GAZETTE subscriptions for the April-June quarter will fall due at the end of this month; for details see page 7.
One of Sussex's Assistant Chief Constables, Barry Rutherford, was at a meeting in Rye recently to meet the backbone of the Crime Alert scheme - the community co-ordinators. David Manktelow was there representing the original Cadborough scheme; Joan Parkes for the Bridge Place end of the town; Hilda Martin for the Citadel area; and Laurie Suker for the Tilling Green Estate. James Menhinick, for North Salts and Military Road, was not able to be present; and Jennie Bayntun has only agreed to take on Rye Hill, Point Hill and Mill Road since the meeting. Jo Kirkham, the originator of the idea locally, was also present.
Chief Inspector Dyson had looked up the figures for burglaries in private houses in 1982 (admittedly a bad year) and 1983 and found that in the Rye subdivision generally the figure had fallen by 14% - and very nice too. But in Rye itself the figure had dropped by 63%! It really does seem likely that the awareness fostered by the spread of the scheme is acting as a deterrent to would-be thieves - "Rye has its eyes open, let's go somewhere else instead!".
Crime Alert development is temporarily at a standstill because the literature delivered to householders as each area is included has run out and is reprinting - so if you haven't yet heard from your co-ordinator, that's why. A team of police cadets is expected in Rye soon to distribute the leaflets, etc. It is hoped that the rather flimsy and jokey window-stickers, by no means to everyone's taste, will be replaced by a smaller peel-off plastic triangle, less ostentatious but equally effective; but these are not available yet. Co-ordinators are still needed for two areas: New Road and King's Avenue, and Winchelsea and New Winchelsea Roads. Ideally a co-ordinator should be someone well known in the neighbourhood who is either fairly regularly at home or at a known place of work; and the job really does not involve more than keeping an ear to the ground and passing on the echoes which bounce back! If you feel you might be able to do this, why not talk to one of the present co-ordinators about it - or go to the Police Station direct?
Rye Model's established team of operators - Barbara Fearon, Irene Palmer and George Maby - will be joined for the coming season by Rae Bark, until recently of Northiam but now living in The Mint. There were 45 applicants for the job! Rae knows Rye well, since she is Section Officer (the equivalent of Sergeant) in the Rye Special Constabulary and received a long-service award as a Special last May.
We are very sorry to say that last week Rye Magistrates had to impose a suspended prison sentence for theft on a former operator who had been working for Rye Town Council, the Model's owners, at the end of last season. The amount of money stolen over a period of four months amounted to just over £1,500 and is to be repaid at a minimum rate of £5 a week. The Town Clerk tells us that the loss represents around 11% of the season's total takings from the Model. As a result of the case, the checking arrangements for the Model's accounts are to be reviewed and tightened up, but this is of course no reflection on the present team, who are looking forward to another successful season - the Model's fourth under Town Council management - starting on 28 March.
The Museum will open, as usual, on the Thursday before Good Friday - this year, 19 April, since Easter is late.
2.
Mrs. Gwen Phillips, of Rock Channel House, died suddenly at her home on 7 March. Mrs. Phillips was the wife of Mr. Harry Phillips, the boatbuilder; she was 73. Until her husband's retirement, she had helped him in the business, doing the books; but many people in Rye knew her as the proprietress of the immaculate garden round her home, from which she supplied plants and vegetables to a wide circle of friends. Mrs. Phillips leaves a widower, a son and daughter, four grandchildren and a great-grandchild. The funeral takes place today (Wednesday) at Rye Cemetery at 2.0.
£674 in five weeks - that is the astonishing achievement of the Further Education Centre's committee! Friday's Movie Society show (and the raffle and subsequent donations) raised £278 and meant a most enjoyable evening for the audience who packed the room to see seven films, shown by Mrs. Jeffery Waters and Mr. Bob de Ste Croix. Two Royal visits were recalled: the Queen's in 1966, and the Queen Mother's in 1980, when she viewed her birthday cannon. (It rained, of course - both times.) There was an entertaining visit to the lair of a beachcomber at Camber; a trip across the Marsh on a "betja" tricycle; a tour round the gardens of Church Square; and records of two 1982 events, the opening day of the Rye Bowling Green and the heroic Beating of the Bounds.
The entertainment was introduced by Mr. Laurie Suker, and Miss Linda Ryall came over on behalf of Hastings College. We asked Miss Ryall what the prospects were now for the FE Centre. A lot better, she said; the demonstration of local support since the Centre's troubles were made public had been extremely encouraging, the amount of money raised had been substantial, and the committee had also been able to make internal economies which should mean that the Centre was safe for the present. But even so there would always be a need for occasional fund-raising events, and the committee would be grateful for help.
The loudest applause of the evening followed Mr. Suker's thanks to Mrs. Anne Swaine; there were many Centre users among the audience, and they know just how much they owe to Mrs. Swaine's energy and hard work.
London Weekend Television's location manager Peter Hall wants to thank everyone in the town for the help and co-operation given to his team during the recent filming, particularly when plans had to be changed at short notice. We hear from other sources that bunches of flowers and nice letters were distributed, too; and we note that the churchyard grass beside the path at the west end has been neatly returfed. Benson addicts will join us in saying "au reservoir" to LWT!
Those watching the late-night horror on Channel 4 last Friday will have been amused to see the outside of the George Hotel featured, together with Lion Street, the Town Hall, West Street and Mermaid Street - and what was perhaps the old tram station at the Harbour? - in the 1973 production of "Dracula". An even earlier locally-based movie was "Dr. Syn"; it would be fun to see that again - perhaps at one of the Rye Festival children's shows? "Yellowbeard", incidentally, got the most dreadful reviews and seems to have sunk without trace, so doubtless it will surface on television in due course!
A flashing blue light up at Hill House last Tuesday evening had us worried - but Michael Bourn tells us that it was just an exercise. Five machines were there, manned by the retained firemen from Broad Oak, Battle, Hastings (The Ridge) and Rye, and they were primarily practising the use of breathing apparatus - both the actual wearing of the equipment and the back-up which goes with it. Since the "bodies" being rescued were those of volunteer student nurses from Hastings, there is always plenty of enthusiasm from the firemen for this job! We thought readers who also saw the flashing light would like to know that it wasn't for real; and of course, care was taken that the hospital's patients should not be alarmed by the firemen's activities.
3.
THE RYE GAZETTE 14.3.1984
This year's Pancake Race on Shrove Tuesday, in aid of Community Centre funds, was luckier with the weather than in 1983, and was run over the full course in the section of the High Street which can be bypassed by using East Street though not, of course, by the patient lorry waiting to deliver to one of the shops along the race route! The Committee is grateful for the strong support from so many catering establishments in the town and hopes to raise at least £300 in sponsor money. Perhaps a compliment should be tossed off here to the George Hotel, who unexpectedly and promptly produced a smart scarlet loudhailer for Mrs. Kathy Varley when hers died on her just before the first race!
Runners included four each from the Saltings and the George, three from the Union, and two each from the Hope Anchor, the Crown and DS & P. Others ran on behalf of the Mariners, the Mermaid, the Ship, the Old Forge, Shades (in the High Street), Casa Conti, the Ferry Boat, the Globe and the Ypres Castle. The Champion’s Race was between the winners of the previous six runs - Philip Meyer of the Mermaid, Sean Cumming of the George, Derek Bayntun of the Old Forge, George Johnson of Shades, Michael Heffernan of the Globe and - from the barmaids race - Fiona Gasson of DS & P, suitably attired for "running for the bar" as her label proclaimed with careful ambiguity. Sean Cumming won and was presented with a handsome frying-pan with the compliments of the Sussex Express, who had also contributed towards the prize money for the whole event.
Refreshments were served in the Community Centre after the races, by Committee members and their friends - cups of tea, and lovely gooey pancakes dripping with sugar and lemon. Visitors were able to admire the new arrangements in the Centre's foyer, with a sliding glass partition for ticket sales, etc., between it and the new office; there are, we hear, further improvements in hand, quite apart from the wheelchair loo.
In partnership with Lee Sulsh of Rye, Stephen Tarrant (junior, he says firmly) of Glencoe, West Undercliff, is sounding out the possibilities of opening a weight training centre in Rye. Interested people are asked to sign one of the notices distributed around local sports clubs and schools, and also in Ashbees the butchers, Williams the greengrocers, and of course The Kettle o' Fish on Strand Quay where Stephen works with his parents.
To make such a project viable, some 200 members would be needed, using the centre perhaps twice a week, and if there is enough interest Stephen would hope to open in the autumn, by which time he and Lee will both be trained instructors. He emphasises that this is not solely an entertainment for strong young men who want to be stronger - that is weightlifting, and we shall not be seeing enormous men raising enormous weights and looking like Mr. Universe! Weight training is quite different, and modern facilities cater, says Stephen, for people of both sexes and aged from 9 to 90. He would hope to hold sessions during the day for older people, and for those sent by physiotherapist or doctor. There is weight training offered in Hastings, but what he has in mind is more elaborate - and already interest is being shown by Hastings people.
We shall hope to report further on this interesting plan - what Stephen and Lee need at the moment is plenty of signatures on their notices.
The Wears of Point Hill wish they knew more about the forces stationed in their house during the last war. We asked Peter Batcheler of Cooper Road, who was here as a lad then, and he says that there were two detachments of Canadians stationed in Rye, the Royal Canadian Artillery and the Toronto Scottish. He remembers the latter particularly; they did a lot for the townspeople, and held Christmas parties in the Monastery (then a church hall) for the children, handing out "candies" sent from home. When, one year, they were moved to Burwash just before Christmas, the CO made arrangements to send them back to Rye specially so that the children should not miss their treat. But Mr. Batcheler doesn't know if they were based at Point Hill. Probably someone else does, please?
4.
110 people meant extra chairs (and donations of £115) at the NSPCC's Annual Meeting at the FE Centre on Wednesday - well over the usual number, Anne Wood told us, and obviously drawn both by the centenary year and by the speaker. The Lady Moyra Campbell, CVO, had come overnight from County Tyrone, and after lunch with the committee she had found herself wondering "does anyone in Rye do anything else except for the NSPCC?" The Central Executive Committee was, she said, most grateful for the Branch's outstanding support, particularly in this centenary year with its appeal which could, after all, only happen once in our lifetimes! Lady Moyra spoke of the early history of the Society and wondered what the founders would make of today's situation, with medical care unbelievably advanced and nutritional disease largely vanished - but still, the Society estimates, one child a week dies, and some 50,000 a year suffer major mental and physical damage, at the hands of the parents.
Lady Moyra then turned to the Society's work in Northern Ireland, running pre-school playgroups in the worst areas. She said that the benefit was not only to the children but also to the mothers - sometimes the fathers - who in their turn tried to help the Society's work from their extremely limited resources. Schools and local businesses, also with no money to spare, often helped in kind by making things for sale or for use in the playgroups. Many of the mothers were single parents - unmarried, sometimes widowed in the troubles, or with husbands on long jail sentences - and sometimes the playgroup organisers found themselves "carrying" a family which would otherwise have disintegrated. Finally, she spoke of the Society's staff themselves - sometimes in dangerous situations, or worried for their own families: "Remember us in your prayers" she said, and she spoke straight from the heart.
Earlier, Chairman Mrs. Beryl Rixon had referred to the honorary membership of the NSPCC Council conferred on Mrs. Anne Wood last year and had thanked her 17-strong committee for all their hard work during the year. Mrs. Wood presented her Secretary's report, and also the Accounts in the absence of Mrs. Amos, the branch Treasurer. The total amount sent to HQ in 1983 was £5,645 - less than last year, but then the 1982 total had included the proceeds of both the 1981 and the 1982 Raft Races, such a successful fund-raiser for the Society. Once again the Branch was most grateful to its anonymous and extremely generous donor, who had herself been ill-treated as a child and was determined to stop it happening to someone else.
The house-to-house collection had broken all records - £924. Other funds had come from sales, coffee mornings and carol-singing, collecting boxes and garments sold at the Thrift Shop. This year the Society is aiming at an extra £12m to build up its resources, so we shall undoubtedly be reporting on its events again.
Many of our readers very much enjoyed a small book published last year by Peter Ewart - "Let's be Men, Let's be Ryers", an account of his uncle Cecil Rhodes. He tells us that he still hears from old Ryers about that book and the people mentioned in it. Now he is working on a book about his great-grandfather Edwin Thomas Rhodes (1847-1930) and life in Rye during that time, and for this book he is seeking a particular photograph. Edwin had seven children, and Mr. Ewart has pictures of all of them except the eldest, Alice (1874-1958); can anyone lend him a picture of Alice? She married James William ("Dapper") Martin, and they ran both the confectioner's shop in Bridge Place and the fishmonger's in Landgate until some sometime between the wars. They had, Mr. Ewart thinks, three children, one of whom was Bruce "who may have worked for Dawes Son & Prentice at one time". Is there a reader who might have, tucked away somewhere, a photograph which would include Alice Martin nee Rhodes? Or, failing this, could anyone help Mr. Ewart with an address for any of the Martin children? There must, he says, be someone in the town who still remembers the family! Mr. Ewart would also be very pleased to hear from anyone with whom he is not already in touch who remembers Edwin or his family; any snapshots or documents would be treated carefully and returned promptly. Contact Mr. Ewart.
5.
• Ryesingers and their friends were much puzzled by a recent report in the East Sussex News that the choir had given £500 to a centre for young, handicapped people. Wires had evidently been crossed - the actual donors were Toc H members from Beckley! Jim Sargent of Beckley, who has strong family links with Ryesingers, has been a Toc H member for 50 years; and for the last two years the choir has given a performance of their Gilbert and Sullivan production at Beckley in aid of the Toc H appeal. But the balance has been raised by innumerable coffee mornings and jumble sales in the village itself, and the last thing Ryesingers want is to claim credit for this splendid achievement. The centre, incidentally, is a national Toc H venture to be opened at Crawley, and it is really a magnificent achievement for this very small Beckley group to raise so much money towards it.
• In mediaeval times, it seems, a woman who proposed matrimony on Leap Year Day and was refused could take the man concerned to court for damages. The girls at the Union Inn weren't going that far on 29 February; but they raised £11 or £12 in the pub's RNLI box by charging £1 a time to those who refused their proposals.
"Suppose someone had accepted?" we asked. "It didn't arise" said Vivien, whose idea it was; "we only asked the married ones!"
• Planning: one item in the weekly list and two Conservation Area advertisements. A Fairlight man is applying for change of use for 22 Winchelsea Road, from light industrial to storage and sale of motor cars. It is proposed to erect a garden summerhouse on land at the back of Burnhams. And there is an interesting proposal for alterations to form a dental surgery with a self-contained flat above it at Wall Cottage, next door to the Town Wall car park in Cinque Ports Street.
• Rye Magistrates recently fined two people for having no television licences. Both were first offenders, so the maximum fine of £200 was not imposed; but the colour-set owner had to pay £70 plus £20 costs, while a black-and-white set cost its owner £35 plus £20 costs. (In addition, of course, each had to buy a licence.) We thought this was just worth mentioning.
• Doubtless it doesn't really put a great deal on the rates, but people in Udimore Road and Cadborough Cliff are getting rather annoyed at the way their streetlights are on all day - presumably due to faulty timers. It is not only the new lights (all except one) which are misbehaving in this way, but also the older ones - of the type which the County Council claim are so expensive to run! We passed this complaint back to Lewes some weeks ago, but nothing has been done.
• We are reminded by Miss I. Phillips and Mrs. Cowper, both of whom were among Rye's very early blood donors, that for a long time the transfusion sessions took place at Chequer in East Street, where Mr. Caswell Bowen the dentist had his surgery and home. Mrs. Holmes had also mentioned this, and we are sorry we omitted it from the original story in GAZETTE no. 73.
Miss Phillips also tells us that she was one of the pupils at Mrs. Sellman's little school which was held in a cottage on the site of the present Council Offices and about which Mrs. Hill wrote in GAZETTE no. 57. Talking of schools, we were delighted to receive a most interesting article for future use in the GAZETTE from Father Edmund, now in Manchester, about two convent schools in Rye - one at La Rochelle before WW1 (and not the same thing as the WWI hospital at Chequer next door), and one between the wars at the house where Woolworths now stands. Father Edmund is also in touch with one of the La Rochelle pupils "now rejoicing in her 85th year at her convent in Harrogate". All will be revealed as soon as space permits!
• Not much purely local crime in the press book recently, we are glad to say - mostly thefts from unattended cars; but Rye Magistrates have remanded until 4 April a number of people charged in connection with the theft of £220,500 - worth of pictures from a house in Northiam on 24 December. According to the TVS report, the arrests were made in Dover.
6.
Our worried remarks about the garden of the Ferry Road site (GAZETTE no 73) have now been overtaken by events. Mr. Hudson tells us that the little fountain is stowed away safely for the present. In order to save labour, his staff have now levelled the ground and it will be put down to grass and then mown in the normal way. The topsoil - of which there was more than was needed for this - has, rather pleasantly, been taken up to the Baptist Burial Ground at the end of Watchbell Street to refresh the impoverished earth in the garden beds there.
The works now proceeding at Gibbet Marsh are a prelude to its becoming a paying car park this summer. Rother's engineers at Battle say that they are definitely not proposing to tarmac the whole thing; the access road will be tarmac, but this will stop roughly where the fence now is, and the stone is to be used to fill in the dip just beyond it. The rest of the field remains field. They are going to seed over the bare earth beside the new access road, and do what is necessary to the footpath at the side; and a ticket machine will be installed.
Parkers who have paid may not be pleased, we suspect, to find that there is no exit in the direction of Strand Quay for people with wheelchairs or even pushchairs of any size; an ordinary gate from Gibbet Marsh onto the railway's land seems to imply a way out, but almost at the end of the path a kissing-gate prevents it.
Buyers and sellers alike are reminded about the Thomas Peacocks PTA 50:50 Auction on Saturday afternoon at The Grove; goods to be delivered on Friday evening from 6 to 8, or from 8.30 to 11 on Saturday morning. Viewing is at 1, selling at 2. Forms are obtainable from Penny Royal in the High Street or from the school (see GAZETTE no. 71 for full details). Saturday's congestion has been relieved by Playden WI, who have moved their jumble sale at the Playden WI Hall to the following Tuesday, 20th, instead.
Rye, Winchelsea and District Branch of the RNLI is holding a wine and cheese evening at the Community Centre on Thursday, 22 March, at 7. Invitations are going out to regular supporters, but the Branch will of course welcome all who would like to come - admission is £1.50 in aid of Branch funds. A film, "The Making of a Crew", will be shown, and there will be the chance to buy RNLI goods.
Miss Josepha Aubrey Smith tells us that on Sunday, 15 April, the garden of Iden Cottage (on the right of the Tenterden Road towards the far end of the village) will be open to the public from 2.30 to 6, in aid of the National Gardens Scheme and Queen Mary's London Needlework Guild. The lovely spring flowers will be augmented by a plant stall, and tea. This rare and pleasant event is always much enjoyed, and we mention it well in advance for those who would like to make a diary note now.
Town Diary alterations: there is no Attic Sale at the Community Centre on 13 May - the next one will be on 10 June. The Rye Festival Spring Fair on 14 April will be at the FE Centre, not the Town Hall. And the next two meetings of the St. Mary's Tuesday Club will not take place on the usual second Tuesday of the month, but on 17 April and 1 May.
Strictly speaking, Greyfriars at Winchelsea is not in our area. But the chairman of the League of Friends, Ron Dipper of Battle, tells us for the Diary that his committee has three events planned for the summer. There will be no fete this year, but instead they are holding a Strawberry Tea, with music provided by members of the Thomas Peacocke School orchestra, at the home on Saturday, 30 June, at 3. Mr. Dipper assures us that this only conflicts with the middle Saturday of Wimbledon, not the crucial final one! Much earlier, there will be a coffee morning on Saturday, 7 April, from 10.30 to 12 at Greyfriars; and one in Rye, at the Social Services office in Cinque Ports Street, on Thursday 2 August at 10.30.
7.
The upper room in Ockman's Lane was full for the Annual General Meeting of the Friends of Rye Art Gallery last Tuesday (6th). The Chairman, Mr. Tony Sandeman, said that the group had 375 members, whose continued support for fund-raising activities was a great help to the Gallery. The Friends had been responsible for three exhibitions among those held during the year in the main gallery: the memorial to William Warden, the Admiral Lord Nelson exhibition, and Margaret Barnard's retrospective show - all very much enjoyed. The year's accounts were presented, and approved; and there were no new nominees for the Committee. Reports from the sub-committees on talks and fund-raising were given, and two additions to the permanent collection were on view - an Epstein drawing of a child's head presented by Mrs. McKechnie, and a painting by Mick Rooney bought by the Friends. It was mentioned later that a catalogue of the Gallery's permanent collection was in preparation.
The question of the Easton Rooms was clearly in the front of everyone's mind. Mr. Sandeman explained that the building was the property of the Trustees, to do what they liked with, and the gallery it contained was administered by the Friends on behalf of the Trustees. Profits go back to the Trustees, while the Friends have undertaken to bear any losses; in this connection, Mr. Sandeman pointed out that by not charging rent, etc., the Trustees do in fact contribute towards the Easton Rooms' expenses, so this arrangement is not as unfair as it seems.
In order to make full use of the main Gallery in Ockman's Lane, Mr. Sandeman continued, the Trustees were anxious to increase their income; and to sell or let the Easton Rooms would be one way of doing this. But the Trustees were very conscious of the part the Rooms played in the life of the town, and they had proposals to make which would constitute a new approach to both galleries. These would be put at a meeting in a few weeks' time, and he would be reporting to the Friends on the outcome. Several speakers from the floor asked that if there was any likelihood of the Easton Rooms closing, an extraordinary meeting of the Friends should be called so that members could make their views plain; and in fact, views and suggestions were being put freely anyway by various speakers (though, we should perhaps add, the whole proceedings were entirely decorous). The impression was certainly given that many of those present were, in practice if not in theory, Friends primarily of the Easton Rooms.
Reporting for the Easton Rooms sub-committee, Eric Money said that the High Street gallery had nearly 15,000 visitors last year, and gross sales figures of £26,000 were up by almost £7,000 over 1982, making it one of the best small selling galleries in the southeast. It is one of only two non-municipal galleries in the area on the Arts Council list of selected galleries, which means that artists who exhibit here can apply for grants towards their costs. We don't want to lose it, he said in effect; and his audience certainly agreed with him.
Since both the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Trustees (Mr. Sidney Horniblow and Mr. Ralph Wood) were not present, Mrs. Phoebe Merricks spoke for the Trust. She thanked the Friends for their support and hoped for "a closer and warmer relationship between Friends and Trustees in the future". Hear, hear!
All current GAZETTE subscriptions expire at the end of March. They may be renewed as follows:
either For the 12 weeks from 4 April to 27 June (no issue on 25 April) ... £3.00
or For the 23 weeks from 4 April to 26 September (no issue on 25
April and only two in August) ... £5.75
Subscriptions can be sent to 94 Udimore Road or (marked for the GAZETTE) to 5 Bridge Place. Cheques should be made payable to THE RYE GAZETTE; if you send cash, do please put your name on the envelope too or we shan't know who it's from! Might we respectfully suggest that people who are apt to forget should send us a cheque now, post-dating it to the end of the month?
8.
Thursday, 15th TPS Parents Evening - Upper VIth
Friday, 16th WI Market reopens, CC, 10 to 10.45
Museum Association, "Maritime Pictures, Port of Rye" (Laurie Band shows slides from his collection), all welcome, FEC 7.30
Saturday, 17th Bonfire Boys jumble sale, FEC, 10 to 12
Women's British Legion coffee morning, Red Cross, 10.30 to 12
TPS PTA 50:50 Auction, The Grove (see page 6) - viewing 1.0, sale begins 2.0
National Trust, "Behind the Scenes at the National Trust" (Norman Price), CC, 2.30
Monday, 19th Monday Club, Clinic, 2
Wednesday, 21st Thrift Shop (receiving only), Red Cross, 10.30 to 12.30
WRVS AGM, FEC, 3
TPS Parents Evening, 3rd year
• Many - if belated - happy returns to Mrs Lily Sinden of Udimore Road, who celebrated her 80th birthday last Tuesday.
• Tickets for the TPS production of "Guys and Dolls" on 29 to 31 March are now available at £1.30 from the school, either via a pupil or direct from the stall just inside the main entrance (The Grove) from 12.45 to 1.10 daily.
• All Upper School parents received a note about head lice recently; they will be glad to know that the inspection last week revealed no new cases of this tiresome infestation.
• Readers may have noticed that reports from the world of music are not the GAZETTE'S strong point. But it would be very pleasant to record local successes in the 1984 Hastings Music Festival, if people would be kind enough to let us know?
• Rye's two Guide and two Brownie companies held a joint Thinking Day Service conducted by the Rev. Stuart Davison at the Baptist Church on Sunday, 4 March.
• The ladies of Greyfriars do enjoy a bit of knitting, but we hear that the home has run right out of the odds and ends of wool which they make into blanket squares. If anyone has any spare knitting wool, it would be gratefully received either at the WRVS office at the FEC, or at the Wool Shop in Cinque Ports Street, for passing on to Greyfriars.
• Donations of £50 from Cadborough Jubilee Social Club have gone recently to the Friends of Rye Memorial Hospital, to the Community Centre (for its wheelchair toilet fund) and to the Friends of Hurstwood Park Neurological Centre.
• Rye and District Branch of the RNLI has received donations totalling £256 in memory of the late Mr. Claude Rackett, headmaster of Broomham School at Guestling.
• The coffee morning in aid of the Arthritis and Rheumatism Council last Friday at the Community Centre raised a gratifying £120.
• For those with nearly new clothes to sell who do not wish to wait for the monthly Thrift Shop here, we are asked to point out that in Trinity Street, Hastings, there is a shop run by Mind in aid of the mentally ill - the proceeds help to run a day centre in Hastings. Open Monday to Friday from 10 to 4, it keeps 50% of the purchase price of a garment. (Commission at the Thrift Shop, run for the Red Cross, is 25%.)
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 spare copies are available at Squirrels, 9-13 Cinque Ports Street, Rye. (Copyright Mary Owen 1984)