes, plus books and bric-a-brac - and they will be glad to receive goods for sale here or in the Hastings shop. After Easter they hope to open six days a week from ]. to 4, and will need more helpers - offers gratefully received; leave a message at the shop (preferably with a phone number) or ring Joy Mockett .
• Last week's obituary notice for Miss Knight was inaccurate historically. Leslie Stutely points out that Sir Hugh and Lady Bray lived, not at Saltcote as we said last week, but at Rovindene in Leasam Lane. Saltcote Place, now a rest home, was the residence of the Hennessy family; the Warrenders lived at Leasam House, now the boarding house for Thomas Peacocke School.
• Finally, an old Ryer has answered our query about goal-running. This was originally a Marsh game, needing two teams and very little equipment; is it still played now? Team A's runner has to touch Post A, diagonally across the pitch, without being intercepted by someone from Team B; Team B's runner has to touch Post B, ditto. Both teams run continuously in a circle, one in each corner; the art is for your best runner to make his break while the opposition has a weaker player on the outside of its circle.
THE RYE GAZETTE is registered as a newspaper with the Post Office, published by Mrs. Mary Owen, 2 Cyprus Place, Rye, East Sussex, TN31 7DR (0797 222303) and printed by Cinque Ports Stationers of Rye. Deadline, Monday afternoon for Wednesday's delivery; the paper costs subscribers 30p weekly, and spare copies are sometimes available from Cyprus Place (only). (Copyright Mary Owen 1987)