SUBSCRIPTIONS, PLEASE: if your copy is not ticked by your name, we need £3.30 in cash from you, delivered to Cyprus Place by Saturday at the latest (see last week, page 7, for full details). Late payers may find there is no copy for them next week, now we don't print spares.
That august body, the Royal Fine Arts Commission, looks like being a very useful ally in Rye's fight against the proposed A259 route. Long-term readers will know that two years ago the DoT was circulating to various interested groups a map of six possible routes - they were leaked to the paper and we described them in January 1985 (GAZETTE no. 115). First the Landscape Advisory Committee and then the Royal Fine Arts Commission were asked to comment, and in October 1985 the Commission's Secretary and one of the members came down to Rye and met the project manager, John Oliver of the DoT. They then walked the two most likely routes, B and D: B ran immediately north of the railway, and D went through the South Undercliff allotments. (A, incidentally, ran round the back of the Estate, C went immediately south of the railway, and E and F corresponded very roughly with the current Routes 7 and 8.) The reaction was brief and prompt: the Commission expressed to the Department its view that "both routes were unsatisfactory and potentially too damaging to be acceptable". It was also anxious that no decision should be made on the Winchelsea route before a suitable route was found for Rye.
Nothing was said about this by the DoT at any time, as far as we know, and certainly not at the private presentation to Councillors immediately before the exhibition opened at the Community Centre. Challenged on this point at Thurs- day's meeting, the DoT spokesman seemed a little unsure of his facts; but he did confirm what we already knew, that the Commission would be looking at the proposed route at a special presentation by the DoT in London next month. This presentation, he added (perhaps a trifle reluctantly?) would include all the current routes.
Since the route north of the railway was rather less damaging to the town than the proposed one, Rye will look forward to hearing the Commission's view which goes first to the Department but is freely available to the public later.
A total of 2,200 people have now signed the Action Group's petition against the route. An analysis of the addresses, not yet complete, reveals that 1,800 of those who signed live in the Rye area, and it is expected that by the time all the sheets have been checked there will be 2,000 Rye signatures. (Support from visitors is of course welcome, but doesn't carry quite the same punch.)
Ken Clark asks us to point out that those who write to the Department, whether or not as a result of the Action Group's letter-drop, do need to write about the Rye and Winchelsea routes on separate pieces of paper, since the Department insists on dealing with the two routes separately; he suspects this was not made quite clear in the Group's literature, but it is very important.
Incidentally, we were quite wrong in saying last week that Tilling Green pupils all come from the immediate vicinity of the school; of the 73 infants on the school register this term, 20 cross the railway line to get there. Indeed, they have two pupils from Peasmarsh and one from East Guldeford - while some of the Estate infants cross the line going the other way, to Freda Gardham with their big brothers or sisters. Many of the town-side Tilling Green pupils arrive on foot, often accompanied both by Mum and by the baby in pram or push-chair, so the position is much the same as for the Playgroup. None of the current infants would still be at the school when work began on the road, but the waiting-list shows the same trend; so Tilling Green School must be added to the arguments against the railway route.
THE TOWN COUNCIL OPEN MEETING - for a report, see pages 4 and 5.
2.
Mr. Harry Boreham, of Badger Gate, died in St. Helen's Hospital on 17 June after a short illness. Mr. Boreham was 83; a shipwright by trade, he came from well-known Rye family - his father was lost at sea during WW1 when the fishin- - boat "Margaret" struck a mine in the Channel. The funeral takes place at Playden Church at 2.30 today (Wednesday), followed by burial in Rye Cemetery.
Mrs. Kathleen Milton ("Bill"), of Rope Walk, died in Rye Hospital on Friday after some months of illness. She was 70. Mrs. Milton, nee Sands, lived all her life in Rye, and at one time was employed at the Copper Kettle in The Mint. She is survived by her husband Arthur, two daughters, five grandchildren, and two great grandchildren; one daughter and her family live in Australia. The funeral will be held at Hastings Crematorium at 2.30 tomorrow (Thursday).
Mr. Eric Turner of Lea Avenue died suddenly in hospital in Hastings on Sunday. He was 46, and leaves his widow Christine (on the Council Offices staff), their two daughters and two grand-daughters. Mr. Turner, a plumber by trade, had been in poor health recently, but his death came as a great shock to his family - for whom there will be much sympathy from their many friends in the town. The funeral is tomorrow (Thursday) at 12.30 at Hastings Crematorium.
RAFA members will be very sorry to hear that the speaker at their Annual Dinner in January, which commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Branch's foundation, died on 15 June in the RAF Hospital at Alton. Air Marshal Sir Edouard Grundy, KBE, CB, lived in Winchelsea, and was formerly the president of the South East Area RAFA. His career in the RAF had started at Cranwell in 1926; his death is a sad loss to the Branch.
Mondays Trampolining: 7 to 8 pm, 6-13 years, 80p
8 to 9 pm, over-13s and adults, £1.20
Tuesdays Soccer coaching: 6 to 7 pm, under-13s, 80p
Wednesdays Aerobics: 7 to 8 pm, £1.30
Thursdays Squash coaching (advance booking only, please): 6 to 8 pm,£2.40
Fridays Badminton coaching: 6 to 7 pm, under-12s, 80p
Saturdays Badminton coaching/playing (adults and over-13s): 9 to 11 am, £1.80 adults, £1.30 juniors
Family nights - "our staff can organise your family in the main activities on offer including badminton, squash, trampolining, short tennis, table tennis, short mat bowls and many more" —7 to 10.30 pm, only £2.50 for the whole family!
Sundays Table tennis (open to all): 10 to 12 am, adults £1.50 per table per hour, juniors £1.00.
Roller disco: "bop to the latest hits on roller skates" (how can you resist this!): 3 to 5 pm, adults £1.30, juniors 80p.
Manager Stewart Lees warns that all activities are subject to change without notice - ring Rye 224676 if you want to be sure. Non-members are welcome - daily membership charges are only 25p for adults and 15p for juniors.
Congratulations to the first of this year's ex-TPS graduates, Paul Chillingworth of Lea Avenue. Paul has been at Kings College, Cambridge, for the past three years, and has now been awarded a Second in Maths. He intends to teach, and will be taking a training course at Cambridge starting in September (with a vacation job, also based in Cambridge, for the next three months). But all the students on the course spend the first two weeks working in a real school (in at the deep end?) and Paul will do this at Freda Gardham - where two of his small cousins are among the pupils!
- 3 - THE RYE GAZETTE, 24 June 1987
There were three weddings at St. Mary's on Saturday - and we missed the lot, alas.
Tracy Slack of Marley Road was the first bride; her husband is Stephen Tugwell, who comes from Bath. Tracy's sister Julie Kardamash, from Winchelsea Beach, and her friend Colleen Crouch from South Undercliff, were busy keeping an eye on two much smaller attendants, Leanne Tugwell from Bath and Jai Gudgion from Rye Harbour; Colleen's husband Kevan was Stephen's best man. Tracy's dress was a crinoline in white slipper-satin, trimmed with cerise rosebuds; the three bridesmaids wore cerise taffeta, and Jai was in a white sailor suit. The reception was held at the George Hotel. The couple will be living near Bath, where Stephen works and Tracy will be starting a new job - she said good-bye to her colleagues at Phipps & Co earlier in the week.
Shelley Remmer of Bankside and Andrew Jefferson of Iden were the second happy couple. Shelley wore a white dress with a train, and a veil decorated with rhinestones; her bridesmaids (her cousins Simone and Clare Andrews and Joanne Remmer) were in pink, and the bridegroom's nephews Lee and Mark Jefferson were pages, in grey and white. Best man was Andrew's brother Michael, from Lydd. The reception was at Thomas Peacocke Upper School, with catering by Mr. and Mrs. Peatfield from South Undercliff, and Shelley and Andrew are spending their honeymoon in Majorca. They will be living in Iden; Shelley has just qualified as a hair stylist at Simon Harris's salon in the High Street, and Andrew works for Ryte Designs in Harbour Road.
The third bride comes from Bexleyheath - Jackie Whale, who was married to Tony Pierce of Kings Avenue. Her dress had short sleeves and a full skirt, and was trimmed with bows and lace; her bridesmaids,friends from London, wore pale blue and pale lemon. Tony's best man was Michael Caister. The family were responsible for all the catering for the reception, which took place at the Community Centre. The honeymoon is being spent in Yugoslavia, and the couple will live in Camber, where Tony works on a farm; Jackie is on the staff of Quenchers.
Over £200 was raised by the two National Gardens Scheme openings in Rye on Sunday - when the weather held fine but people were glad of an outing not too far from home, just in case!
The photographs we mentioned last week record the well in the garden of 11 High Street. This was uncovered when Rae Festing decided to have the Georgian pump housing restored and, while the builders were there, get the pump working again. When the stone slabs were removed, a 34' well was revealed, with stone sides and water running at the bottom. This was pumped out and ladders put down, and Frank Palmer, Alan Dickinson, David Festing and the well expert from Hastings went merrily up and down them for a couple of days. Although the well may have been mediaeval, it was repaired in Victorian times, since a brick set into the wall some way down bore a carefully-cut inscription "IHR 1847". Unless this was the builder's initials, it must refer to an owner before Charles Pix Meryon and his wife Mary lived there, to be succeeded by the Misses Proctor.
But there is no well in the garden of 11 High Street now. Perhaps only the water had been holding the stonework in place, perhaps the ladders or the pumps loosened something - but whatever the cause, the stone walls collapsed with horrifying suddenness, leaving a space much wider than the well's original circumference. The assumption is that the earth behind had leached away over the years, and the wall was in effect free-standing. Mercifully this happened at night when no-one was around, and the only things known to be buried in the rubble are two expensive pumps and a ladder, left there to puzzle archaeologists in 2987! The hole has been topped up with brick rubble, which is still subsiding gently; when everything has settled, the Festings plan to have a shallow pool with just enough water to justify a small pump working inside the restored housing. (What could have happened if the stones had fallen during the day, when the intrepid archaeologists were in action, is best not thought about for too long…)
4.
"This is not a protest meeting" said the Mayor firmly, welcoming some 200 people in Upper School Hall on Thursday. It had been made quite clear that views would be welcome from both sides; but the five people in the audience who were certainly in favour of the proposed route kept their thoughts to themselves, and the 64 questions handed up from the floor all criticised the proposals in one way or another. Where, we wondered, were the South Undercliff people, who should have been there stating their case? Where was Jonathan Jempson, who wrote so forcefully to the GAZETTE a fortnight ago? Just who is in favour of this bisection? Anyone...?
The Town Council organisation was splendid. Instead of questions being asked inaudibly from the floor, they were written on the slips provided and taken by steward-Councillors to the front of the hall, where the Town Clerk took a quick photocopy before passing the original up to the platform; each question was read out clearly over the mike by Geraldine Bromley. She took them strictly in order except when there were obvious duplicates or she couldn't read someone's writing (there were only two of those). At the end, the Department had a com- plete set to take home to Dorking, the Council had another for their own use.
On the platform, L to R, were Ken Warren, the Mayor, George Shackleton, Ed Wiseman, two officers from ESCC and two from the DoT. Rother's Chairman and Planning Officer were in the audience. Councillor Wiseman took the audience through a helpful document he had prepared to explain the basis on which the Department calculates the value of any particular route (the Town Clerk tells us she has some spare copies of this). Councillor Shackleton gave the background to the proposed route, which the Council had suspected ever since the original Winchelsea proposals were made public in 1983. He explained the reasons in favour of a northern rather than a southern route: whereas the southern route would only take A259 through-traffic (stated by the DoT as 14% of the total coming into the town at present) and would need a very expensive bridge or an even more expensive tunnel, a northern route would mop up through-traffic approaching the town by the A268 or the Battle road as well as the A259's 14%.
Then it was question-time. There was a huge range; many of the points raised we have already mentioned in our last two centrefolds, but there were some we hadn't thought of at all - like why aren't we spending as much on Chunnel approach roads as the French are? Do houses affected get rate reductions? How could a through route be widened later as traffic increases? How could those whose small houses are demolished possibly find vacant houses in Rye at the same market value as their present ones? (The DoT didn't appear to understand the point of this question, put very clearly by the Mayor; doubtless there are endless estate houses all round Dorking all much alike - but not here...) Someone said that if two-thirds of the traffic wants to come to Rye as the DoT says, the money would be better spent on improving the roads we have (and currently in circulation is an ingenious proposal for one-way traffic in the town). Why are all the other towns and even villages along the Folkestone-Honiton trunk road getting proper bypasses - and Arundel is now being offered a second one? What about developments across the Kent border: the likely development of Lydd Airport, and the planned route from Ashford which will take traffic into Rye instead of via Tenterden as at present? There was a lot of worrying about increased traffic, and particularly increased lorry weights; asked whether the traffic flow figures took any account of the difference between a family saloon and a juggernaut, the DoT man said it didn't (but then murmured something we didn't catch which may have qualified this).
This seems a suitable place to record a traffic count which Ken Hickman and his wife took from their Ferry Road front room a few weeks ago. In the course of one long day, and excluding the lorries serving the Magdala House building site opposite, they counted just over 70 lorries or equivalent vehicles going each way past the house. Two days later they counted again, this time just the really big multi-axle stuff - about 35 each way. Does the Department honestly think that all this, or even two-thirds of it, really wants to come into Rye because it has business in the town?
(continued...)
5.
We need hardly tell readers that there was nothing new in the DoT answers except that the Department would definitely be paying for moving the railway, etc., and that the cost is included in the £6.9m figure for the proposed route. Otherwise the stonewalling tactics were much the same as Rye people were complaining of during and after last month's public consultation; no-one actually said "I hear what you say" this time, but the same feeling was there.
The County Planning Officer told the meeting that he was recommending, to a special meeting on Thursday of the Highways and Environment Committees, that they approve the route. Robert Bromley, who was present, is chairman of Environment, but tells us that he hopes to see the chairman of Highways take the meeting so that he himself can speak unfettered. Mrs. Yates, alas, was not present, so we can only hope that she is aware of the views of her constituents; we hope, too, that she will manage to get over to Lewes on Thursday and put those views before the meeting, as she said at the Annual Town Meeting she would do - she is a member of the Highways Committee.
(Rother's Planning Officer has regrettably recommended to his committee, which also meets on Thursday, that they approve the route. But Roger Breeds is on that committee, and George Shackleton hopes to get over in time to add his voice by invitation, so their fellow-Councillors will be aware of the town's view.)
After the questions at Upper School, it was Ken Warren's turn. He was first-rate, saying all the things the audience were hoping to hear. He repeated his view that Rye should get a bypass, that Rye and Winchelsea should be treated as one - and said there was a worrying difference between what the Minister had told him and what the DoT men were saying. He was uneasy about the way the Department and ESCC were "chumming along together" (so was his audience, and at that point none of us knew about Rother). Officials, he said, are appointed by the elected representatives of the people to serve those people - and we got the impression he didn't at all care for the sort of service Rye was getting in this case. "Our task is to respond to what the public wants, and I will do my best to that end" he concluded.
Not all those at the meeting handed in the slips provided, but 188 were in the buckets at the end. Of those, 183 voted against the route. 113 wanted a northerly route, 62 a southerly one, five were happy with the proposed route and eight couldn't make up their minds.
Museum Association members on the Hever Castle outing on Saturday saw - in open country outside Pembury where there was plenty of empty space to play with - just what road-works could mean. The thought of even half that lot at the bottom of Rye Hill was the stuff of nightmare!
After the Marina Feasibility Study back in March, the County Council received "a considerable response" to the various proposals - of which, readers will recall, the most objectionable was the plan to site 124 dwellings on the land across from the Salts. Graham Barnett of ESCC's Information Office tells us that all the letters are being looked at very carefully before a report is prepared; this will go before the next round of meetings (ie. the appropriate committee followed by the full Council).
In the current planning list, Robert Hollands of New Winchelsea Road is asking to build a factory unit for boat construction in Harbour Road, opposite Long Products. The plans show a building 21' high, with a grey asbestos roof and walls of grey and green blockwork and metal sheet; a planted-up earth mound beside the road with car parking along its inner side; and further planting along the Harbour side and the back. A minimally amended plan for the old phone exchange makes it clear that this is a conversion and extension of th existing building. Lochin Marine hope to build a new slipway into Rock Channel. The owners of La Rochelle wantt o repaint it, in effect the same colour as at present. And the owner of 5 Wish Street wants to rebuild the rear extension to provide a shower room.
6.
This month sees a delightful addition to the town's archive. Mrs. Margaret Palmer, who with her husband Frank lives in Military Road, is the mother of Rye's Deputy Mayor, also Frank, of The Strand. Frank junior (if we may take such a liberty) is a keen member of the Local History Group, and he recently persuaded his mother to set down her memories of Rye and Winchelsea during the eight years which ended in 1918. The Muggridge family - Margaret's parents, her elder sister and two brothers - came to Rye from Herstmonceux in 1910 when her father was posted to the Rye Constabulary; they lived in the police station in Church Square. This then consisted of two houses, an office, three cells and a walled cell yard: "We had a lovely garden which looked over the river and we could see the shipyard and boats being made as well as barges loaded with coal". (Everyone who went to see Robert Banks's garden on Sunday will know just what Mrs. Palmer means.) The other half of the police station was occupied by Sgt. Sinclair, his wife and about ten children - so there were four adults and a dozen or more children living there altogether, to say nothing of the occupants of the cells.
Encouraged by her son, Mrs. Palmer has recalled all sorts of details which were part of a child's life in Rye before WW1. The Wesleyan Church, for instance, with its Sunday School ("the building was crowded with kids") at 10, followed by a service in the Chapel across the Gun Garden at 11, another at 3 and again with her mother in the evening ("Might not be fights at football matches if kids were made to do the same" comments Mrs. Palmer ) - the Band of Hope, run by Mr. Moon - the Lion Street school, and the terrifying Miss Fanny Gamble - the splendid Christmas cake which annually adorned Longs' window - Miss Shearman's toy shop, and the doll in Truelove's window on which baby-clothes were displayed ("I think I must have gone daily to view that!") - a visit to Ewhurst to her grandparents, by carrier's cart to Northiam and walking the rest of the way hop-picking at Peasmarsh - the big treat of a train trip to Hastings for the children, each with one penny to spend - Mayoring Day, when fishermen waited with the children for the pennies thrown from the balcony of the George picnics at Camber Castle - and the men from the workhouse "with hats like Mr. Quaker Oats" who were allowed out on Saturdays. Police pay was nothing sensational, and the children were dressed mainly from jumble sales - but even so, the International sent someone round for the grocery order and delivered it:
In 1914, when Margaret was ten, the Muggridges moved to Winchelsea - "a very nice little detached house in Mill Road, even the toilet was inside:" Things were very different from the metropolis that was Rye - the school, for instance was tiny, and the very grand Mrs. Freeman from Greyfriars (then of course a private house) used to sit at the back of the class and watch. Many of the parents were employed at the big houses round about, other children walked in from outlying farms. Margaret used to earn an occasional and very welcome sixpence by delivering telegrams for the Post Office, next door to her home; on one occasion she had to go looking for an aeroplane which had come down in a field out near Pett, and one dark night she was sent out to Float Farm at Udimore, her cycle oil-lamp continually going out as she bumped over the cart ruts (she was then no more than 13). At 14, she left school; it was the end of WW1, the family left for a new posting at Willingdon, and the story ends.
This fascinating little book is illustrated with five photographs, including a particularly charming one of the Lion Street Infants in rustic fancy-dress gathered round a ribboned maypole for the 1911 Coronation celebrations. The list of names below includes Curtis, Foster, Clark, Martin, Chandler, Sinclair, Edwards, Wood, Fourd, Pankhurst, Igglesden, Jarrett and Clout - as well as a rather solemn little Margaret Muggridge; she still remembers how it rained on Coronation Day, so that the colour from the poppies on their rush hats ran down and stained the white frocks...
"Childhood Memories of Rye & Winchelsea, 1910-1918", £1.50 from D & P Street in Market Road, or direct from Frank Palmer, The Strand enclose a 13p or 18p stamp if you want a copy posted.
7.
• The pavement at the top of Station Approach is now almost finished. It swings out into the roadway for a full 7'6" beyond the outer brick pillar. Across the Approach, outside the opposite pillar, is a 34" pavement barely wide enough to get a pram along ("It is going to be a bit wider" said the chap working nearby as he saw our tape-measure. How much wider? About 4" - big deal!) We asked Highways at Bexhill the reason for this disparity; they referred us to Lewes for "the philosophy behind the drawings" - but Lewes, alas, didn't answer his telephone, so it remains a mystery for the present.
• Candida Watson of Radio Sussex has made many friends in Rye ever since their Eastbourne studio opened; she, David Arscott and Jim Beaman were the original team which established the station in the eastern end of the county. Now Candida is leaving Sussex and radio for the West of England and television; David tells us she went for two television jobs in two days and got them both! The one she chose was with TSW in Bristol, as a regional journalist; we feel sure Rye will want to wish her luck, and we shall look forward to seeing her on ITN, or back with BBC News, in due course.
• Some months ago Camber parents were very worried about bad behaviour on the bus which brought their children to and from Freda Gardham School; but the single-handed driver could not be expected to watch the children as well as watching the reed. So, as an experiment, an escort was provided. Joan Bates of Wish Ward took on the job, and had such a good effect on the behaviour of the young passengers that his appointment has now been confirmed for a further year by ESCC - something which will certainly please parents, children and the bus driver alike.
• Landgate WI's June speaker was Rachel Sarrieddine, visiting the Institute for the second time and setting out for the pleasure of its members her collection of Royal memorabilia; earlier, Freda Clarke had reported on the WI AGM at the Albert Hall, where she was the Institute's delegate. Future plans include a July garden meeting at Iden, and a picnic for members' children (and grandchildren) on the Salts on 5 August.
• Recently Mrs. Katie Harland of Playden, a member of the Rye Keep Fit class, walked the twelve miles from Playden to Hastings - mostly along the coastal path - as part of a £150,000 Appeal by the Keep Fit Association to buy a lifeboat. She would like to remind those who sponsored her that she will now be looking for them, to collect a total of £73.60 in sponsor money!
• How is Playgroup getting on, now that the piling has started on the Magdala House site? Mrs. Paine, one of the helpers, tells us that so far the building has stood up to the juddering really very well; everyone is much more upset about the trench dug right through the outside play area in order to lay a pipe. Although the trench has been filled in again now, the play area - which gives the children so much pleasure in fine weather - will only be a mudbath or a dustbowl for the rest of term. (Would anyone be able to lend them some nice artificial grass for the next five or six weeks, perhaps?)
• Sandra Sarkies of The Black Sheep in The Mint apologises to all her customers for the shop's irregular opening hours during the past two weeks - she was suddenly taken into hospital ten days ago, and although she is now home and on the mend she has to rest for a further week. Business should be back as usual by now; and Sandra wants to thank Viv Challens, Helen Giles, Ley Cowell, Beryl Bradley and Yvonne Bellhouse for keeping the shop open and running smoothly in her absence.
• Now that the time is approaching when the Kennards, on board "Mascotte", will be leaving Rye for some time, they badly need a kind home for their 8-year Alsatian bitch. She is faithful and loving and good with children - and although the logical solution would be to have her put down, they are very reluctant indeed to do this if only they can find someone who will give her a happy home. If you might consider this, please ring Mrs. Arkley (Mrs. Kennard's mother) as soon as possible.
Rye Conservation Society AGM, TH, 7.30 (see below)
Mencap coffee morning (various stalls), TH, 10 to 12
TPS PTA jumble sale, Ferry Road (ie. Lower School, and not Upper School as originally arranged), 11
Cadborough Jubilee Social Club Summer Fair, CC, 2
Blackheath Opera presents "Eugene Onegin" by Tchaikovsky, CC, 3 (see below)
FRAG outing to Cookham, home of artist Stanley Spencer
Hearing Circle coffee morning, Red Cross, 10.30
Local History Group (discussion on A259 route), Library, 7.30
• A proud notice in the Freezer Centre window last week announced that Ken and Mary Vicarey are now grandparents for the second time: Donna and Mick's second daughter, Gemma Kate, was born on 15 June - a sister for Michelle.
• Conservation Society members will already have had the Annual Report and Accounts which will be considered at the 15th AGM at the Town Hall on Friday at 7.30; others interested are most welcome to attend the meeting. Peter Howlett, the Society's secretary, tells us that he has updated Section V of the report to include the latest developments in the A259 struggle, and the amended version will be circulated at the meeting. Guest speaker is Dr. Peter Brandon, chairman of the Sussex Branch of the Council for the Protection of Rural England; his subject, very aptly, is "Rye and its landscape setting: retrospect and prospect".
• A reminder that work begins on Monday in Wish Ward, where the Gas Board will be laying a new mains supply; the road will be closed to through traffic, probably for the next two or three weeks (but in theory up to six weeks!).
• Condolences to Sally Todd at Rye Goldsmiths, whose nice clock above the shop windows was badly bashed by a manoeuvring delivery lorry last week and has had to be taken down for repairs. Since it is not the first time this has happened, she contemplated removing it for good - "but it doesn't look right without it" she told us, so the clock will go back.
• Once again the Blackheath Opera group are paying their annual visit to Rye. They spend a few days at Springfield, polishing up their opera production before putting on a full and final rehearsal in the Community Centre prior to the official performance at Blackheath the following week. This year the work is Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" (about which we know nothing at L11, sorry!) which is being given a concert performance on Sunday.
• Conrgratulations to Bertie Bull of Leasam House Farm, who came back from the South of England Show with a First Prize and a Reserve Champion in the Butchers' Class for fat lambs.
• In general, Network Rail holders using Rye Station get a raw deal from BR; they can't use the discount card on any journey leaving Rye before 10.28! However, during July and August they can travel on any weekday train after 9.0 (this means at about 9.30 from Rye) as long as they are accompanied by at least one child under 16. This curious concession only applies to day out tickets and not Saver returns; it's not sensational, but it's something.
• Rye Police Station is currently housing four prisoners in the cells (last week it was six) owing to overcrowding in the regular prison accommodation. Meals are sent in from local cafes, but the days are pretty boring with nothing to do except watch television! (However, there is still cell space vacant for local miscreants as and when necessary, we are assured.)
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 a week (the new quarter - £3.30 - begins on 1 July). (Copyright Mary Owen 1987)