SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE NOW DUE. If your copy is not ticked and you wish to receive the next inane (3 April), your subscription should reach the Editor at 2 Cyprus Place by this Sunday, 31 March - earlier if possible, since it takes a long time to write out over 300 receipts! We need: either ... £3.00 for 12 weeks to 26 June or ... £5.75 for 23 weeks to 25 September.Cheques payable to THE RYE GAZETTE, please; cash with your name on it; all receipts will go out with the next issue.
(Those who normally receive their copies via Lower School will find the 3 April issue at Squirrels; there is no issue anyway on 10 April, so the following one, no. 126, will be delivered to school again as usual.)
Standards at the WI Group Craft Show at the FE Centre on Saturday seemed to be higher than we have ever known them; the judges had to resort to quite tiny quibbles in order to differentiate between the gold-star twenty-out-of-twenty winners and the various lower awards. One of the most charming features of this show is the co-operative class: each Institute offers six craft items in a staged setting, to illustrate a set theme - this year, "A poem". Here the competition was close. Beckley's gipsy scene, with peg dolls and a clearly apprehensive hedgehog, won the rose-bowl with 136 points, followed by two 135-point entries: Rye's autumn scheme in reds and greens, and Peasmarsh's spring-time layout. Iden had a striking black-and-white conjuror theme (129 points), Playden recalled a tropical treasure island (128), Udimore illustrated romantic childhood dreams (127) and Rye Harbour chose the well-known poem "Trees" (122).
The silver cup for the most marks overall went to Rye, with 905; this runaway winner was followed by Playden with 6051 marks. The pottery cup went to Peasmarsh on a percentage basis, and the Imari plate for art to Beckley. Rye won the cup for the highest number of gold stars in relation to the number of entries: Rye members won 17 golds, Beckley 11, Peasmarsh 10, Iden 9, Playden d Udimore 4 each and Rye Harbour 2.
The show revealed a most interesting assortment of craft work being made locally. Plenty of expert knitting and crochet, of course; some unusual patchwork, and beautiful dress-making; things in pewter and pottery and paper; toys and tapestries; paintings and collages, many with country themes. We remember particularly some roses in the co-operative class, a lifelike toad, a silver-thread spider's web, an embroidered cushion - there was a whole class for cushions, piled up in tempting and luxurious variety in one corner of the room. In general we are not attempting to give names; but it is only right to say how very fortunate Rye WI and the Rye Group are to have a creative craftswoman of the calibre of Hrs. Phyllis Smith of Ferry Road in their midst.
Many happy returns to the new management of the WRVS Luncheon Club! Margaret and Bert Owen, of Devonport House, produced their twelfth monthly lunch for 59 happy eaters on Monday: cider or fruit juice, said the individually-written menus, followed by roast beef and Yorkshire, roast potatoes and cabbage, and sherry trifle (quite the best trifle the gluttonous Editor has tasted for years) and tea - all for £1. Margaret Owen tries to serve a meal that people living on their own would be unlikely to cook, such as a roast; and it was clear from the applause for her and her team (about eight helpers each month) that the Club is a real winner.
Mr. John Green, of Udimore Road and the Gluepot, died in a London hospital on 22 March after a long and valiant fight against illness. We shall have a full obituary next week. The funeral takes place at St. Mary's at 2.15 on Friday (29th).
Mrs. Rose Case, aged 92, died on 17 March. Born in Rye, she had for many years lived at the top of Udimore Road with her daughter Florrie, who died in 1982. Mrs. Case, who had been in a nursing-home in St. Leonards, was a widow; she leaves other children.
George Woods, of The Close, died in St. Helen's Hospital on 18 March after a short illness. Mr. Woods, a widower, was 86; he had six children, thirteen grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. He had had a variety of jobs, including crossing-keeper at East Guldeford; but failing sight meant that he had to give up work, and he will be remembered' by many people who perhap8 never knew his name, as the elderly man with dark glasses and a white stick who found his way so courageously about the town despite his disability.
Mr. Edward Percival Swan (known to his friends as Perce), formerly of New Road, died on 19 March at the home of his younger daughter Sylvia in Fleetwood, Lancashire, where he and his wife Kathleen had lived for the past 14 years. His grand-daughter Mrs. Carole Ball, of New Road, tells us that Mr. Swan was 89. He was born in one of the rooms of the Landgate arch; his parents had the shoe-shop which still adjoins it, and the living accommodation above then extended into the ancient monument. In WWI Mr. Swan went into the Sussex Yeomanry, then a cavalry regiment (he was very fond of horses), serving at Gallipoli and on the Somme. When he returned to Rye he took over the shop from his parents, and ran it until he retired in 1969. He will be particularly remembered by those who, like him, enjoyed putting on the Salts.
Mr. and Mrs. Swan had two daughters, Joyce (now Mrs. Bert Clark) and Sylvia (whose beautiful contralto voice is often spoken of), six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. The funeral is at Fleetwood, but friends here might like to send donations in memory of Mr. Swan to any children's charity.
Mr. Arthur Pope, formerly of Rye but recently living with his daughter in Peasmarsh, died on 20 March in St. Helen's Hospital. Mr. Pope was born in 1903 in Bedford Place, and went to the Mermaid Street school. At 13 he joined the Post Office as telegraph boy and then - because of the wartime shortage of grown men - as postman. In 1918 he became a milkman and - except for two WW2 years at Spun Concrete building air-raid shelters - remained in the job until only a few months before his death. He worked first for Mr. Ashbee, and then for the Ccrnish Dairies in Market Road, for whom he delivered in churns on a pushcart, ladling the milk out for each customer along the route. In 1926 he married a Dover girl who was working at the Collegiate School, and he and his wife Alice lived in Bedford Place and later in Landgate Square; they had two daughters. About this time he changed dairies again and worked for John Winter at Udimore - collecting milk from the farms and occasionally milking the cows, as well as delivering, now by horse and cart; and when in 1933 John Winter moved into new premises in Cinque Ports Street and Winters became the town's leading dairy, Mr. Pope had a motor van for his rounds. In due course Winter's Dairy moved to the old Agricultural Hall in Rope Walk, and it was from there that Mr. Pope finally retired from part-time work just after Christmas, at the age of 81 (GAZETTE no. 113). A keen playing member of Rye Football Club in his younger days, Mr. Pope was also a member of the Territorials under Captain Plews from 1935 to 1939. Always a real friend to the people on his round, both in the town and later down at the Beach, Mr. Pope's services were much appreciated; and in 1969 when he retired for the first time, from Winter's town round, his customers made him a presentation to mark the occasion.This led to an article in Rye's Own, to which we are much indebted for the information in this obituary. The funeral takes place tomorrow (Thursday) at 11.30 at Hastings crematorium; no flowers, by request, but donations can be sent to St. Michael's Hospice Appeal either direct or c/o Ellis Bros, Rye.
- 3 - THE RYE GAZETTE, 27 March 1985
For some years now the ESCC Highways Department has been experimenting with a completely new idea for improving rural transport, and the project officer for Bother, Kim Clark, spoke to the social services group about it last week. An improvement to the school bus arrangements is one part of the proposal, but there are plenty of other advantages. Kim is intending to call meetings of parish councillors and other interested parties in the areas round Rye, so that she can really get to know the needs of the district before firm decisions are made. But if this comes off, the first benefit - perhaps as soon as September - would be a County Rider bus (maybe you saw one on television over Lewes way?) serving the area of Winchelsea/Winchelsea Beach/Rye Harbour and providing transport to and from Rye at convenient times. (If the demand is there it could have a wheelchair facility.) This would take the children from the three villages into Rye - perhaps straight into the playground, thus relieving the pressure on the bus yard; during school hours it would be used for social services and other community projects, and perhaps for normal runs, and there might be an early evening service to allow for doctor's surgeries. The journeys would be timed to fit in with the requirements of the whole community, and could well provide transport to the Day Centre, to the day care project at Greyfriars, maybe to the Mencap playgroup (until they get their minibus). '.is is, we gather, not entirely altruism on the part of the County Council.
At present, they pay out for bus passes for a total of 635 Thomas Peacocke pupils as well as some of the Freda Gardham children, and it would be much cheaper to provide the transport themselves; children living within the 3-mile limit (for instance at the Harbour) could still travel on the bus but would have to pay in the normal way. ESCC would also make a worth-while saving on social services costs.
Other possibilities crowd close behind. Kim Clark spoke of a possible re-routing of the buses which at present serve Iden, Peasmarsh and Udimore, with diversions to pick up people who can't get to the bus stops under their own steam. The "trunk routes" would remain unaltered - in Rye's case, the hourly 50 route to Hastings via Icklesham, with its 799 continuation out behond Camber, and also the 12 service to Tenterden (and Maidstone, etc.); this scheme is concerned with the less frequent village services. The final step will be to co-ordinate the various voluntary transport arrangements in the area, but that - and a "Village Rider" bus service - are further down the list at present.
Anyway, nothing is settled yet, a lot of investigations have to be made; but we thought beleaguered readers would like to know that the US Cavalry is on its way!
Two of the organisations which had stands at the Rural Development Area exhibition in the Community Centre last year are combining to help local business people - or potential business people. CoSIRA (Council for Small Industries in Rural Areas) and Hastings Business Ventures (which speaks for itself) will have a representative every Thursday morning from tomorrow at the Council Offices in Cinque Ports Street, from 9.30 to 1. He or she will be able to advise people from the Rye area, either on a problem arising with an existing business or on the technicalities of setting up a new one. If he can't help, he will make an appointment in Rye or Hastings with someone who can; and there will be literature available on all sorts of topics: VAT, cash-flow, loans large and small, tax, personnel - The Lot.
The two organisations are specially pleased to meet anyone whose new business is still just a gleam in the eye, since their experience and contacts may show the way round many early pitfalls. Hastings Business Ventures (funded by local and some national companies) has been going for more than a year now, and in that time has had only two failures - and they were in projects which the group had in fact advised against. For both existing and new businesses, the service is entirely free and completely confidential - in fact, we were told, if a wife calls in to make an appointment for her husband they would not dream of pointing out that he had been to see them himself the previous week!
4.
We are very pleased to report that the Sussex Express is restoring its Rye edition as from this week's issue. The Rye and Battle editions were merged when the Rye office was closed in the summer of 1982. Your Editor was then its Rye correspondent, and after the merger the Rye content dropped so dramatically that she decided she could probably do a better job on her own: hence the GAZETTE. Of course a lot goes into the GAZETTE which would never have interested the Express, even in its palmy days; but we look forward to seeing how the new edition works out, and ask lapsed readers to give it another trial. Of course, if it's really good your Editor can put the GAZETTE into honourable retirement, flog the photocopier, take the phone off the hook and put her feet up - or start doing her duty by her grandchildren at last!
From the same stable as the Express comes Channel 5 Champion. This originated in Kent, and contained almost entirely ads from firms in Dover and Folkestone, which wasn't very interesting; but'recently Rye has been getting the Hastings edition, and though we are as usual on the extreme outer edge of the circulation area, this free sheet is much more relevant than it was, particularly for those who don't see the Hastings ads in the Observer.
A further development about to burst upon us is Pink Pages, also from Senews (the firm which took over the Express from Westminster Press). This is a guide in the style of the Thompsons Directories, but being locally designed it is likely to be more use (for one thing, they tell us that the GAZETTE is in it, which was more than we could achieve with Thoapsons, despite several tries!)
When the GAZETTE was hardly out of its infancy, we investigated the possibility of reporting Magistrates' Court proceedings. The chief difficulty was that our Courts sit on Monday and Wednesday mornings, both impossible for the Editor to attend. We would only have been interested in the results of cases affecting Rye, and the magistrates felt that this would have been a biassed approach to reporting. And finally, since the court lists contain no addresses and only the technical charge (just "burglary" or whatever, with no details) it is impossible to know in advance what is coming up when. So it seemed simplest to leave out court proceedings entirely (heaven knows, there is enough each week without them!).
However, Chief Inspector Dyson pointed out recently that our excerpts from the police station's press book only give the black side of the picture; he says sadly, when they do catch a villain the GAZETTE never reports it. This is perfectly true, see previous paragraph. And once someone has been charged with an offence, the matter becomes sub judice and can't be reported until it comes to court - which, for the comparatively minor offences we usually get round here, can be months away, when public interest in the matter has completely evaporated. A serious crime goes to Lewes anyway; and other cases can also be transferred out of the area for various reasons.Sometimes, we gather, even the local police don't always know what finally happened to the wrongdoers on whose shoulders they laid the hand of authority.
Anyway, we would like to record here and now that whereas nationally only 17% of crimes are solved, and some 38% in Sussex generally, here in the Rye Sub-Division (all 200 square miles of it) the figure is more like 50%. So when we report a piece of villainy, there is a fifty-fifty chance that the perpetrators will be caught. If, after it's all over, someone would like to tell us what happened to them, we shall be delighted to report that too.
The press book this week shows the theft of a handbag containing jewellery and other items from the staff cloakroom at Shades on Sunday afternoon, 17 March; and a Philips tape-recorder (N2219/15) stolen from an outside classroom at Thomas Peacocks Lower School. There is no mention of the theft of a car last Wednesday from its regular overnight-parking place beiside the Laundry; it was left there at 6 pm and had gone by the next morning, though a friend of the owner thinks he saw it being driven by a stranger towards Brenzett just 30 minutes after it was parked...
5.
A rather poorly-attended AGM of Rye Museum Association at the Town Hall on Friday found a tableful of goodies recently given to the Museum, or bought for its collection; they included two groups of medals, a stoneware bottle once the property of the Red Lion Inn, the town's WW2 air-raid siren switch, John Neve Masters' patent crockery - and a most interesting collection of WW2 Local Defence Volunteer documents given by Mrs. Margaret MacKechnie, whose husband Robert was the detachment's quartermaster. The town's armament, at the beginning of the war, included no fewer than 14 WWI Canadian rifles in private hands!
In his Curator's report, Mr. Geoffrey Bagley spoke about the loss and inconvenience caused by the break-in early last year; although the Museum was insured, it had proved impossible to replace the 5th (Cinque Ports) Battalion officer's sword. Another major difficulty had been the constant water penetration of the Tower's fabric, which had meant a great deal of work for the devoted team who, kept an eye on things during the winter and cleaned up all the exhibits ready for the new season; things were so bad that plastic bags had been slung beneath the windows to catch the water - "A nightmare" said chairman Mrs. Jo Kirkham.
However, the treasurer's report struck a much happier note; there was a surplus f income over expenditure of nearly £7,000, and even with £5,000 of this set aside for a contingency fund, there was still £1,962 carried over to next year, over £1,700 more than in 1983. Mr. Edwin Gibson was heartily congratulated on this excellent report, and thanked for all the other work he had done for the Museum over the year.
Thanks also went to Mrs. Audrey Bartlett, who is resigning as secretary; her replacement will be Mrs. Margaret Houselander, of Ferry Cottage, Rock Channel. Dr. Vidler, the Association's President, took the chair briefly while Mrs. Kirkham was re-elected chairman; Mr. Eric LeFevre continues as vice-chairman, Mr. Gibson as treasurer and Mrs. Hilda Nelson-Barrett as membership secretary (the Association has 180 members at present). The other committee members were re-elected en bloc. Suggestions were invited for outings for the coming summer, or indeed for next winter, and the evening ended with a slide show by Mr. Bagley of pictures taken in Venice. The Museum reopens on 4 April; do come, and bring your friends.
British Rail announces Easter travel arrangements. Saturday, 6th, will have normal Saturday service. There will be normal Sunday services on Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday; for us, of course, this means a service every two hours in each direction, with nothing at all before the 10.06 to Ashford (last train that way, 20.06), then the 11.02 to Hastings (last train, 21.02). With luck the engineering teams will have the weekend off, so perhaps we shall be spared the usual buses unless anything goes wrong; but, as always on a Sunday, it is probably wise to check before you travel.
The local Enquiries number is Hastings 429525, and they will also have details of a number of holiday-period special offers which sound very good value. For instance, for £16 for adults and £12 for children and railcard holders, you can go from Euston to Bangor for the day on Easter Saturday, with a coach tour of Snowdonia thrown in; the fare includes travel from any Southern Region station, though it uculd presumably mean a very early start from here. Cheaper trips the same day to go Sherwood Forest, the West Midlands Safari Park, and Exeter. And we also notice reductions for train travellers at Bembom Brothers' Amusement Park at Margate, and at Chessington Zoo, though it is not clear from the press handout whether these are Easter-only or not.
There is a pre-Easter start to BR's "Kids out, quids in" scheme this year, which applies to a journey within the London and South East Area (larger than the Southern Region). When one adult buys a normal Awayday fare, up to four others may travel for only Z1 each as long as one of them is a child - "Please may we borrow little Tommy on Tuesday, dear?"
6.
Once again the High Street sees building work starting on a property with no rear access, and once again parking is affected. This time it is Millers, where (as we all know by now) Anglia will be moving its office during the summer. Because it is the other side of the road from Freeman Hardy where the building work created such problems back in the autumn, it is this time a matter of taking out 3 (possibly 4) parking spaces for a 15m stretch outside the shop. The notice says that the work is expected to take 14 weeks, from 25 March to 24 July.
Rye Chamber of Trade is not very enthusiastic about this; they have written to the ESCC Highways Department deprecating the length of time and the amount of space taken up by the project. We had hoped to be able to say that the 14 weeks was a technical requirement and that the skip, etc., wouldn't be there for anything like as long as that, but Peter Shepherd of Le Fevre Wood & Royle - the architects for the work - was quite unable to be reassuring. There is a meeting between Mr. Shepherd and Chamber of Trade members today; perhaps there will be better news hereafter.
Were you ever in form 2 or 3 at Rye Collegiate School? If so, make a date with the Saltings Hotel for a meal in your old form-room; you will be surprised! We mentioned some weeks ago that Ann and Rod Jenkins were going to perpetuate the school's connection with the hotel by naming the reconstituted dining-room "The Old School Carvery", and that they were looking for appropriate photographs for the walls; in fact no-one offered them specific Collegiate pictures, but Mrs. Jenkins has assembled a most interesting collection of local post-cards, portraits, etc., of the Edwardian period when the main house was built for Kate Stonham, founder of the school. There are also two splendid Edwardian pieces of furniture, and the genuine potted palms are echoed in the attractive menu design by Mary Gibbs of Peasmarsh. The rest of the furnishings are in keeping with the period, and the joinery is the work of David Sheppard of King's Avenue. The food is very much what a lucky family might have eaten in Kate Stonham's day, and is served from one end of the restaurant so that customers can choose (and drool) in advance. There is an entrance directly from the street along the cat-walk; but former pupils are recommended to go in via the main entrance - and have a drink first in the Headmistress's study, now the bar!
Congratulations to Patric Dickinson of Church Square, whose book of poems "To Go Hidden" has been chosen as the 1984 best book from an independent press by South East Arts. The independent press concerned is the Mandeville Press, which Peter Scupham and John Mole run from Hitchin in Hertfordshire; and if you don't see the book around much, it is because it was published in a limited edition of 400 copies, and most of those were bespoken by the press's regular clientele, people with an eye for books whose presentation does justice to their contents.
Back in the summer of 1983 (GAZETTE nos. 30, 31 and 37) we wrote about the development of the Nook Beach site for leisure activities, proposed by the owners, Simpson (Rye Harbour) Ltd. Rother refused planning permission, and Simpsons appealed. In due course a November 1984 date was fixed for a local enquiry, but end of this coming April. Last week the Planning Officer reported that "the appellants have now written to the Secretary of State for the Environment formally withdrawing the Appeal. Accordingly, the Public Enquiry is now finally cancelled." He adds that Simpsons have of course the right to submit a further planning application to the Council for consideration, and if they do "appropriate consultations will take place".
This news will give much pleasure to conservationists. Barry Yates, the Rye Harbour Nature Reserve Warden, says "I am relieved that an area adjacent to the Nature Reserve and so important for wildlife will not be further developed for recreation". So are many other people.
• At the WRVS Annual General Meeting on Wednesday, Mrs. Sheila Barton thanked a lot of people - in particular her Meals on Wheels cooks, drivers and mates for their stalwart work during the snow. Thanks also went to Margaret Owen, whose WRVS Luncheon Club will have served 700 meals during its first year (see front page). Mrs. Barton referred to the Branch's paperback service for the troops; despite increased security at Lydd, the books do still get there, and the demand is unceasing. Paperbacks only are wanted, because of the weight, but rather unexpectedly Mills & Boons as well as thrillers are popular in Northern Ireland barrack-rooms; recent Readers Digests are also welcome, but not other magazines (there is a box in the Library for the books). The expected guest from the regional office failed to arrive; but the enthusiasm of the applause for Mrs. Barton from her members at the end of the meeting made it clear that the Branch was quite happy making its own extremely satisfactory arrangements.
• All sorts of requests for information come to the GAZETTE (we.were very pleased to have found a translator for a TPS pupil defeated by a letter from the Polish recipient of some clothes). We failed to find anyone who services typewriters in situ, or who mends broken china; our latest plea is for someone who does hand-washing. Our correspondent is looking for her frailer washing to be collected, washed by hand, starched (with real starch) where necessary, ironed .d delivered. Does anyone do this? For that matter, does anyone offer just an ironing service?
• We wonder how many Town Councillors (other than Geoffrey Bagley) past or present have spoken to that rather intellectual audience, the Friends of Rye Art Gallery? James Menhinick of North Salts has been fascinated for more than twenty years by "the War between the States" (he says that Southerners get hot under the collar if you refer to it as the American Civil War) - originally as a piece of military history but increasingly for its astonishing development as a split between the rural cotton economy of the South and the thrusting industrial growth of the North. Slavery, he says, was the immediate but not the root cause. He attended two seminars on the War when he was in Atlanta, and on Tuesday Town Hall hones to answer the question in his sub-title "Cui bono?" - to who. advantage was the struggle?
• A postscript to the tale of the returning train (front page last week). We speculated on what happened to Rye passengers for Ashford, but never thought about the people waiting at Ashford to come back the other way. There were lots of them - two coachloads, as it eventually turned out, including pupils coming home from Ashford schools - and some of them were extremely vocal when they finally located the stationmaster, who was apparently not aware that the train had not been and gone in the normal way. One Rye lady, we are told, noticed the five telephones in his office and remarked sourly that his station seemed to have more telephones than trains - probably true, since there was also a breakdown at the same time along the Maidstone line...Poor British Rail!
• Do you normally throw away your old newspapers? If so, could you possibly keep them until the first weekend in May? As an experiment, TPS PTA are arranging to have a bin at Upper School car park from the Friday to the Monday, for newspaper only - not magazines, not colour supplements; the firm pays much better for unadulterated newsprint. The papers should not be bundled up, just loose. If the bin attracts its full 8 tonnes it would raise over £200 for hard-pressed PTA funds; if it pulls in less than 5 tonnes it won't come back - so please help. PTA Secretary Hilary McDonald emphasises that they are not trying to attract paper away from regular collectors such as Playden Church, but are after the people who normally don't save the stuff at all. If you will have an appreciable quantity but no transport, ring Mrs. McDonald on Brede 882023, as it may be possible to arrange a collection round.
• The PTA barn-dance on Saturday was a sell-out, with people turned away at the door (sorry!); 150 people including school pupils enjoyed the music of the Catsfield Steamers, £230 went to PTA funds, and the band has been booked again for 15 March next year!
Last day of term (new term begins Monday, 15 April)
Museum Association talk "Life in the Middle Ages" Stella Pigrome FEC, 7.30 (GAZTTE no. 123)
Coffee morning for St. Jude's Women's Refuge, Red Cross, 10.30
Catholic Church jumble sale, FEC, 2
Silver Dollar Club, CC, 8 to 11.45 (GAZETTE no. 123)
Clocks go forward one hour at bedtime
FRAG talk, "The War between the States - cui bono?" (James Menhinick), TH, 8 - open to all, members or not (see page 7)
BRCS Hearing Circle, Red Cross Centre, 10.15 to 12 Bowls Club AGM, Town Hall, 7.30
• Congratulations to Nick Bartlett, son of Mrs. Audrey Bartlett of East Street, and his wife Karol (nee Marsden) who were married in Karol's home town of Sheffield on 16 March, with Nick's sister Joanna as one of the bridesmaids.
• Somewhat muted congratulations to Olivers, the High Street jewellers, whose security glass proved to be indeed unbreakable when a prospective thief attacked it with a hammer on Wednesday night last week.
• Those who would like to sponsor George Cumming in his London Marathon attempt in aid of Multiple Sclerosis (GAZETTE no. 121) will find a form at Maison Fleur in Market Road.
• Rye Police will shortly have a vacancy for a temporary traffic warden, to be based at Camber, for the five-month summer period. For further information and an application form, please apply to the Executive Assistant, Rye Police Station.
• Friday, 5 April, would normally see both the WI Market and Vidlers' monthly sale. But because it is Good Friday, the WI Market will take place on Thursday, 4th; viewing for the sale will also be on Thursday as usual, but the sale itself happens on Saturday, 6th.
• Planning: an application for new windows at 31 High Street; a signboard for the Gluepot; and a proposal from Bob Press to extend the Oasis Club to the first floor of the present building, providing a restaurant, and to move the Granary Club to the vacant second floor.
• In order to compensate for the loss of the Red Cross flag-day this year, Mr. and Mrs. Thurston are arranging an Easter coffee morning on Maundy Thursday (4th) from 10.30 to 12.30 at the Red Cross Centre (35p per person - and hot cross buns) followed by a snack lunch from 12.30 to 2 (E1.50 per person for soup, quiche or ploughman's, fruit or cheese). In Red Cross Week itself there will be a sale on 9 May - details nearer the time.
• A small group of Civil Service Retirement Fellowship members much enjoyed a theatre trip last week, to see a new production of "The Comedy of Errors". The Fellowship meets for coffee on the second Friday of each month at the FEC from 11 to 12.30; all those with ex-Civil Service connections are very welcome.
• This year's chairman of the Rye Society of Artists is Louis Turpin of Udimore Road; Mrs. Sally Greenhalf (Gris Nez View, Peter James Lane, Fairlight) continues as secretary.
• Can anyone tell Mrs. Monica Oliver whereabouts in Rye Batchelor's Buildings used to be? - or was it spelt Batcheler? Anyway, where were they?
THE RYE GAZETTE is registered as a newspaper with the Post Office, and published by Mrs. Mary Owen, 2 Cyprus Place, 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; some spare copies are available from Squirrels, 9-13 Cinque Ports Street, and back numbers from Cyprus Place. (Copyright Mary Owen 1985)