Jimper Sutton tells us that the figure for the Bonfire collection will be some where over £700 when all the boxes have come in. This includes money collected by individual charities for their own funds - Lions and NSPCC among them, while Michael Bourn reports that the firemen's group picked up £176 for their National Benevolent Fund, £103 of it garnered by just one very persuasive collector!
We mentioned some of the evening's problems (heavily outweighed, we hasten to add, by its pleasures) to Jimper, and he told us that next year may well see a differ ent system of management; there are just not enough Bonfire Boys - about six in all, we understand! - to run things as they would like and to make all the torches, etc., beforehand. They need help; and we hope to report in due course that they will be getting it.
From Monday (14th) Rye Police Station will close from 10 pm to 6 am every day until June, when it will be open all night again during the summer season (GAZETTE no. 125). All phone calls to Rye 222112 after 10 pm will go through to Hastings Police Station, as will calls made on the phone by the door at Rye by people who arrive at the station for help only to find it closed. Hastings police are of course in touch by radio with the officers patrolling in the Rye area, whose number will be increased once there is no need for a man at the desk all night.
But, adds Inspector Northern, IN EMERGENCY ALWAYS DIAL 999 ANYWAY; help comes quickest that way, whatever the problem.
It was such a small ceremony to hand over such a very large cheque, down at the Sailing Club last Wednesday. Three RNLI officials - Ian Wallington from Poole, his successor as Area Organiser Mike Ashby, and John Caldwell, assistant lifeboat inspector for our eastern end - arrived expectantly, and sat through the Branch's regular but brief committee meeting waiting for the big moment. They had already had £1,000 to help with fitting-out expenses for the Lifeboat House; now Cdr. Colin Marsh, chairman of the local RNLI Branch who organised the appeal, handed them a cheque for £16,451.13 as Rye's contribution towards the building costs of £1,000. In addition, some £7,000-worth of materials had been given by local eirms; and the balance was made up from the £13,500 legacy of the late Mrs. Violet Burnham of Feltham. A handsome plaque was handed over by the RNLI officials recording the gift and listing 43 companies and organisations which had contributed; it also commemorates Mrs. Burnham and Humphrey Lestocq, Eric Frith of Brede, Henry Froggatt of London, Ernest Furness of Beckley and Ernest and Beatrice Beeching of Rye Harbour, in whose memory money had been given to the Appeal. There was a third presentation, too - this time from the crew to the committee, as a thank-you for all the work put into the Appeal: the last of a limited run of Rye Harbour lifeboat plates designed by Mary Lestocq and produced by the Cinque Ports Pottery some years ago. All in all, a very satisfactory finish to an appeal which took little more than a year to reach its target!
Prodded by one of our readers who took full advantage of British Rail's November 1984 offer to holders of Senior Citizen railcards, we made enquiries about this year's plans. There is to be a concession again this year, and leaflets are being issued on Friday; unofficially, we hear that the E2 day returns are back, while other fares are linked to the standard Saver fare for the journey (up to £20, concession fare C4; up to £40, a; over E40, £12). Full details will of course be on the leaflet; leaflets will be at Rye Station next week; the only difficulty is likely to be in finding the station open when you call to collect one. (See page 5 in this connection.)
2.
Mr. Victor Wear died in hospital on 2 October, from head injuries received when he fell from a tree he was lopping in the garden of his home at Point Hill. He was 51, and leaves a widow, son and daughter. He died as he had lived, memorably. As a baby, he was smuggled from his native Russia by an aunt married to an English army officer. At the age of 13, he cycled from his home in the New Forest to visit his adoptive father, then stationed at Loch Lomond; two years later, he cycled 1800 miles round postwar Europe. Sandhurst was a prelude to eight years in the army, but his career also encompassed work in advertising, computers, marketing, travel, and notably four years as commercial director of British Rail's Seaspeed Hovercraft subsidiary in the early 1970s. He brought his family to Northiam in 1966 and in due course opened the Bistro in Rye High Street, which he ran from 1975 to 1978 with great success and no previous restaurant experience (his blackboard comments will remain a legend). After a couple of years in Brighton, he remarried and returned to Rye, and he and Josephine set to work restoring Point Hill, the house built by Sir Reginald Blomfield for his own family. Victor had turned his hand recently to writing a series of Bon Appetit restaurant guides - like his blackboard, these were immensely readable, often potentially libellous, and much enjoyed. A small mainly pub-based charity organised by the Wears was for several years the source of private funding for local people in need, and Victor will be remembered gratefully for this. What will certainly not be forgotten, either, is his cheerful optimism, his funny stories, his larger-than-life personality regarded with much affection by his wide circle of friends. Cremation takes place privately on Tuesday; there will be a memorial service in St. Mary's at a date to be announced later.
A certain dissatisfaction has been expressed by regular Library users about the system of classification brought in earlier this year, under which novels have been arranged and labelled according to type rather than author. So the staff have obligingly been having a move-round, and readers will now find fiction arranged according to author, in alphabetical order; but the classification letters will remain on the back for people who prefer to choose by subject.
The WI Group Home Economics Show was, as usual, mouthwatering. But there was, unusually, a hard-news story attached to it this year. The Peasmarsh entry in the co-operative cookery class was there - most of it, anyway; but one or two items had a slightly dishevelled appearance, and the Peasmarsh entry for the pedestal flower-arrangement class was missing. Miss Fillery and a friend had been driving the exhibits into Rye down the hill, and pausing at the Dead Man's Lane turning had been shunted into the Mountsfield wall by the car behind. Her car was considerably damaged fore and aft, and both occupants were much shaken - though the enquiring ambulance was not needed. They retrieved what they could of the cookery, and the final installment was delivered to a worried FE Centre by Rye Police! In fact the co-operative cookery Silver Cup was won by Beckley, whose ten items gained four gold stars and 207½ points - "simple and uncluttered layout" said the judge approvingly. Rye (194½ points) and Playden (191) fought hard for second place, followed by Iden with 179½ and an unbowed Peasmarsh with 175½. (The judge's comments, taken altogether, included advice not to use paper plates, over-elaborate crockery, plastic flowers or a metal flask for soup - worth remembering for next year.)
There were 104 cheese scones on display, 26 entries; the cold sweets looked utterly delicious, and the temptation to swirl a finger was almost irresistible; the flower arrangements - from the big pedestals to the 17 4" miniatures – were delightful. But the judge didn't seem very keen on the standard of the half-dozen bottles of wine; and whatever has happened to hens these days? There were three classes for eggs - and just two entries altogether! Results: Silver Challenge Cup for garden produce, Iden with 462 points and four gold stars; Pottery Cup for flower arrangements, Iden (2864 points); the Ada Banister Cup for preserves, Iden (1684 plus four gold stars); Silver Rose Bowl for cookery, Rye (474i and one gold star). 35 gold stars were awarded in all: Playden and Beckley, 11 each, Iden 9, Rye 3 and Peasmarsh 1.
3 - THE RYE GAZETTE, 9 October 1985
The Rye Hospital Action Group has already begun to seek support, but its main plans will depend to some extent on what happened at the League of Friends AGM last night (on which we shall be reporting next week). However, the Group is very keen to hear what people think, and letters should be addressed c/o The Post Office, Rye. At present the members are Jake Jacobs of Beckley (chairman), Mrs. Muriel Mayer (secretary), Mrs. Sue Thomas (PRO), Mrs. Gill Wood, Mrs. Maureen Hinch (Playden), Mrs. Ruth Lawson-Tait (League of Friends chairman, from Pett), Ed Wiseman and Dr. Jeelani; they may be co-opting others with useful experience later.
Most guest-house proprietors are used to making beds, but not the way Ernest Thompson of Church Square makes them! Annoyed that he couldn't buy a reasonably-priced four-poster for the best bedroom at The Old Vicarage - there is nothing like a fourposter to attract guests, he says - he decided to make one, and hit on the happy idea of building simply a decorative frame to fit over and round the existing divan bed. The turned posts supporting frilly Valances appealed to his visitors - so much so that he has now supplied two beds to the States and two to Wales; a magazine advertisement produced a further ten enquiries. The beds can be made to any size or height, and the Thompsons' leaflet makes it easy to measure; if required, Mrs. Thompson will make up customers' own material into a set of drapes. The whole package arrives in kit form requiring half-an-hour with a screwdriver: what a super anniversary present!
ESCC's Education Department, having decided to make sixth-formers' parents pay for their children's bus passes and then claim part of the money back, duly sent the refund cheques last week. Each cheque was thoughtfully made out to the pupil - and crossed A/c Payee. Unless the child has a bank account, therefore, there is no way either parent or indeed pupil can get hold of the money except by sending the cheque back and asking for it to be made out again! It wasn't, of course, the fault of the charming and harassed girl in the office at County Hall, points out PTA secretary Hilary McDonald; she was merely the one having to soothe irate parents at the other end of the telephone...
Three Rye applications in the current list: a proposal to convert 55 Winchelsea Road into two flats, a request from Tuckers' restaurant in The Mint for an externally illuminated hanging sign (measurements not given) at first-floor level, and reason for the elaborate scaffolding which appeared opposite the Market Road turning recently. This is a joint repainting job for Serendipity (which needs no planning permission since it is to be the same colour as before) and Frank Golden, for which a dramatic change is proposed, coming before planning at the end of this month. The plan is to burn off all the white paint from the brickwork, and then repaint the woodwork (only) in magnolia with sign-writing and shop-front window trim in matador, a dark burgundy red. The intention is to restore the building to its original appearance as far as possible without embarking on an entire new shop-front; the brick will emerge as much the same colour as that of the Iron mongers Extraordinary at the other end of the High Street, Mr. Fassum tells us.
One of the Local History Group members who went to see the archaeological dig at Broomhill, Camber - now filled in again for the winter, with plans to continue next year - gained a very special pleasure from the visit. She used to know the area when she was a small girl before the war, and remembers her grandfather standing in that particular field and saying "Many years ago there used to be a church here". There was certainly no evidence of one then, and she put it down in retrospect as one of grandfather's tales. She was therefore really thrilled to see the uncovered walls bearing out his story, and wished he could have been there to see them too. But how, we wonder, did her grandfather know?
4.
On Bonfire Night on Saturday, the Mayor and Mayoress supported by the Town Clerk entertained the Chairman of Rother and his wife, plus the Mayors and Mayoresses of 15 local and not-so-local towns, to a buffet supper at the Saltings Hotel. From its balcony they were able to watch the procession - and later the fireworks, glimpsed between the big chestnut trees on the Salts which had not been warned to shed their leaves a month early! The Mayoral guests included Roger Breeds's colleagues from Ashford, Bexhill, Deal, Faversham, Hastings, Hove, Hythe, Lewes, Lydd, Margate, New Romney, Ramsgate, Sandwich, Tenterden and Worthing - all wearing their chains of office and with 13 chauffeurs manoeuvring mayoral cars round the back of the Saltings. It was clearly a very enjoyable party.
Rather less clear were some aspects of the organisation at street level. The procession finally set off in fine style, excellently supported by visiting Bonfire Societies and lit by torches, accompanied by bands from Hastings, Tenterden and Cranbrook and two groups of Majorettes, and led by Miss Rye with the Guy bringing up the rear. It moved at a tremendous pace, but nevertheless the fire was well alight by the time most people reached the Salts; the firemen turned up with the ceremonial chair at the appointed time and place, ready to chair Rye Fawkes and his box of matches down to the bonfire, only to see it burning away merrily in the background. Why, people are asking, does the fire have to be lit first nowadays, so that its glow spoils the full effect of the fireworks? And why isn't the Guy burnt? (Jimper Sutton - see front page - blames the manpower shortage; they have no-one available to guard the fire as the crowd arrives.) Anyway, it was a good bonfire, and lasted a long time, and the fireworks were also much enjoyed, with more set-pieces this year than we seem to remember before.
Rye Fawkes 1985 was Radio Kent presenter "Bearded Weirdie", alias Richard Brignall (whose niece is manageress at Blacklocks in Cinque Forts Street); he brought with him his wife, and a most endearing baby.
David Arscott of Radio Sussex, Pat Cole of the News and your Editor, together with Rye Fawkes, judged the fancy dress at the Community Centre. Most of the prizes went to the beautifully-outfitted contingent from Littlehampton, so the judges were particularly pleased to find that they had awarded the under-14 prize to Vivienne Harrow of New Winchelsea Road, looking delightful as a fortune-teller from the Mysterious East. Runner-up to Vivienne was a very small and solemn Red Indian; best female costume award went to an imposing mediaeval lady, with a slim Redskin coming second; best male costume, a Napoleonic soldier, with the small Red Indian's dad as runner-up; and a superb three-strong Tudor group won the award for the best-dressed group. Later, the trophy for the best-dressed visiting Bonfire Society walking in the procession went to Uckfield's Knights and their Ladies. The floats were a bit thin, but the commercial award was well earned by the enormous Olau Lines ferry from Sheerness, complete with lights, music and passengers and loudly applauded by the crowd as it edged its way with difficulty under the Landgate Arch. Best non-commercial tableau was "Pett Rescue Goes West", the Red Indian outfit, who had better luck with their generator than did Rye Lions' pirate ship. The walking group from the newly-resuscitated Rye Scouts, complete with genuine trek cart, won the Youth Award; and we must not fail to mention the British Legion's striking backdrop of a scarlet poppy on white, all made from twisted tissue paper; British Telecom's yellow submarine, with moving fish; and the Bill, Ben and Little Weed walking group which never got to the Community Centre at all because nobody told them. Also represented in the procession were mixed groups from Lewes, Littlehampton and Battle; East Hoathly's cowboys and Indians; Burgess Hill's superb Aztecs; Newhaven's musket eers; the Spaniards from Rotherfield and Mark Cross; the Mayfield Victorians; Samurais from Crowborough, and smocked farmers from Hailsham.
The police report nothing untoward either during or after the procession - they make a point of keeping a special eye on the traditional trouble-makers now. Balloons and luminous necklaces were in demand, and the hot-dog stands and candy floss on the Salts did a good trade in the darkness; but older people thought a trifle wistfully of the splendid Dragon, the Burning Boat, and those delicious bloaters whose memory lingers on...
5.
What are British Rail playing at? "Trying to make it look as if Rye Station doesn't need to remain open" says one suspicious traveller. On Monday there were some 30 people waiting for the 9.05 train to Hastings. The ticket office was shut, and the harassed inspector on the train hadn't finished writing the tickets by the time the train reached Hastings. "Pay when you get off" he said crossly; "the chap who ought to be on relief duty at Rye decided to stay at Ham Street!"
There is a problem with the buses, too. We recently quoted the bus office as saying that apart from losing the Sunday buses to Hastings there were only "minor alterations" to the weekday services. Minor alterations be blowed! Without specific warning or consultation, the 9.0 am bus from Hastings to Rye has simply been taken out - so there is no more 9.30 bus for Icklesham people with doctor's appointments, shoppers or children who have missed the school bus. The next one gets to Rye at 10.45, which doesn't leave much of the morning for those with a dinner to get. The bus company says that they had to choose between scrapping that bus and the one at much the same time via Fairlight; since there was another an hour later on the Icklesham route, the Fairlight bus got priority. This is no comfort to people who have to be at work or the doctor's by 10, especially as the earlier bus, arriving in Rye at 8.35, cannot be used with the cheap concessionary fares. Icklesham's image as a village with a reliable hourly bus service is sadly dented!
Rye Old Scholars Association is hoping to raise money for a memorial prize at Thomas Peacocke School to commemorate the long teaching career at Rye Grammar School of Miss Edith Turner. Miss Turner, who lived in New Road, died a year ago at the age of 85 (GAZETTE no. 104). Those of her pupils who would like to be associated with such a prize should send donations to Mrs. Dale (who used to be Beryl Coleman), Marchmont, Loudens Wood Lane, Chalfont St. Giles, Bucks.; the fund, says the Old Scholars' newsletter, closes on 31 December.
As well as the OSA Stone-Age Reunion at the George on 30 November (contact John Smith, 75 Ferry Road about this), the Association holds its Annual Dinner at the Hope Anchor on 19 October (contact Mrs. Sue Moore, 9 Barrack Square, Winchelsea). The London Area Reunion is on 4 November in the bar of the Albert pub in Victoria Street. There will be the usual Recent Leavers Plus get-together at the Queen's Head in the Landgate on 27 December; and long notice is given of the 1986 Annual Reunion, at the Mermaid on 4 April, and the Leasam Reunion at Leasam on 22 March. Friends and relatives of ex-Grammar School pupils might like to pass on these dates to those now living away?
The GAZETTE - and probably every other office in Rye - is delighted to see the arrival in Cinque Ports Street (15/17, ex-Hamilton Galleries) of Cinque Ports Stationers. Even while they were still redecorating, people were popping in to ask "Will you be keeping so-and-so? Oh good, then I shan't have to go to Hastings any mores", so this is clearly a real service shop for which there is a real need.
Cinque Ports Stationers either stock or can get at a couple of days' notice a vast range of office requirements of all kinds, from furniture to paper-clips, and the gadgets are glorious; they also offer good prices on the staple diet of paper and envelopes of every shape, size and type. A fat catalogue shows the range from just one of their suppliers, but if what you want isn't there they can get it from somewhere else in no time.
The firm has a printing works at New Romney, but there is no need for Rye custo mers to go outside the town since orders can be dealt with at top speed through the Cinque Ports Street shop, and quotations usually given on the spot for straightforward orders. And they have, in Rye, a commercial-scale photocopier offering enlargement and reduction facilities as well as a whole keyboard of other marvels. Welcome indeed!
6.
This is the time of year when Rother Council committees submit their financial forecasts, and we have extracted from various reports items to interest Rye. The Sports Hall (tenders were being considered at a meeting last night) is due to cost £100,000 in the course of this financial year, with a further200,000 in 1986/7. Battle, presumably with a later start, will only need £50,000 this year, E250,000 in 1986/7. (The Sports Council grant of £50,000 for Rye is con- tingent on work being under way before the end of this financial year.)
The plan by which Hastings and Rother were to go halves on the cost of a museum curator, the Rother half being occupied primarily with Bexhill Museum, has come to grief. So Rother is now considering proposing to the Bexhill Museum Associ ation that a grant of £8,000 could pay a curator there, perhaps with some responsibility for other museums in the District later if required.
The three football pitches on the Salts were hired out 33 times last winter, a sad decline from the 75 hirings of 1980/1. Use of the cricket pitch has also declined, perhaps reflecting the summer's weather: 53 hirings in 1985 as against 66 in 1980. But income from the pitch has risen from £379 five years ago to £536 this year. Net income from the Bowls Green was £1,976, with the season not ended when the report was prepared; this includes some 1,200 hirings of woods and/or shoes by visitors. The Putting Green had over 9,000 players during the season, 1,250 down on last year, but at £2,980 when the report was written, income was almost exactly similar to that for 1984.
The Housing Committee heard that cavity wall insulation was going into houses in Lea Avenue and Mason Road as part of Rother's condensation curing programme for 1985/6. Work is planned for roofs in Lea Avenue, and for rewiring in Potting field Road; new sinks will be going into some houses in Mason Road, Marley Road, The Close, Lea Avenue and Pottingfield Road, and new baths in The Close. (But don't get too excited; some of these contracts are still to be finalised!)
Another big one to end with: the Magdala House site in Ferry Road. This comes into the capital expenditure programme, and will cost £378,000 for 12 sheltered units; the £50,000 site already belonged to Rother, and funding for the new Day Centre comes from outside. This time last year the plan had been to start in April 1986 and finish in March 1987 (i.e. within one financial year), but the starting date is now given as July 1986, finishing in July 1987. Demolition work cost the Council just over £8,000, though it had been quoted as £12,000 in 1984 when the total cost was to be £396,000.
Once again the Headmaster of Thomas Peacocks School has issued a very comprehen sive document detailing the school's public examination results last year.
In the fifth year, 234 out of 238 pupils took either GCE, CSE, Pitmans, RSA and/or City & Guilds examinations - some of them following newly-introduced courses. Of the 161 GCE candidates, 128 gained at least one GCE or equivalent at A/B/C level, and 40 had six or more such grades; there were also 81 Grade 1 CSEs. Mr. Fooks remarks on the "large number of outstanding individual achieve ments and high grades in this year".
97 sixth-formers also took O-levels, often one-year courses topping up good fifth-year results. Sixth-formers taking City & Guilds courses gained 20 distinctions, 42 credits and 25 passes. A-level totals were almost identical with last year's except for a slightly higher pass rate (over 70%); there were 9 grade-As, 10 Bs, 16 Cs, 17 Ds and 44 Es. (E counts as a pass at A-level but not at 0-level; whatever else is finally altered in the public examination system, the terminology could do with a rethink!) When the report was written, soon after the beginning of term, 8 sixth-formers were due to go to university, 11 to polytechnic, 5 to a college of higher education, 4 to art foundation courses, and 6 into professional training.
"We take pride in our achievements at the end of another difficult year" adds the Head. Congratulations!
7.
• The local branch of the East Sussex Association for the Blind holds its annual coffee morning/bring-and-buy sale at the FE Centre on Saturday week, 19th, from 10 to 12. On sale will be goods made by local blind people, and Christmas cards for a home for blind children; plants, produce and cakes; books and bric-a-brac, and a raffle. Donations and items for sale can go to Mrs. Nelson-Barratt at North Salts or Mrs. Alford, Meadowside, Winchelsea .
• Friends of the Day Centre are invited to a coffee morning at 10.30 at the Baptist Hall on Tuesday, 22nd, to meet the Tuesday members. There will be a bring-and- buy stall and gifts on sale, and proceeds will go towards Day Centre funds.
• With increasing numbers of members on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Day Centre team could do with more helpers; the more there are$ says Barbara Wild, the easier it is to arrange a rota so that no-one has to be over-committed. They particularly need drivers. Offers to Win Allen for Tuesdays or Barbara Wild for Wednesdays.
• Seeing our appeal for Brownie uniforms, Frank Dowdeswell wonders if we can do anything for his Scouts? He would be glad not to have to ask the lads to buy new uniforms if second-hand ones can be found. They need the khaki-green shirts and itawn trousers, and also some "Rye Neckers" - red scarves with green trim. Any efers to the Wool Shop in Cinque Ports Street, Mr. Dowdeswell would also like to put together a record of Scouting in Rye since it began; there are some photographs, etc., in the troop's collection already, but if anyone can lend him photographs or cuttings of whatever vintage which he can copy for his scrap-book he would be very grateful. In particular, he would like to know more about Captain Cory, and his association with Baden-Powell.
• Glittering in Saturday's sunshine, but very appropriate for Bonfire Night too, was a handsome brass fireman's helmet. Robert Peek has it for sale in the window of Holloway House, and tells us that it had belonged to his great-grand father, the father of Rye's centenarian Mrs. Edith Peek; the photograph beside it shows Mr. Salmon in the complete uniform, worn when he was fireman at a London theatre. Pyromaniacs should enquire about it from Rye Antiques.
• No brass helmets at the fire in Church Square not long before the start of the Bonfire procession; but, says Michael Bourn, a neighbour dialling 999 gave a text-book example of how to make an alarm call - town and street first, so that the firemen can be on their way, and then the other details at dictation speed so that the 999 operator can get it down first time. In consequence the fire engine was there just four minutes after the alarm was received. Neighbourhood watch was working well; they had two calls on 999, the second from a neighbour who heard a loud bang next door and bothered to investigate. The fire had started in the cupboard under the sink, and the bang was an aerosol can exploding; apart from a burnt sink unit and a houseful of smoke, no great harm was done.
• The latest issue of Radio Sussex's magazine "Sussex Scene" is now available, free, at the Eastbourne Mutual Building Society's office in the High Street. Sailors will want to read Candida Watson's account of her Fastnet Race (in which John Hoyle gets a mention); there is a competition for a half-hour radio play, with entries in by the end of January 1986; details of a sequel to "Hidden Sussex" - People of Hidden Sussex", also by Warden Swinfen and David Arscott, due out soon; a four-page sports section, a programme guide and other information useful to the increasing number of regular local listeners to this, our local radio station. The VHF Heathfield transmitter moves from 103.1 MHz to 104.5 MHz at midnight on 21 October, but our 258 medium wavelength remains unchanged.
• We are often asked (three times last week) to advertise events taking place outside Rye. The Editor is sorry, but the answer is normally "no" - unless she can be convinced that it is something of quite unusual interest to readers. The GAZETTE is intended for Rye people, and its general policy is only to preview events that Rye people can - within reason - reach on foot. But we would very much like to see someone start a GAZETTE-type paper for the villages?
Thrift Shop, giant clearance sale, Red Cross Centre, 10.30 to 4 Coin Club, "Campaign War Medals" (Peter Silk), FEC, 7.30
Civil Service Retirement Fellowship coffee morning, FEC, 11 Nat.His.Soc., "Fungi" (Mrs. Wynne-Ruffhead), FEC, 7.30
Coffee morning for WI funds, 67 Pottingfield Road, 10 to 12
Scouts jumble sale, Scout Hut, 1.30
Sea Cadets Michaelmas Fair, CC, 2.30
Tilling Society's annual day out in Rye
Service for 75th anniversary of Guide Movement, St. Mary's, 3.15
Wednesday, 16th Thrift Shop, Red Cross Centre (handing-in only), 10.30 to 12.30
• The open meeting of the Rye Council for Voluntary Service arranged for 26 Octo ber at the Town Hall at 7.30 has been postponed until Thursday, 21 November.
• The National Trust has two events at Winchelsea New Hall in the coming week:: a talk by Mrs. B. Prestage on "The Pilgrims' Way in Kent" at 7.30 on Tuesday and a Bridge Afternoon at 2 on Wednesday, 16th.BR's weekly press release says nothing about engineering works on Saturday, so presumably the trains will be at the normal times. On Sunday, however, they will not, and there will be buses/diversions between Ashford and London. If it really matters, best to check about both days.
• The RNLI gratefully acknowledges the receipt of £300 from Richard Pearce, the landlord of the Ypres Castle, the result of the cricket match held on the Salts on 28 September.
• Over 90 sackfuls of clothes and blankets left Cherries for Mexico on Thursday, by courtesy of Bournes, plus a further 1+2 sackfuls from the Baptist Hall. Pickfords tell us that the Mexican Government has now closed the appeal, so they won't be taking in anything more at the St. Leonards depot.
• A reader has 18 months' worth of "Punch" which she is loth to throw away but doesn't know what to do with. She lives away from Rye, but can get them here. Would anyone like them? Ring the GAZETTE.
• The RNLI and the WRVS are both most grateful to Mrs. Irene Playford, of 67 Pottingfield Road, who has sent each of them a cheque for £89 as a result of two recent coffee mornings. Mrs. Playford is At Home again on Saturday from 10 to 12, this time for WI funds, and will be pleased to see friends both from the Estate and from the town in general.
• We reported last week that Harvey Osborne is stationed at HMS Sultan at Ports mouth. So, says John Ciccone, is his daughter Jo, and David Payne is about to complete the Rye triumvirate there.
• It was over-pessimistic to say in a recent GAZETTE report that the Tourist Office in Cinque Ports Street had closed for the winter. True, Mrs. Leopold and Mrs. Bylake are no longer there, and the office is now only open from Monday to Friday during normal hours (it closes for lunch); but the permanent staff are still just as willing as before to match up visitor and accommodation, or to suggest outings and hand out literature. Worried landladies, relax!
• The removal of some boarding at Ann Lingard's new shop has revealed the old sign in a first-floor window embrasure: "Sussex Stores, Fremlins Ales and Stout" - a lot of people bought their beer from Mrs. Chapman on the corner of Rope Walk over the years. Ann says that the sign will have to be boarded up again in order to preserve it, so feed your nostalgia now or never.
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; a few spare copies are available from Squirrels, 9-13 Cinque Ports Street, and back numbers from Cyprus Place. (Copyright Mary Owen 1985)