We apologise for the inconclusive nature of some of this week's reports; many people are still away, and the whole of local officialdom seems to be in hibernation. Next week's paper will, we hope, repair the gaps in our news coverage.
Receipts are attached herewith for those not covered by six-monthly subscriptions; if your copy is simply marked "to pay" we know you want to continue but we would like to receive your £3.25 before the next issue, please.
To Dr. Alec Vidler, who last Wednesday celebrated the diamond jubilee of his ordination into the priesthood. The previous day, 27 December, was his 84th birthday, and after taking the Wednesday morning communion service in St. Mary's Dr. Vidler told friends assembled to greet him that he had been made first a deacon and then a priest on the earliest possible dates, having been ordained by the Bishop of Newcastle on Holy Innocents Day (28 December), the day after he reached the minimum age for each office.
We in Rye know Dr. Vidler as a former Mayor, and of course a Ryer who was born in the house where he now lives. His very distinguished theological and academic career is too well known for us to attempt to summarise it here. Suffice it to say that his hometown looks forward to his next jubilee with admiration and affection.
To Mrs. Judy Brown, of Playden, who has been awarded the MBE in the New Year Honours List for services to the community in Rye (and if you wonder why you hadn't noticed, it was because she appeared - quite correctly - as Mrs. E L Brown in the paper). Her WRVS Lunch Club members over the past five years will be particularly pleased about this (see GAZETTE no. 61), but the whole town offers congratulations.
To Paul Chillingworth, of Lea Avenue, who heard two days before Christmas that he has a place at King's College, Cambridge, for next October to read Natural Sciences. Paul's success means that last year's head boy and head girl at Thomas Peacocke School have both secured Cambridge places, since Amanda Briggs has just completed her first term at Queens College, reading philosophy.
Now that the excitements of Christmas are over, it is perhaps a suitable time to mention the Community Centre's Junior Club. This meets on alternate Saturday afternoons from 3 till 5 and caters for children aged from 7 to 13; there is a membership fee of 50p payable once, plus 25p for each meeting attended (but nothing extra for craft materials, etc). Refreshments are not provided, but there is a tuck shop for canned drinks, sweets, crisps, etc. The Club aims to cater for all tastes: one session will have a disco, the next films and games, while the third allows time for games and also for hobbies which include sewing and cookery (for both sexes, of course), plus crafts such as plaster casting, and also table tennis, telly tennis, and so on.
New members are most welcome, as are adult helpers; Community Centre chairman Ringo Chapman tells us that people need not commit themselves to helping at every session as long as they are willing to turn up when they are expected - and those with interesting ideas for new activities will be greeted with special enthusiasm.
2.
We are sorry to hear of several deaths in the town over the Christmas and New Year period. Obituary notices will appear in next week's paper.
Some weeks ago, we reported on the proposed timetable (starting in May) for our railway line. We then regretted that the 8.35 and 9.11am were both to disappear and be replaced by a single train at 8.45. However, that is not the worst of it. Mrs. Mary East made further enquiries, and it appears that although the 8.45 will leave Rye almost half an hour before the present 9.11, it will reach London only four minutes earlier, at 10.36 - with a wait of almost half-an-hour at Ashford! This may be good business for the Ashford station buffet, but it means that no-one travelling on an awayday ticket will be able to get to London for, say, an 11 am appointment with any degree of certainty. On the new basis, it will be quicker to drive to Ashford than to go by train, and doubtless many car-owners will do just that - and who can blame them? But it will do nothing whatever to improve business for our branch line. One regular rail traveller suggested that once the Hastings-Tonbridge line is electrified it may be quicker to go to London via Hastings at some times of day!
Our transport consultant, Robert Bromley, has not yet received a proposed timetable for weekend trains from Rye; in view of reports in the national press on Monday, we do hope this is not because there aren't going to be any!
(Rail fares all go up on 8 January, but when we asked at Rye station for our new rates we were told "they hadn't yet worked them out"; perhaps by now they have.)
Among the current planning applications (see page 5) is one from the RNLI for a new lifeboat house at Rye Harbour. Colin Marsh, our Harbourmaster, is in charge of the special appeal fund for this.
The present lifeboat shed, which houses the inshore rescue boat given nearly 20 years ago by the South East Branch of the Royal and Ancient Order of Foresters, is due for replacement anyway - a structure built largely of plywood doesn't last all that long, and even if it were not in poor order, it would soon he too small. In 1985 Rye is due to have a twin-engined D-class lifeboat which will provide a 24-hour all-the-year-round service instead of the present daylight-only and nine-months service. Crew quarters will therefore be needed, and under-cover garaging for the lifeboat trailer and the land-rover which pulls it to its low-tide slipway. Mr. Marsh says they are also hoping to have a shop, anyway at weekends, selling RNLI souvenirs, since the RNLI tells him that even in so small a place as Rye Harbour something of this kind could bring in as much as £4,000 a year, let alone new Shoreline members. And in addition to this, the Southern Water Authority have for some time needed a base on the Rye Harbour side of the river, so in return for office accommodation in the new building the SWA have undertaken to build the footings for it - something for which they have both the experience and the machinery.
The work is at present out to tender, so Mr. Marsh doesn't yet know exactly how much it will cost - at a rough guess, he thinks, somewhere about £20,000. A special fund has been set up for the purpose, and the RNLI was persuaded to put a recent local legacy towards it. As we have reported from time to time, other money has been raised locally; and a round-robin letter sent to local businessmen recently has already produced generous cheques. The work will begin as soon as a tender is approved and planning permission received, since Mr. Marsh has assured the RNLI that the cost will be raised by the Rye Branch eventually. But he does have hopes that it will be possible to raise the full amount - another £5,000, say - by April when the building should be ready. The RNLI has always been one of Rye's special charities, and a record sum of £4,000 went to RNLI from the Branch last year, but Mr. Marsh is anxious that money for the lifeboat house shall be extra to normal fund-raising; donations for it should go to him at the Harbour-Master's House, Rye Harbour, and receipts will of course be issued.
3.
THE RYE GAZETTE, 4 January 1984
Many readers will know that in September, all over the country, the Government-organised YOP scheme to help unemployed school-leavers turned into the Youth Training Scheme, with more emphasis on training than its predecessor. The Rye Council for Voluntary Service, which had run the YOP scheme in the town, continued to run the YTS, and the GAZETTE had hoped to report on its progress in the New Winchelsea Road training centre in a recent issue. However, just before the Christmas break the thirteen trainees received the following letter (we give the full text since it explains the Council's problem):
"It is with very much regret that a decision has had to be taken by the Rye & District Council for Voluntary Service to end their sponsorship of the Youth Training Scheme in Rye with effect from 31st December 1983.
This situation has arisen for the following reasons: -
(a) We have not been able to obtain an assurance from the Manpower Services Commission that the scheme would be allowed to continue in a viable form for the year 1984/85.
(b) Additional funding has not been made available by the MSC to carry out those capital works which the sponsors consider necessary to satisfy the legal requirements of providing a proper place of employment.
(c) The sponsors are not prepared on this basis to continue being responsible for employing people in the unsatisfactory conditions which exist at present.
We are very sorry that this situation, which is not of our making, has arisen. We understand from the MSC that alternative arrangements will be made for trainees at present on this scheme and they will no doubt be providing information on these alternative arrangements as soon as possible.
The members of the Committee of the Rye & District Council for Voluntary Service send you their good wishes for the future and trust you will continue your training and work experience which we very much regret has had to be interrupted in this way."
RCVS Chairman Mrs. Jo Kirkham tells us that the final straw, which put the Council in a quite impossible position, was the resignation of the Scheme's two senior supervisors, when relations with MSC were already very fragile. However, it is now definitely established that Rye's trainees will be able to continue with their courses, though owing to the long Christmas holiday the final details have not yet been worked out; so we hope to have a slightly more cheerful sequel to this sad report in a few weeks' time.
A new WEA course starts on 12 January. Every Thursday afternoon for ten weeks, from 2 to 4 at the FE Centre, Basil Dowling will be discussing "Individual Voices in Twentieth Century Poetry" - "the work and background of poets, from Bridges to Betjeman, who by their originality have added a unique tone of voice for the enjoyment of today's readers" (to quote the handout). Starting with Robert Bridges, Mr. Dowling will talk about Yeats, Robert Frost, Edward Thomas, the WW1 poets, A E Housman, W H Davies, D H Lawrence and Andrew Young, and other poets of the Thirties.
Barbara Fearon hopes she has persuaded Mr. Dowling to include some of his own work in the series; he began writing poetry as a young man in New Zealand, and his eighth book "Windfalls" was issued from the Nag's Head Press just before Christmas, though copies still have to reach Rye from the Antipodes. This will be Mr. Dowling's first course for the WEA, and its main object is the shared enjoyment of reading poetry; three anthologies of twentieth-century poems are suggested for those taking part, but absolutely no academic qualifications are necessary, just an enthusiasm for the subject and pleasure in sharing it. Intending students should contact Mrs. Fearon (Rye 2222XX) or just turn up for the first talk on 12 January.
4
Various groups of carol-singers raised money for good causes in Rye in the week before Christmas. Jane Jenkinson, Sarah Whiddett, Simon and Laurence Winkworth, David Dee and Graham Peters, in Victorian dress, visited half-a-dozen local hostelries on Christmas Eve, and appreciative audiences contributed £105 (with more promised) for the Crossroads scheme which provides home help for bedridden and housebound people. Also suitably attired, the Cadborough Jubilee Social Club singers raised over £40 towards equipment for the heart unit at St. Helen's Hospital. A group from Thomas Peacocke Upper Vlth sang in Rye and Winchelsea, accompanied by Tim Shephard on the clarinet, and as a result will be sending some £30 to Hill House.
Ryesingers did appear, all too briefly, on Coast to Coast on 23 December, singing in front of the Town Hall; they have not yet reported their takings from their round-the-tree singing in the town on Saturday, nor do we know what Rotary raised in their collecting box in Market Road.
Penny Royal and Olivers cheered the High Street with recorded carols relayed above their doorways. Rye shoppers on Christmas Eve also enjoyed the music of the Salvation Army band, paying their annual visit. And we should certainly mention the staff of James Kimber's, who enterprisingly dressed up in panto-type costumes for the two days before Christmas; and also Geering & Colyer, who were apparently distributing balloons to the young, surely an innovation for estate agents?
Shop window displays were, as always in Rye, charming in their various ways, and it would be invidious to mention only some since all conspired to brighten up the shopping streets despite the rain in Christmas week. Holly wreaths and coloured lights were everywhere; and in St. Mary's great bouquets of scarlet and yellow flowers shone like lanterns.
The police report a quiet holiday period in Rye itself (though we heard of more casual vandalism in Ferry Road). However, there has recently been a spate of break-ins at unoccupied holiday homes in the area, with surprisingly valuable property left there for the thieves to find. There was also a case in Fairlight when an elderly lady unwisely let into her house someone who told her he was a policeman, which resulted in money being stolen; and we wondered what sort of identification a real policeman would produce? This turns out to be a small card clearly labelled Sussex Police and bearing the holder's name and photograph; but it should be carefully scrutinised, since it is much the same size and shape as the various credit cards, etc., in circulation nowadays.
On New Year's Eve both Jempsons of Peasmarsh and Farley's Garage were broken into. The press book gives few details, but a quantity of cigarettes was stolen from Jempsons, and a dark green Vauxhall Victor estate car is missing from the garage. The garage safe was also taken, but contained no money and has since been recovered.
On Christmas Day a car skidded on a patch of diesel oil on Rye Hill and collided with a lamppost; the car had to be towed away, and the lamppost did not escape unscathed, though luckily the driver - a young man from Tunbridge Wells - did. Rother Council staff were called out to sand the road.
Another car caught fire in Love Lane at breakfast-time on 22 December, but the blaze was extinguished before the Fire Brigade arrived.
The Fire Brigade report a peaceful holiday season as far as official business was concerned - just a couple of chimney fires, and a pumping-out job when the lift shaft at Devonport House was flooded. However, the firemen had much more interesting matters on hand, and were extremely busy on Christmas Day morning assisting Father Christmas as he delivered 240 parcels in Rye and the neighbouring villages. The scheme raised £85 for the National Firemen's Benevolent Fund, and Sub-Officer Michael Bourn would like to thank Burnham's, Bourne's and Mr. and Mrs. Bryant of Camber for their invaluable help over transport.
... AND, HERE WE HAVE JUST ROOM TO WISH OUR READERS A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!
strong>5.
Rother Councillor Mrs. Pauline Tomich very properly reproves the GAZETTE for getting its facts wrong on 21 December, about the procedure following Rother's swimming-pool decision. If the relevant committee so wishes, the matter can apparently come before the full Council again at its next meeting (we had understood that it could not be for six months). We are sorry to hear this, but apologise for the inaccuracy, pleading that it was not possible to check our facts with Rother at (literally) the eleventh hour of our deadline day! Anyway, we stand by our final comment.
We had hoped that this issue would contain news of the future of Saltcote Place, since so many potential jobs depend on it. But all the County Council will say is that "as a result of advertising the house is on offer, and it is intended that it will become a private rest home. We are still in the process of negotiation" - which half Rye knew anyway! Rother granted the recent change-of-use planning application but insisted on the approach being via the main drive rather than from Point Hill as proposed (ESCC had excluded both the main drive and the stable block from its application). It does seem that the rumour that Social Services are interested in the house has no foundation and doubtless arose because the change-of-use application was being made by the County Council as vendors.
There is a mystery contained in the weekly planning list issued just before Christmas. Rother is applying (to itself, of course) for permission to use what is described as "British Rail allotment land off Ferry Road" for a public car park with vehicular access. GAZETTE no. 59 referred to Rother's plans for using land alongside the railway for car parking, but we understood that the first area designated for this was the strip between the railway and the market, and the Council has not yet sought planning permission even for this. So, what's all this about land off Ferry Road? "Allotment land" apparently describes the area between Ferry Road and the Mill (though anything less like allotments than it is at the moment can hardly be imagined!); it also describes the spinney where the nightingale has been heard and where allotments are in evidence, behind the station, so the application could refer to either - or, indeed, both. The Council Offices where the plans can be seen reopened yesterday after the Christmas break, but since according to the list the final day for objections is today (4th) we suggest that anyone likely to be interested should go and have a look as soon as possible. Rother Councillor John Cawdron agrees that in view of Rother's prolonged shut-down the period of notice is inadequate, and if anyone wishing to object finds that they have left it too late they should get in touch with him direct (Rye 223683).
Rother applications on the current list are for 6 Cinque Ports Street (a separate entrance for the flat above), and for a new lifeboat house at the Harbour - full story on page 2.
Were you given books for Christmas that you can't face reading? Or that you did read, but don't want to keep? Or that you do want to keep, but haven't got room for in your bookshelves? The GAZETTE has the answer to your problem...
Mrs. Barton asks us to remind readers that there is still a quite insatiable demand from troops leaving Lydd Camp for the WRVS parcels of paperback books. These mostly go to our "forgotten army" in Belfast and South Armagh, though they occasionally reach troops on less dangerous but equally uncomfortable and tedious postings. Paperbacks, please, and also such magazines as Readers Digest and Punch, which have a general appeal, can be left at the WRVS office in the FE Centre.
We also mentioned recently that the Library is glad to receive gifts of recent books, novels and non-fiction, for its shelves, thus saving calls on its threatened book fund. They, of course, prefer hard backs, which last longer. So, if you are getting rid of any books after Christmas, there are a pair of grateful recipients at the top of Lion Street just panting for your discards!
8.
Friday, 6th Vidler & Co's monthly auction sale, 10
Saturday, 7th Sussex Trust for Nature Conservancy, illustrated lecture: "Bardsey Island, North Wales" by Neville Lewis, CC, 7.30
Monday, 9th Rye Town Council meeting, 6
Tuesday, 10th TPS Parents Evening - Lower Vlth
Friends of Rye Art Gallery, talk: "Gardens of Delight" by Charles
Lines, Town Hall, 8
National Trust: slide show by Trust members, CC, 7.30
• Congratulations to Miss Judy Pullinger and Mr. John Haffenden, both of Rye Harbour, who were married in Hastings on Friday, 30 December. Judy is well known to Swiss Patisserie patrons, having worked there for the past 5 ½ years; but the Cinque Ports Street counter will see her no more, since John works in Bodiam and the couple are to live in Sandhurst.
• More congratulations - incredibly belated this time, but we only just heard - to Nobby Clark of Military Road. Mr. Clark, last year's President of Rye Lions, is the 1983/4 Zone Chairman of Lions, an honour both for him and for the comparatively young Rye group; we wish him and his wife a happy if busy year of office.
• Friends of the late Mrs. Winifred Lawrence of North Salts will like to know that her recently published will shows a generous legacy of £30,000 to the Sussex Trust for Nature Conservancy at Woods Mill, Henfield. Mrs. Lawrence, who once lived in East Guldeford, also left £500 to the restoration fund of the tiny parish church there.
• The RNLI box at Rayners, the High Street opticians, has produced the remarkable sum of £73 over the past year!
• Welcome back to the Rev. Peter and Mrs. Caroline Carmichael, who spent a few days last week settling in, if only temporarily, to their new holiday home in Rye.
• Rye ATC held their Christmas party and enrolment at Thomas Peacocke School on 16 December. The Rev. James Gladstone enrolled Nicola James, Mark Starling and Hugo Donald into the Squadron, and Mr. Stan Jones handed out various certificates to cadets. Daniel Ivimy was the only entrant in the aircraft modelling competition, judged by Dennis Woodgate.
• Jane Jenkinson, of Graham's in the High Street, is a member of Douglas Entertainers, a group which specialises in entertaining older people in homes and clubs in the Hastings area. Jane is anxious to find some new material for her act, and wonders if anyone could either give her, or lend for copying, sheet music (piano plus vocal part) for songs from musicals, etc., vintage 1918 onwards? She likes to sing numbers which will revive youthful memories for her audience. We were reminded, when she spoke about this, of a recent GAZETTE item about old dance programmes of the early Twenties; if this sent any of our older readers to their attics, perhaps they may have found some sheet music which would help Jane entertain their contemporaries? Call at 91 High Street, or ring her on Rye 2223XX.
THE RYE GAZETTE is registered as a newspaper with the Post Office, and published by Mrs. Mary Owen, 94 Udimore Road, Rye (Rye 222303). News items for inclusion are always welcome - deadline Monday afternoon, Tuesday 9 am for emergencies. The GAZETTE costs 25p weekly and is delivered to subscribers and pick-up points on Wednesday; extra copies and back numbers can be ordered from 94 Udimore Road, while a few spares are available at Squirrels, 9-13 Cinque Ports Street, Rye.
(Copyright Mary Owen 1984)