Tomorrow (Thursday) the Hastings Health Authority meets to chose a package of options out of eight offered by its Strategic Review Group, which will enable it to save £350,000 over the next and subsequent financial years. The options include some where the saving is negligible, some where it is non-existent; the two major ones are the closure of Battle (geriatric) Hospital, saving some £200,000, and the closure of Rye (£310,000).
This is in direct conflict with the same Group's recommendations on long-term strategy, also before the meeting; here the Summary of Objectives to be achieved by 1995/6 includes: "(ii) Local hospitals and care centres will be in Bexhill, Rye, Hastings and Battle to provide for community health needs in a partnership with general practitioners and other caring agencies."
It is less than three years since the Authority proposed to close Rye Hospital on a short-term basis, to effect immediate savings; that was, at the last moment, rendered unnecessary by a Government handout to the NHS, some of which filtered through to Hastings. This is a very different prospect; see centre pages...
There have been no further falls along the cliff during the past week, Bob Clarke (Rother's Chief Technical Services Officer) told us on Monday; but his staff are monitoring the position daily, and "there is still movement there". Until this ceases - whether with a bang or a whimper - not much can be done, so this is a wait-and-see period for all concerned. Everyone is deeply thankful for the present dry weather, which is more help than anything else could be.
Mr. Clarke was on BBC's South-East News on Tuesday evening, explaining the problems; filming took place from both top and bottom of the cliff. Rye's situation has now been thoroughly aired, not only to the south-east in Coast to Coast but also to the London area which shares the BBC programme.
Two of the householders involved wrote jointly to Ken Warred, expressing what we feel sure is the view of all of them: "Our main concern, whether we live at the top or the bottom of the hill, is for the existence of Rye in its present form... We all want to save our properties, of course; and we recognise that it may be too late to do this in every case now. But we want to ensure that, whatever happens now, this hillside is dealt with on a sound long-term protective system which takes all its problems into account."
Our report last week of what appears to have happened on the cliff was not correct in one respect. The Church House retaining wall did not collapse suddenly on the Friday night; it was still upright on the Saturday morning, but had sunk several feet below it; normal level, though the fence along the top was still visible from the house. Over the next few days, however, it slipped away, and finished up on a shelf at the foot of its old position, more or less intact; other masonry which had been attached to it also landed on the shelf, mercifully in the one position where it could be regarded as safe. The trees and bushes in the orchard certainly contributed by keeping everything from slipping further.
ESCC Highways are indeed, as we speculated last week, keeping an eye on the situation. They would only become involved if there were to be a risk to the road, but they do have contingency plans arranged, in case. One would cover minor problems. The other would be used if the road were to be completely blocked; it was described to us in conversation as "quite horrendous" - but whether because it would take all the traffic through Cinque Ports Street, or whether because everything would have to go right round via somewhere like Maidstone, was not stated - and we thought we'd rather not know!
So we all wait; and pray for a long spell of dry weather...
2.
Mrs. Helen Hedgler (nee Kirkpatrick), of Rye Harbour, died recently. She had celebrated her ninetieth birthday last year, and was the widow of a former postmaster at the Harbour. She was also a valued member, from her girlhood, of the Rye Golf Club staff, and her reminiscences form part of Denis Vidler's History of the Club published several years ago.
With the death of Miss Anne Roper at the age of 84, the Rye Conservation Society loses one of its most distinguished Vice Presidents. Miss Roper (MBE, MA, FSA, JP) was a well-known writer and historian of the Marsh. The funeral took place last Saturday at St. Mary's-in-the-Marsh, where she had been churchwarden for fifty years.
The service of thanksgiving for the life of General Sir Charles Jones will be held at St. Michael's Church, Playden, on Saturday 5 March at 2.30.
Just after WW2 ended the official RAF film unit made a movie, telling the story of the Special Duties Squadrons which had ferried British and Allied intelligence and sabotage agents to and from France, landing on improvised landing grounds lit by a "flare path" of pocket torches. Shot partly in France and partly in Bri- tain, it had a cast of RAF aircrew and British and French agents, all of whom only a few months earlier had been doing in the field exactly what they are shown doing in the film. Many films and television series have been made about the Resistance in occupied Europe; but this one is a unique and authentic historical document, rarely seen. On Friday week, 26 February, the RAFA are to show it at the Community Centre, with part of the proceeds going to the Wings Appeal and par', to the RAF Escaping Society - a group which continues to help those on the Continent who helped our men during the war. Among the audience will be two of the men who flew on these sorties, who are now living in Hythe. Gordon Stanbridge has borrowed the film from the Imperial War Museum; he has also borrowed, from the Escaping Society, some of the recent letters and cards sent by its beneficiaries. These will form part of a display in the window of EMBS in the High Street as from next Friday - tickets for the film are on sale there at £1.50.
It is a great pity, but this event clashes with an unforeseen concert in St. Mary's arranged in aid of Cancer Relief, when the Junior Ryesingers are joined by the Thomas Peacocke School's wind band. There is also a folk and blues evening at the Rye Art Gallery, as well as a meeting of the Natural History Society. It's all go here in February!
Alas, no illicit liaisons were revealed when Woolworths' manager Ernest Wren announced the results of the store's Valentine's Day competition; the entry forms asked for the competitor's own name and that of his/her Valentine - and all three winners had very decorously named their husbands! Top prize, a hamper with all the makings of a romantic dinner for two, complete with smoked salmon, caviare, wine, chocolates, plus the necessary place settings, etc., went to Mrs. Julie Fowle of Church Square and her husband Ivo. The two second prizes, £10 vouchers, were drawn for Mrs. Margaret Jupp and her husband Leonard of Ashenden Avenue, and Mrs. Marjorie Giles and her husband Donald, of Rope Walk. The presentations took place in the shop on the morning of St. Valentine's Day.
For Mother's Day (13 March) Woolworths are running another competition, with entry forms available very shortly. Here someone's lucky mum could find herself with a magnum of champagne, a box of hand-made chocolates and a "Certificate of Merit" - as well as a draw ticket for one of ten luxury weekends in Amsterdam.
Finally, until Easter the shop will have on display a huge Easter Egg - far too big for any one household and in fact destined for Hill House Hospital and School jointly, with plenty of chocolate for all the patients and pupils.
- 3 THE RYE GAZETTE, 17 February 1988
Our recent reference to the 1968 road proposals led Marjorie Nettle to send us a faded cutting from the Sussex Express - undated, but probably relating to the same scheme. Austen Blomfield of Point Hill had apparently written the previous week to suggest that all Camber traffic could be kept out of Rye by a diversion down Houghton Green Lane from the Peace & Plenty corner (and then, presumably, going off across the Marsh). Author Warren Chetham-Strode lived in the converted oast at the Lane's junction with Military Road - and he wrote at some length to express his pleasure at the fun motorists and householders would have if this plan went ahead:
"Six blind bends - a much more exciting course than Brands Hatch. Racing for position round the first blind bend, any driver worth his engine should be able to pick off a child or two, either going to or coming from the school situated on the third blind bend. Then round the corner and down the steep hill should produce more excitement, provided the cars are not by then lying waterlogged in the ditch round the second and fourth blind bends. Finally - into the straight, a fine stretch of about 120 yards. There, at the junction of the Lane and the Military Road, the big pile-up between the Lane traffic and fast-moving cars going from Rye to Appledore should be a sight worth seeing... What an admirable plan it sounds, and so well thought out. I prefer, though, the suggestion of Mr. Patric Dickinson, which is to remove all the sand from Camber, thus eliminating the need for any suggestions at, all!"
We are reminded of Freddy Kurrein's more recent suggestion, that the best place for the Folkestone-Honiton bypass would be on stilts half-a-mile out to sea... Talking of this latter road, Ernest Arnold of Ferry Road had a brief letter in "Today" on the subject - which actually triggered off some interest from Radio Sussex at last, and we may expect something in Sussex Scene during the first half of March. The Daily Telegraph recently carried a short piece about the idiocy of building single-carriageway roads in situations too constricted to allow for later widening, and this prompted Anne Lin ard (and possibly other people?) to write to the Editor, since this would be exactly Rye's situation.
Ornithologists will be ecstatic about both exhibitions, at the Stormont Studio and the Easton Rooms, which opened on Saturday; but those to whom birds give the horrors had better keep away! In the Easton Rooms, selected members of the Society of Wildlife Artists are showing their work; most are painters or print-makers, but there are some very striking wood sculptures by John Collier, and Wally Cole shows a number of terra-cotta bird forms. Maggie Silver's miniature bird studies are in marked contract to John Norris Wood's huge death's head hawk moth portrait, calculated to give anyone bad dreams! But this is primarily the birds' day.
Through the courtyard in the Stormont Studio is an exhibition which Rye must be proud to house: "Wild Portraits", by Raymond Harris-Ching. A New Zealander, he lived and painted in Rye from 1969 to 1983, and now lives in Lewes; his last show here was more than ten years ago. The present collection of recent paintings and drawings shows the artist at the peak of technical perfection. The show's centre-piece is a big triptych where a very exotic group of birds has been assembled; most of his subjects are from the southern hemisphere, with curious names and even more curious faces - all drawn or painted with impeccable attention to detail and yet not, somehow, looking like photographs. Like the work in the Easton Rooms, these pictures are for sale - but here, although prices are available on request, if you need to ask the price you can't afford it! Closing here on Easter Monday, the exhibition goes out to Melbourne, where selling will be serious - so this is the only chance in England to see it all together.
Whether it was entirely kind to mount these two shows simultaneously is debatable - but lovers of wildlife art certainly have a treat ahead of them.
4.
It will be known by tomorrow afternoon whether the Hastings Health Authority is proposing to close Rye Hospital permanently because it can no longer afford to run it (see front page). If this is the option chosen, there has to be - before any hospital can be closed - a period of public consultation with assorted local bodies including the Community Health Council; and if the CHC objects, the closure has to be referred to the Secretary of State. So nothing can happen for some months anyway. But the Strategic Review Group's report on a short-term programme for the Health Authority sets out in detail the prospect.
"It was agreed ... that the savings associated with the closure of Rye Hospital should be calculated. A number of different closure options have been considered ranging from complete closure with no alternative provision through to closing only casualty.
"The savings associated with complete closure are estimated at £310,000, savings from closing casualty alone are £25,000. Other options include transferring portions of the workload to other hospitals and/or providing additional community support. Any of these alternatives would reduce the savings achievable by varying amounts dependant upon the volume of alter- native provision provided.
"It is recommended that the Authority consider the option of closing Rye Memorial Hospital. However, this proposal should be considered in the light of the following:
(i) If the full savings are to be achieved then there will be no alternative provision in the Rye area. This makes the proposal substantially different from that of closing Battle and transferring services elsewhere.
(ii)If alternative community services are required the savings will be reduced.
(iii)The strategy will recommend long stay provision for the elderly and other community-based services specifically for the Rye area. This proposal could therefore be seen to contradict this strategic intention unless the development of community services was started immediately."
The crux of this, from the point of view of people who live here and quite hope to go on living, is in paragraph (ii) - "If alternative community services are required..." What do they mean, if? Rye will certainly require them, if those provided by the hospital are removed; are we expected to do without them at all?
"Transferring portions of the workload to other hospitals" presumably means that all in-patients go over to Hastings - or stay in Hastings, rather than return to Rye freeing an "acute" bed for someone else. But what about the rest of the workload? The report compiled by the Action Group in 1985 shows that Rye Hospital then provided 15 beds, clinic facilities for six visiting consultants with around 160 out-patient consultations a month, a 24-hour service for minor casualties, a day-care centre (40 patients a week, with a waiting-list), and additional facilities including physiotherapy, GP minor operations, a dietician, a mortuary, a base for the local community nursing service, and a limited X-ray department. Assuming things are much the same two years later (we are not sure about the X-ray department and the minor operations), what would the HHA propose to do about the out-patients? The report talks about "providing additional community support" - more community nurses, so that more people could be nursed at home rather than in hospital; but where would the community nurses then be based? Hastings? Hill House (due for closure in March 1989)? Perhaps the Clinic?
This, as we were told two years ago, is in full use for its present purposes. It seems extremely doubtful that it could also accommodate the community nurses, sessions for six consultants and the physiotherapy department - probably the dietician could be fitted in, but certainly not the mortuary!
(continued...)
5.
(continued)
And what about the day-care? (For the benefit of those who don't need it, we should explain that this enables elderly or handicapped people to spend one day a week at the hospital being bathed, having dressings changed and receiving physiotherapy where appropriate; they also have lunch, a change of scene and the chance to meet old friends.) There is already day-care at Greyfriars, and when the little Day Centre behind Magdala House is opened, it will have a bathroom so that day-care can be given there too. But if 40 patients from the hospital have to be fitted into these two establishments, it would seem likely that no more could be accommodated in the scheme, despite the good intentions of the new Centre.
There is little likelihood that the minor casualty service could be transferred elsewhere in the town, unless one of the doctors' practices felt able to take it on for everyone. Parking facilities would be bad enough at the Clinic without that, even if there were room inside; what with ambulances bringing in day-care patients, cars and the minibus bringing in Day Centre members, parents delivering and collecting playgroup children, staff and patients for the school dental clinic, and of course the assorted car and pushchair traffic for the various child-care sessions - with all this, the last thing needed would be the arrival of cars in a hurry, laden with the wailing owners of bleeding heads
or twisted ankles. The unfortunate occupants of Magdala House would never dare venture out of doors at all if they were less than nimble on their feet: If there is no minor casualty service in Rye, the HHA will save; but the Education Authority will be in dire trouble. School regulations say that if a child has to be taken to hospital, a member of staff has to go too (unless a parent can be contacted in time). Taking a minor casualty up to Rye is time-consuming enough, as most of us know; but taking a minor casualty over to Hastings and waiting to escort the victim home after treatment can easily remove a member of staff from normal circulation for half a day. This will be an even worse problem when the new hospital on The Ridge opens, since the public transport is so appalling that Mum would be unlikely to be able to arrive as a relief.
Of course, the Authority may be planning to bring Hill House back into use. Although the patients are due to move out by March 1989, some of the old hospital buildings have been listed and cannot therefore be demolished without due thought. Perhaps the HHA is thinking of shifting its six visiting consultants into one of these? Or maybe the day-care could be provided there - though we very much doubt if the older recipients would fancy that, since they could certainly remember the days when it used to be the workhouse with all that that implied...
If the hospital is closed under the short-term programme, it is not likely to reopen on the same site under the long-term strategy (see front page); it is, says the HHA, inconvenient and in poor repair. So where might the HHA intend to site the long-term strategy pie-in-the-sky - the "local hospital and care centre" advocated by the Strategic Review Group? The obvious place would have been the Magdala House site, as we said three years ago - but of course that's too late now. We do hope the HHA is not thinking of reviving the idiotic proposal to build a new clinic on the Hill House site to replace the present one? So convenient for mums with pushchairs, and people without cars!
Last time the hospital was at risk, an Action Group sprung up - and the report it produced at the end of 1985 set out very clearly the case against closure. Much of the groundwork to fight the present threat has already been done - but there will be more still to do. It is fair to say that if, tomorrow, the HHA chooses to put in hand the closure of Rye Hospital, no-one will die of astonishment; we have all known, certainly since 1985, that this could happen. The HHA could doubtless manage nicely with £310,00 towards its necessary £350,000. But they will only save that amount if there is "no alternative provision in the Rye area".
So what are we expected to do, in the Rye area - die quietly, to oblige?
6.
There are two applications in the list for Rye this week. One comes from Mr. Patel at the Corner Shop, at the bottom of Market Road, Passers-by will realise why he needs to put in a new shop-front, and he is hoping to get the work done as soon as possible.
The second application comes from David Sharp, of The Mint, who is asking for "retention of use of ground floor cafe with extension of opening hours from 7.30 am to 2 am". This is "to enable us to encompass morning breakfast trade and evening dinner trade (last orders would be taken at 12.30 am giving evening diners time to complete their meals at their leisure)". The applicant is described as the tenant - and indeed, the building belongs to Rother Council.
Planning permission to open The Kaff, on the ground floor of Mr. Sharp's pottery with access from The Mint and Wish Ward, was given by Rother in June 1986. The application referred to the need for "just a cup of tea or a sandwich without having to have a sit-down meal ... this facility should be made available particularly to those people with children who do not wish to use a public house or restaurant." (This seems rather a far cry from those leisurely diners who start their evening meal after midnight!) Giving permission, Rother stipulated that "the premises shall be open as a tea-room/coffee bar only between the hours of 8 am to 11.30 pm" (and, incidentally, with "no live or recorded music played on the premises without the prior consent of the District Planning Authority in writing").
Six months later, the magistrates granted Mr. Sharp a restaurant licence and a supper licence (perhaps a little unusual for a tea-room/coffee bar?), allowing him to sell alcohol with meals for an hour after normal pub-closing - ie. until midnight, which is half-an-hour after the cafe is supposed to shut anyway.
Some time ago the tenancy of the cafe was advertised, and earlier this year advertisements appeared announcing a change of name to Sophisticate, under new management - Ghassan and Tony (who live, we understand, in Hastings). Opening hours were announced as being from 8 am to 5.30 pm on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday - and from 8 am to 2 am on Thursday, Friday and Saturday! This was rein- forced by notices inside and outside the cafe.
Nearby residents were not pleased at this unauthorised development in what, once the pubs shut, is supposed to be a quiet residential area; they were even less pleased to find that the new management was cooking and selling takeaway kebabs until 2 am, with all the usual smell, noise and debris in the street outside. Protests flew to the Town Council and to Rother, who went to interview the new management - hence the current application, which is being made by Mr. and Mrs Sharp as the owners of the business.
However, there is also the matter of the licence. The cafe is advertised as being "fully licensed". A couple of weeks ago, at Battle, the restaurant and supper licences were renewed in the normal way, the applicants being Mr. and Mrs. Sharp. But the licensing clerk tells us that a licence has to be held by the management of a restaurant, not the owner; also, a restaurant licence means that drink can only be sold with food when both are being consumed on the premises it certainly does not cover drink sold with takeaway food consumed in the street outside, or on the way home in the small hours!
The Town Council will be considering the application at the end of this month. It will come before Rother on 24 March. People who object either to the pro- posed extended hours, or to the takeaway element (not mentioned at all in the application) or to the present unauthorised opening after 11.30 pm - or to all three! - should write to the Planning Officer at the Town Hall, Bexhill, as soon as possible. A large number of separate letters will carry more clout than just one petition, since apparently all letters are read out at the planning meeting. So if you don't want cafe conversation or takeaway traffic outside your house long after midnight - whether or not alcohol is likely to be part of the deal - the remedy lies in your own hands. Rother needs to know what the locals think.
7.
Whatever it is that BR are doing on the railway line between Rye and Hastings, they obviously didn't manage to finish it last weekend. Once again, this coming Saturday and Sunday, there will be buses instead of trains between the two stations (and delays of up to 45 minutes, says the press release). The train from Ashford is not affected, since it simply heads back again from Rye (which was just as well for three people who intended to get off at Appledore last Saturday evening but found they didn't have time to do so safely). Main line trains down from London on our line are also affected by engineering work, with buses between Ashford and Headcorn and other trains diverted round by Maidstone East (very disconcerting after dark, if you are not expecting it!)
Another press release from BR announces that the use of wheel-clamps in its car parks is about to begin (we mentioned this as something of a joke last autumn, but it seems they were serious). The clamps are to reduce congestion in approach roads - not really a problem here - but also to catch the non-payers in BR's car parks. Here cars will not be released until the charges due have been paid - and since the only person holding the keys is the station manager, who may not even be there when the errant motorist returns, there could be quite a wait as well...
Speaking on Radio Sussex the other day, the County Trading Standards Officer, warned against a fly-by-night type of auction sale which, it is thought, may be hitting East Sussex before long. The organisers hire a hall for a one-day or evening sale, advertising it with house-to-house leafletting beforehand. Either the bargains don't materialise at all - "sorry, the lorry broke down" - or they are not what they seem; and the organisers have, of course, moved on.
If anyone here gets a leaflet about such a sale (or a hall secretary is offered a booking) the Trading Standards people would be glad to know about the sale; the new County Hall number (0273 481000) will find them. Last time there was an epidemic of such sales, ESCC were able to prosecute the organisers - but they do need to know of them in advance.
A man has been charged with stealing milk from outside premises in Cinque Ports Street, and will appear before Rye Magistrates on 9 March. Another case to come before the magistrates arises from an assault on an elderly lady in The Close, who was punched in.the face; we understand that this was a domestic dispute, and not a mugging or burglary in the usual sense.
Two vehicles have been stolen in the town recently; one, a silver Maestro taken from Station Approach last Friday evening, was later found abandoned, crashed into a garden in Peasmarsh. The other, a Transit van stolen from Rock Channel early on Sunday morning, turned up at Jury's Gap. C,180-worth of tapes and other items were stolen from a car in Fishmarket on Saturday evening.
When we printed the advance-planning Town Diary in GAZETTE no. 257, we hadn't yet heard from the NSPCC. This was not, however, for want of events. On Thursday, 28 April (rather later than usual), the Annual Meeting of the Branch will be held at the FE Centre at 3, with Peter Dale, leader of the Hastings Child Protection Team, as the speaker. On Saturday, 28 May, Louis Turpin is organising a fund-raising day at the Ypres pub, starting at noon and going on till late; he is to include a little bit of everything, with perhaps mime or puppets to add to the musical element where his main contacts lie. Details nearer the time. The Summer Fair is also later than usual this year, on.Saturday 23 July at the FE Centre, from 10.30 to 3.30. And the Raft Race, now run by Rye Lions but still contributing very handsomely to NSPCC funds, is definitely to be held on Sunday, 28 August, at mid-day or thereabouts.
Rye Fire Brigade were called to a chimney fire at the Mermaid on Friday, but it was a minor episode and quickly under control.
Thrift Shop, Red Cross, 10 to 4 (and Friday and Saturday) Bowls Club AGM (guest, Colin Hudson), Queen's Head, 7.30 (The Museum Association talk which appears in Fixtures for tonight is in fact to take place on 18 March!)
Conservative Association AGM and coffee morning, George Hotel, 10.30 (with Ken Warren, MP)
Cycle die-stamping (by Rye Special Constables), Police Station, 11 to 4 - make it clear that your new bike is yours!
• Congratulations to Kate (nee Owen) and Francis Ford, whose strapping son Arthur was born on 12 February - a brother for Lily, Gloria and Sylvia, and a first grandson for the Editor. (And apologies to those who couldn't get an answer from the GAZETTE phone at the end of last week - we were down in Shrewsbury, gloating!)
• The Conservative Association's "Meet Your MP" evening on 4 March has had to be postponed, since Ken Warren is to be away as part of a trade delegation then; he will of course be here for the AGM on Saturday.
• New Branch Secretary for the RNLI is Dick Pearce of the Wipers, who is taking, over from Joan Parkes the job she has held for 15 years. Joan is delighted it on - keys, boxes, documents and all - to someone who so obviously has the cause at heart. indeed, at the pub last Thursday Branch chairman Roger Breeds presented Dick with an engraved plaque to mark his achievement in raising £2,000 for the RNLI in the three years since he and Babs came to Rye. Babs is not being left out of the family effort, either; she is to be the souvenirs secretary, in charge of the sale of RNLI goods at fetes and other events. We wish them both every success in a cause so dear to Rye's heart.
• D.I.Y.W.I.: when Rye WI's February speaker failed to turn up, members did the job themselves - with musing, interesting and hilarious results, says Jeanne Freeman. "A discussion then ensued on speakers for the 1989 programme with a number of suggestions and profound hopes that the speakers would attend when booked!"
• Community Centre secretary Yvonne Metcalf is resigning from the job after 2½ years - though both she and her husband will remain on the committee. The (paid) job is for 12 hours a week, eight of them at regular times in the office - at present Monday and Friday mornings and Friday early evening - with the rest spread around as required. Mrs. Metcalf will be glad to talk to anyone interested in taking over, starting as soon as possible; she will be staying on long enough to explain the system, so nobody faces being flung in at the deep end, all alone on the first morning. Ring her in office hours (as above), or if necessary at home; or contact chairman Mrs. Margaret Owen or Noel Varley at Seacruisers in Winchelsea Road.
• The Women's British Legion coffee morning and sale last Saturday raised £167.
• A small pendant to our recent round-up of the town's public halls; at the Town Hall, the Mayor has (ex-officio) the right to allow twelve free lettings a year. Bookings must be made through the Town Clerk as usual, with a request that a' free let should be considered; the decision is'.the Mayor's personally, and naturally different Mayors have different priorities At present, Mrs. Oliver's lets have been booked up long ago, and until the new Mayor is elected in May, no-one is empowered to allocate next year's. There is likely to be a queue of lobbyists, though, on the appropriate doorstep once the Mayor-elect is chosen at the February full Council. meeting!
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 through Cinque Ports Stationers of Rye. Deadline is second post on Monday for each Wednesday's delivery to subscribers; spare copies are available at 45p at Young Ideas, 7 Cinque Ports Street. (Copyright Mary Owen 1988)