To the great relief of the station staff, who have been in the firing line for complaints since the new timetable started a month ago (GAZETTE no. 218), BR has had another look at the trains on our line, and changes are being made, on the Monday-to-Friday service only, from 6 July. A big notice in the station gives the details; we have neither space to reproduce them in full, nor time to work out the connections, but it is good news.
The middle-day trains (10.28 to 15.28 towards Ashford, 10.28 to 16.28 towards Hastings) remain the same. Some of the others alter by just a matter of minutes, so check before you plan your journey. But the major alteration going to Hastings is the restoration of the train for college students and others needing to be there by 9am; instead of the lost 8.03, a new 7.55 will do the same job. There will be two earlier trains to Hastings, instead of one as at present; leaving Rye at 6.52 and 7.14, they are trains that at present turn round here but will instead run right through. At the other end of the day, the present 17.30 to Hastings will run at 17.08 as it used to.
Going to Ashford there is a very welcome improvement for day-return travellers. The May timetable had replaced the old 8.45 with an 8.20, getting up to London correspondingly earlier but still a near-two-hour journey with a long wait at Ashford. From 6 July the 8.20 will become the 8.36, with just comfortable time at Ashford and still getting its passengers to London by 10.14 - cheers! Earlier in the morning, the 7.20 will vanish (it was a new one which turns round here), leaving the 5.46, 6.23,6.54 and 7.59 intact. Another May introduction, the 18.45 to Ashford, also disappears; the 16.28 reverts to being the 16.08, and the 17.33 reverts to being the 17.48.The TPS pupils get a compromise; their needs are catered for in the morning by the train from Hastings which will now arrive at 8.35, but they still cannot depart until the 16.28, almost an hour after school ends. On this basis, will ESCC put the Three Oaks contingent back on the train or not? At least it will be some help to pupils who come independently from Hastings by choice.
It is really good to see that British Rail is willing to take swift notice of what customers want, if they start complaining early on and loud enough. Many thanks, Waterloo:
Jonathan Jempson, who lives in Winchelsea and runs a large haulage company based in South Undercliff with additional premises in Winchelsea Road, is disappointed in the GAZETTE: we are showing signs, he says, of a partisan attitude...
"Rye is already bisected by the A259; these new proposals involve nothing more sinister than moving this bisection from one part of the town to another thereby improving the traffic flow into and through the town. Rye is in the fortunate position of being offered some C7m for road improvements and Winchelsea is similarly placed. If you and your objectors succeed in further delaying the DoT, then even less of us will live to reap these benefits... I would ask the people of Rye for a positive response in the light of such an opportunity by accepting the proposed route subject to further discussion and negotiation over the details."
Readers will have their own opinions about this, but we really must query Mr. Jempson's statement that the A259 already bisects Rye. Of the town's 3,492 voters, just 356 need to cross the existing A259 to reach the shops, station, doctors, etc.; over 2,000 would need to cross a railway route for the same purpose. A road which separates off four-sevenths of the adult population of a town is a bisection; a road which separates off one-tenth is not.
2.
Rye results from the May planning meeting at Bexhill: permission was refused for four houses in Tram Road, Rye Harbour; also refused for an internally illuminated sign at the Crown Inn; also refused for two houses near the tennis club in Military Road. Permission was given for an extension to the garage at 21 Mill Road and, subject to various conditions, for change of use to a dwelling for the Leasam Farm oast. A decision on the fascia lettering at Woolworths (already installed, but without planning permission) has been deferred for negotiations; and the proposed change of use for the Windmill Guest House to a registered home for eight elderly people was referred to full Council with a recommendation for refusal.
Four Rye applications had already been given permission under the Delegated Procedure: change of colour from black to white for windows and door of 19 East Street; extension and garage at Leswinton, West Undercliff; erection of conservatory, new window and gates at The Old Bakery in Mint Court; and a new hide for the Nature Reserve, with wheelchair access, two information boards and screen shrub planting.
Current Rye applications include one long awaited, for redevelopment of the old telephone exchange in Eagle Road. The plan shows a two-stoic building with a semi-mansard roof incorporating the upper floor, its flat top covered with biz felt and the walls with brick and black slates; total height 5.8m. It would consist of eight 2-bedroomed flats, and the plans show parking for eight cars. The application comes from Ascent Builders of Cranbrook, who were concerned in the conversion of the Saltcote Place stable block. Another application which sounds interesting is change of use for the Landgate Pictures shop below the Arch, to become a medical osteopathic practice; the applicant is a registered osteopath, Nigel Bassett of Hastings. There is a request for continued use of a building near Duncan Grant's in Fishmarket Road as a shipwright's workshop; and the owner of 20 Church Square seeks permission for a utility room in the rear roof space, with a new dormer window.
We note with regret that the hole in the wall of The Apothecary's Shop has grown larger as more of the mathematical tiles fall off (GAZETTE no. 227); Mr. Davies in the flat above is rescuing them and putting them safely away to await the arrival of Mr. Kimber's promised builders.
Finally, a welcome to the new second-in-command at Rother's planning department, Mr. Frank Railings, who comes to Bexhill from the Council planning office at St. Edmundsbury in Suffolk. He started work at the beginning of the month, replacing Mr. Victor Ammoun, who (as we reported some time ago) is moving to new job as a Planning Inspector for the DoE - working anywhere in the country except just round here. Mr. Ammoun joined the staff of Bexhill Borough (subseuently Rother) Council some 15 years ago; he has been extremely good to the GAZETTE over the past five years, and we shall miss his help, but wish him every success in his new job.
A Sussex Express headline last week may have raised false hopes; we don't want to be a wet-blanket, but... The Rural Development Area staff are considering the programme of works for 1988/9, to be submitted to the Development Commission at the end of October. A possible item for inclusion in this programme would be a feasibility study into the provision of a swimming pool for the Rye area. If the Development Commission was prepared to finance such a study, either on its own or with assistance from other sources, consultants would be appointed to look into the matter and would then report back to their sponsors (compare the recent Marina feasibility study, which has now reached this stage). If the consultants were able to show that a pool was not only needed but would be financially worth-while within reason, and if a suitable site could be identified, then Rother, RSCC, the Development Commission and presumably the Sports Council would be asked to consider funding the project. If, between them, they were willing to put up the money, then Rye could get a pool. But with four ifs to be overcome, it is no good getting excited just yet.
3 - THE RYE GAZETTE, 10 June 1987
Friday night was dreadful, blowing a gale and raining hard. Saturday dawned cold, windy and overcast; our heart bled for the two brides at St. Mary's that afternoon. But we needn't have worried: the sun came out to order, the wind lifted veils and swirled skirts prettily, a party of German tourists were enchanted to find an English wedding, and all was well. Inside the church, the Whitsun flowers were an additional pleasure.
The first wedding was that of Judith Sargent, of New Winchelsea Road, and Peter Skorupski of Bristol. Peter is a scientist, with a Cambridge doctorate, and it was at Cambridge where they met, but they will be living in Bristol where both have jobs. Judith wore a white satin dress, and an unusual heart-shaped flower headdress held her veil in place; her bridesmaids - her sister Jayne and two small cousins from Bristol - were in vivid peacock-blue, with ribboned circlets of pink and white flowers in their hair and posies to match. The recep- tion was held at the George Hotel, and the honeymoon is being spent in Cornwall.
The second bride was Denisa Trundle, of Hilden on Rye Hill, who was marrying Duncan Lee. Her three bridesmaids wore pink watered silk and carried baskets of flowers; Denisa's dress was an embroidered silk crinoline. The reception was at Hilden.
One or two people, newcomers to the Sports Centre, have met a certain amount of misunderstanding over what does or does not constitute suitable clothing. Everyone will, of course, appreciate that plimsolls or similar shoes are essential_ to protect the floor surface - but above the ankles...? There are, Colin Hudson tells us, no specific regulations about what should be worn, but experience has taught those who go regularly that for most forms of exercise either shorts or track-suit pants are best. However, Mr. Hudson (Rother's Parks & Recreation Manager) assures us that no-one will be turned away unless what they are wearing is likely to be a danger to themselves (or, we wonder, a provocation to other people?). Using the squash court or the fitness-room in jeans is not in fact the most enjoyable way, as people soon find out. So, if you are a first-timer, borrow a track-suit or shorts if you can - but there is no need to lay out money on special clothing until you know if you want to attend regularly. Fair enough? (The supervised sessions in the fitness room are on Tuesdays.)
The new loos at the station are now open (as from last Tuesday), and are a fantastic contrast to the old ones: 6 cubicles and two washbasins in the Ladies (we hadn't the nerve to inspect the Gents) and a large unisex room suitably fitted for a wheelchair user. Rother put .£17,000 towards the work, so Rye is grateful to the Council as well as to the supermarket developers.
The Station Approach bus layby went into use on Thursday, and each bus-stop now has its marker post (with Folkestone spelt correctly this time!). But the time- table display boards still only contain H & D timetables, in islands of tiny print surrounded by a sea of empty space. So please tell your friends that there are two other companies which also operate from Rye - Autopoint and Fuggles.
(at Rye Police Station)
Condolences to Mrs. Barbara Jones of King's Avenue (and Simon the Pieman) who was involved in an accident with a Post Office van when riding her moped at the Military Road/A268 junction on 1 June. She was taken to RESH with a suspected broken leg, but fortunately this turned out to be over-pessimistic. There were a number of road accidents at the weekend in the Rye area; injuries caused were, we are glad to say, only minor - but do take care! Three of the side windows in the Post Office were broken some time between 8pm and 4.30am on 1/2 June. And finally we regret to report that an elderly man walking his dog on the SWA road at Winchelsea Beach one mid-morning recently was robbed of £11 in cash plus various cards by a young thug with a racing bike, who stopped him to ask the time and then grabbed the purse from his pocket.
4.
Ken Warren, who had been saying that "my first reaction is not favourable but I await the opinion of others" has now clearly been hearing that opinion, and on Friday evening he described the proposed route as "the worst among a rather poor bunch". David Amies is quoted in the local Liberal newsletter as saying that "the DoT's steamroller tactics have destroyed the town's democratic right to have the whole issue debated at local level". Ms. Hurcombe's meeting, at which she will doubtless have given her view, was on Tuesday, too late for this issue. (There are also two joke candidates - Monster Raving Loony and National People's Rally - whose impact on Rye has not so far been observable at all; the poll will be declared at Hastings Town Hall at about 1.30 am on Friday, unless of course a recount delays the announcement.)
County Councillor Joan Yates, who told the Sussex Express when the route was first announced that it appeared to be the most straightforward one but would need subways, was questioned about this at the Town Council Annual Meeting. She said she had not realised how strong the town's opposition would be, and she would of course take to Lewes the wishes of her constituents - taking into account the opinions of the villages which form part of her constituency. These are Northiam, Beckley, Peasmarsh, Playden, Iden, Rye Foreign, East Guide-ford and Camber - all except the last two vitally affected by any route which would be likely to obstruct the flow of traffic at the foot of Rye Hill and cause congestion on the A268.
Rother Councillors George Shackleton and Roger Breeds supported a northerly route at the Town Hall, and Frank Dowdeswell, our third Rother representative, is certainly not lagging behind them in his opposition to the proposed route.
At the protest meeting, the Chamber of Trade made its position very clear obviously to the relief of the audience, who burst into spontaneous applause as the statement was read out. It has allayed suspicions in the town that the gift-shop element in the Chamber - a perfectly legitimate element, of course - was pushing like mad for a through route in order to bring yet more coaches here. This is not so. The members of the Chamber's executive committee also represent shops and other services which are concerned almost entirely with customers who live here; most members live in or very near Rye, their children are at school in the town, their employees come from the town, and many traders are involved in local community work and fund-raising. The committee studied the road proposal not solely on a trading basis but for the benefit of Rye as a whole - and on 27 May twelve of the members voted against the route and the thirteenth abstained. The statement says "This Rye Chamber of Trade executive committee does not approve of the proposal for the A259 trunk road Rye improvement; this proposal would destroy the fabric and character of the town as it stands at this time, and the volume of traffic over a period of 12 months does not warrant the disturbance involved."
The Area Manager of British Rail would have come to the protest meeting if he hadn't been on holiday - in Turkey, which rather settled it! Obviously he would have been guarded in what he could say, but he told us for publication that "the present station is in an ideal location to service the needs of Rye. It is the major station on the route and certainly generates a very high proportion of the income. Anything which makes the station more remote will obviously affect this. I am concerned that the access would be via a subway or a footbridge, because I believe in this present day people are extremely averse to using subways, particularly late at night, and a bridge would make it difficult for the elderly, young people with prams or bicycles, and people shopping. This is particularly the case as there is a supermarket being developed in close proximity to the present station and I was looking forward to increased revenue being generated because of this. It would, however, be extremely difficult for people to proceed from this new shopping centre on to trains if they had to travel further than they do at the present. If there is an alternative to the moving of the railway I think this should be given urgent consideration." (Mr. Holt's point about subways was echoed by many of those who have written to us.) (continued…)
5.
(continued)
When, just before the protest meeting, we rang Hardens director John Walker to ask his views and those of prospective supermarket tenants Budgens, he had no idea at all what we were talking about; no information, no brochure, had been sent to the company, and they had not even known about the public consultation. He certainly didn't sound very pleased when we explained what was proposed! We look forward to hearing his views for next week's issue.
Canon Maundrell is aware that, with the town structured as it is (expensive houses in the Citadel area and a very large council estate on the outskirts), there is already a certain "them-and-us" feeling; a route which divides off the Estate (as well as large number of other houses) from the town cannot, he told us, be desirable on social grounds, quite apart from the various physical objections. Stephen Ingham feels much the same about his Playden parishioners being split off from Rye.
The Headmaster of Thomas Peacocke could hardly believe the proposals when he first saw them. He is concerned, he has told Lewes, about the noise level, particularly at Lower School where railway and road would run within a few yards of the classrooms. (Other local people mention air pollution - and there was an alarming article in The Independent recently about the effect of lead poisoning from petrol fumes on the mental development of children.) Mr. Fooks also wonders how a footbridge which would allow the pupils access to the station could also not allow the general public access to the school grounds, with resulting security problems. He is very concerned about the proposals to close The Grove and take all school traffic out onto Rye Hill, especially the flood which signals the end of afternoon school and includes a number of coaches. Finally he questions the sense of creating a new level-crossing at the foot of Rye Hill rather than putting a bridge there (he lives on the hill and is all too aware of its existing traffic problems).
Michael Bourn, officer in charge of Rye Fire Brigade, is particularly worried about the school. When the new fire station is built (on the Drill Hall site) the fire-engine will have to cross the railway twice to reach the school via The Grove, but they regard this as acceptable. If the new route goes through, the driver will have to turn into what could be a queue at the Ferry Road T-junction, onto the trunk road, off it again at the bottom of Rye Hill (contending with an integral level-crossing at both points and traffic lights at the second), and then up the hill and back down Deadman's Lane - or on up the hill to the hospital or Leasam House or Saltcote Place... Because Broad Oak has its own part-time firemen, the vast majority of Rye's calls are from the town itself or the villages round from Northiam to Camber (the A268 again).
And the Cattle Market Company? Colin Stutely points out that they have just gone to considerable trouble, during the supermarket planning negotiations, to secure an access to the Market which would provide off-street stacking space on a Wednesday for the sheep lorries (all arriving at much the same time); and the company has actually bought the entrance alongside the pub garden to make sure of this. The plans show this access converted into a public road, wrecking the carefully-devised system. And the new roundabout would take yet more of the Market land, so that regular parkers there would have to move into spaces not available to visitors and shoppers and Thursday market traders.
A few days ago, the DoT at Dorking told the Town Clerk that so far they had only had 161 letters about the route, and a sizeable proportion of them were in favour of it. For Heaven's sake, there should have been about 2,000 by now, from Rye and the villages: Please don't omit to write, it is vitally important; we will give the address again next week, along with a summary of the individual objections which have reached us. The Town Council's public meeting at Upper School has changed its date - now
Tomorrow week, THURSDAY, 18 JUNE, at 7.0 pm.
You can safely wait to write until after that, but not long after closing date for receipt of letters, says the DoT, is Friday, 3 July.
6.
• Councillor Joan Camier was not at the Town Hall for the Mayoring on Bank Holiday Monday because she was representing Rye at a rather larger ceremony across the Channel. She has been invited, months ago, to join the Hastings branch of the Dunkirk Veterans Association as a special guest at the 1987 Pilgrimage. We have no room for the full account that her British Legion members will undoubtedly look forward to, but her weekend was certainly a memorable, exhausting and at times very moving one. The Hastings group stayed in La Panne in Belgium, where the whole town provides back-up for this annual event - the evacuation was not only from the beaches of Dunkirk. The evenings were taken up with social entertainments which included a firework display of a more peaceful kind than the town had witnessed in 1940. But on both the Sunday and Monday there was a continuous round of wreath-laying ceremonies, memorial services and visits to British war-graves cemeteries, sometimes in tiny villages where the gravesvwere tended most lovingly by local people. Mrs. Camier was able to lay a spray on the WW1 grave of Mrs. Batcheler's grandfather, and on the grave where Mrs. Winnie Brett's brother lies. On the Tuesday they visited Ypres, and noticed that the wreath laid by Michael Alford last year was still at the foot of the British war memorial in the Cathedral. "And I came home with a tummy bug and an Australian!" added Joan; the two were not connected - a number of the group were laid low with food poisoning, but the Australian was simply on his way ' visit relatives in Hastings.
• Louis Turpin has also been out of Rye, to the TV-am studios in London where he unveiled his portrait of Miss Pears 1986 in the course of the early-Saturday-morning children's programme recently. As it was children's tv, his small sitter (Hannah Phillips from Loughborough) was of course the star - rather a silent star, still not five years old, though fortunately she expressed her approval of the portrait when she saw it finished for the first time. ("What will you do if she doesn't like it?" the presenter had asked Louis - "Get out of here quick!" he replied.) It shows Hannah seated in a very Louis Turpin garden; Pears add the big picture to their collection, but Hannah gets a head-and-shoulders portrait to keep. (Incidentally, many thanks to whoever was responsible for Hannah's mother getting a copy of GAZETTE no. 205 containing the original story - Louis was very surprised when she told him!) He is now preparing for a London show in September; his Henley exhibition at the end of March was practically a sell-out.
• Another local man was on television last week - Barry Yates on BBC1's "Conservation '87", talking about the Nature Reserve both on-site and in the studio. The Reserve was the winner in the Threatened Habitat category (GAZETTE no. 2' ), and Barry explained how use of electric fencing against foxes, and the volunteer ternwatch scheme against two-legged predators, had allowed the little terns to build up their numbers again from just two pairs ten years ago. The film was made last summer.
• Dr. E.K. Goldie-Smith of Military Road - known to GAZETTE readers as the Hill House donkey-lady - has had two Tapers published recently in scientific journals. One, with her own illustrations, describes three local species of water-lice (in ISOPODA, a new journal devoted to wood- and water-lice). The other, in "The Hastings and East Sussex Naturalist", is the list of 192 species of aquatic invertebrates which she has identified in the Rye and Hastings area since 1982. This includes, she tells us, snails and bivalves, leeches, flatworms, bugs, beetles, mayflies, non-biting midges and the single species of aquatic spider.
• Mrs. Barbara Broadhurst of Church Square would like those who helped collect clothing, or who provided one of the five sewing-machines, for orphanages in Ethiopia to know that everything eventually arrived safely and duty-free though some turned up only just before the Broadhursts were due to come home again. The baby-clothes went, not to an orphanage where the refugee children are now mostly beyond that age, but to a baby hospital - which arranges adoptions for the abandoned babies, two of whom were due to come to new parents in England this spring.
7.
• Busy fingers worked for five hours on end at the St. John HQ last week to finish the Nursing Division's contribution to a huge (60-panel) collage destined for an event in Hyde Park later this summer. We were allowed to admire it before it was taken up to London last weekend. It shows a rural scene, much too rural to be Rye but with a church and thatched cottages along a lane, leading into the distance from a river bank with salt-pans and two ingenious clinker-built dinghies (matchsticks!). The designers made particularly clever use of different fabrics to bring out the pattern of the landscape; even the hedges, snippets of bathroom sponge, achieved different shades of colour. Shields bearing a scarlet cross and a golden lion separated Rye's panel from its future neighbour. It does seem sad that, having made something so charming, the girls have to part with it!
• The star attraction at Vidlers' auction sale last week was a large and rather dilapidated corner cupboard - which fetched £1,700; Leslie Stutely tells us it may well have been Queen Anne period. Five early Victorian dining chairs went for £320, the third time recently that a set of five has sold well; do the buyers spend the rest of their lives looking for the sixth, we wonder, or do they alternate two sets round a table seating ten? Long-case clocks always sell well; this month's offering fetched £380. A number of lots went for well over £100, among them a croquet set (£155); an Adam-design antique mahogany side table cost someone £400.
• A few seats are available to non-members on the Museum Association's outing on Saturday, 20 June; this is now to Hever Castle and gardens instead of to Chartwell (which was having a free day and would be impossibly crowded). Hever is not National Trust; the total cost including coach and admission will be £7.55 (cheques payable to Rye Museum Association). Visitors will be given their own admission tickets and can go round in their own time; there is a restaurant and cafeteria for those who don't want to risk a picnic. Leave Rope Walk at 10am, Hever at 4pm, back in Rye by 5.30 to 6.0. Ring Rosemary Bagley or book with Margaret Houslander at The Mint.
• Leasam House boarders are currently seeking sponsors for their assistant housemaster, John Crouch, who will be starting a 60-mile walk at Tower Bridge in London on 17 July. He intends to get back to Leasam some time on the 18th - and will doubtless expect to find the immersion heater on and a kettle boiling, or someone will be in troubles Some of the Leasam pupils will be accompanying Mr. Crouch over part of the route, since the sponsor money will gotowards out-of-school activities for the fifty or so Thomas Peacocke pupils who board there. Offers of sponsorship for Mr. Crouch's long walk can be made to the Leasam office number, or in writing to Mr. Crouch himself or to housemaster Mr. Dick Wright, who has promised to let us know how his energetic assistant (whose family comes from Battle) gets on.
• The Rev. Stephen Ingham and his parishioners at Playden are particularly grateful to those who contributed to the success of the recent Festival held in the Church - it raised over £1,000 - because they are having some rather expensive trouble with the local wildlife: not woodworm, not even death-watch beetles, but woodpeckers! One or more of these birds has succeeded in doing an immense amount of damage to the wooden shingles which clad the tower - and even when the repairs are complete, there seems to be no certainty that the woodpecker won't come back next year (does any reader have a solution to this problem?). Also, Mr. Ingham has found that the spire has no lightning conductor. So they will be needing £2,500 to deal jointly with birds and bolts from the blue. All offers gratefully received (St. Michael's Vicarage, Fair Meadow, Rye Hill).
• A local lady was somewhat startled recently when, a yard ahead of her as she walked in the town, a flower-basket hung high above her head suddenly hit the pavement at her feet. A brand-new chain suggests that the householder concerned is not likely to let it happen again; but she mentioned it to us so that others who hang these pretty decorations from their houses may be aware of the risk. "Didn't you complain?" we asked. "I didn't like to" she replied - "After all, it didn't actually hit me!"
Parliamentary Election, polls open 7am to 10pm
Concert by Swedish orchestra, St. Mary's, 1 (see below)
Benefit Concert for "Living with Cancer", Oasis, 8 to 1(C2 tickets from Black Sheep or Rye Wholefoods, GAZETTE no.226)
CSRF coffee morning (Jack Hemmings on India), FEC, 11
MSS coffee morning (with stalls), 149 Pottingfield Road, 10 Book Fair (antiquarian and second-hand books), George, 9 to 5 NSPCC Summer Fair, FEC, 10.30 to 3.30
Hailsham & Vines Cross Modern Brass, Mermaid, 3 Green for Love, Ypres, 8
Town Council planning committee
Thrift Shop (handing-in only), Red Cross, 10 to 12
Landgate WI: "Royal Memorabilia", CC, 10.30
Community Lunch Group, Clinic, 1
Crime Prevention Panel (postponed from 3 June), Police Stn.,7.30
• We venture to offer our congratulations to Mrs. Agnes Greenhalgh of Devonport House a little ahead of her actual birthday - because on 19 June she will be 80, and we are sure many of her friends will want to mark the day. If all 80-year-olds were able to be as spry and cheerful as Mrs. Greenhalgh - who walks round the town every day, even in last winter's deep snow - the NHS would be a lot happier!
• Sorry about the short notice, but we hope music-lovers will be able to get to St. Mary's tomorrow (Thursday) at lunch-time for the concert by a professional orchestra from Malmo in Sweden (conducted by Martin Martinsson, professor of music at Lund University). The music will be a mix of Swedish and English, and there will be programmes at the door; admission is free, with a collection.
• The coffee morning on 30 May for Riding for the Disabled raised £140.
• Congratulations to Foremans, at the end of Cyprus Place, on the delightful pair of shop signs which have appeared on their otherwise unremarkable building. The manager tells us that these "Foremans Emporium" boards, reminiscent of traditional barge painting, were the winning design in a recent competition held by the firm, and are being used for all the branches.
• Apologies to Pat Brady of West Street, who was not among the helpers at the protest meeting - obviously a failure in communications between the front ad back of the hall, we are so sorry.
• Rye & Rother Valley Round Table are looking for floats and other displays, as well as fancy-dress groups, for the Carnival Procession on 1 August. There is no set theme this year. The two classes. (commercial and non-commercial) each has a Cup and three prizes (L50, £15 and £5) - and there is a special Cup for a float entered by a youth organisation. Details and an entry form from Paul Davies. There is more than six weeks to go, of course, but a good float needs time and imagination spent on it and Round Table are keen to have some very good floats this year. (Would anyone like to set up one illustrating the town's views on the Department of Transport? We do not - yet - suggest hanging Peter Bottomley in effigy, but...)
• GAZETTE subscribers who pay quarterly will find in next week's issue details of the subscription for the period from 30 June to 23 September (11 weeks, since we print in alternate weeks only, in August).
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 is Monday afternoon for Wednesday's delivery; the paper costs subscribers 30p weekly, and a few spare copies are sometimes available from Cyprus Place. (Copyright Mary Owen 1987)