A full account of this appears on pages 4 and 5, though doubtless many of our readers were among the enormous crowd which overflowed down the Town Hall stairs!
It was a proud occasion for the local Guide Movement when 12 companies of Guides, 14 Brownie packs and two groups of Rangers assembled in St. Mary's on Sunday afternoon to witness the dedication of their beautiful new Divisional standard. Each group also brought its own standard, and they were carried up the aisle, stacked beside the altar during the service, and then - the sun glinting on the brass trefoils - paraded proudly out again. The County Commissioner, Miss Natalie Webber - with her own personal standard - was accompanied by the County President Lady Buckhurst; Miss Bryson, the Rye Divisional Commissioner, was also there, of course, as was her predecessor the present Vice-President Mrs. Watts. The Mayor and Mayoress were among the very large congregation. The service was taken by Canon Maundrell, and the preacher was the Rev. Mike Havill, our new Camber-based vicar and himself the father of two daughters. Nigel Spooner was at the organ, and Lois Benton's Thomas Peacocke Guide Company formed the choir for the hymn specially written for the Movement's 75th birthday this year, which they had sung at the Albert Hall some months ago.
The church had been specially decorated by the Flower Guild with blue and yellow flowers, the Guide colours, and Doris Henley's embroidered pulpit-fall vividly displayed the Guide emblem. It must be years since St. Mary's saw quite such an overwhelmingly female congregation; there were Guides and ex-Guides of all ages (and your reporter was illicitly wearing the silver badge which her grandmother had worn as New Forest Divisional Commissioner 70 years ago), plus a few dads, grandads and little bruvvers. The beautiful new standard was displayed by Mr. Havill for all to see; it had been embroidered by skilful fingers from all over the Division, including those of Mrs. Jenny Fairhall of Iden, and those Guides who wished had had the opportunity of putting in a stitch or two themselves (Miss Henley tells us that all the 1st Rye Company did).
After the service, when the last twittering group of little girls and the final bemused tourists had left the church, all the Guides and Brownies assembled at the FA,Centre to eat their tea. How many, we asked? No idea, said Miss Henley; but they all got fed!
... NSPCC Branch Secretary Anne Wood has been spending the evening at the Camber Sands Leisure Park, and finally she got her reward - a cheque for £4,000 for the Society's funds. Every week she spoke briefly to the holidaymakers about the Society's work, sold raffle tickets, watched the auction of items which visitors had contributed, folded up the raffle tickets, organised the draw, counted the money - and went home after midnight. On Saturday, 5th, there was a special dinner as part of the caravan park's Owners' Weekend, with an extra-big raffle, and this was the occasion when the presentation was made. Anne would like to thank Les Evans, the general manager, the entertainment manager Robbie Ellis and his wife Kim for their help. We are quite sure that the local Branch would like to thank Anne. The idea, she told us, came from the company, prompted by the owner whose late wife had been a keen NSPCC supporter.
We are very glad to hear that the recent tragedy in which an NSPCC inspector failed on the job seems to have had a quite unexpected effect on the Society's fundraising; people have been producing cheques, saying "I have been meaning for ages to give you something", and the result of the recent house-to-house collection is expected to be a record, though the final total is not yet available. The NSPCC's next event in Rye is a Christmas coffee morning on Wednesday, 11 December, at the George; and they have already booked in a jumble sale for 1 February at the FE Centre.
2.
Mrs. May Berkley, of Iden died at her home on 9 October at the age of 89. Although increasing disability over the past months had meant that she was only able to enjoy her beautiful and beloved garden from a wheelchair, she had been trimming back the lavender only a few weeks ago - her many friends will recognise this as absolutely typical of this energetic and much-loved lady. She had been much involved with Red Cross work since her girlhood, when her Croydon home was given by her parents for use as a convalescent home during WW1 and she worked there as a VAD; at the end of the war she went to France as an ambulance driver. When her banker husband retired, some 30 years ago, they chose Iden for their home, and Mrs. Berkley will long be remembered in the village as the moving spirit behind the Good Companions Club and also the Flower Show. But her interest in the welfare of elderly people was not confined to Iden. She helped to set up the network of clubs for pensioners in the area, which are still run by the Red Cross, and she did a great deal of work for the Welfare Section generally. In 1976 she was awarded the coveted Certificate and Badge of Honour by BRCS, and she was also a holder of the British Empire Medal, given for her Red Cross work. Mrs. Berkley leaves two daughters and two sons, nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren; her grandchildren have come from half-way across the world to be present at the funeral, which will be taken by the United Reform Minister from Bexhill at Hastings Crematorium at 3.30 today (Wednesday).
Mrs. Violet Joan Curd, of South Undercliff, died in hospital in Brighton Sunday. She had been ill for some weeks. Mrs. Curd, who was 69, was the widow of Councillor Dickie Curd, and had been the verger at St. Mary's in the days of the Rev. Oscar Brooks. She had no children. The funeral takes place on Friday (25th) at St. Mary's at 10.45, followed by cremation.
Our Rural Development Area has now acquired a face: ne face of Mr. Leslie Bulman. Mr. Bulman, who is 36, has been appointed as the field officer for the RDA (we reported two months ago that the job was advertised). Mr. Bulman was born in Newcastle and has spent most of his life in the industrial North, where he was a civil servant for 14 years before entering Oxford University in 1980 on a two-year trade union scholarship to study politics and economics; since 1982 he has been an undergraduate and research officer at Sussex University. He is, says the ESCC press handout, deeply interested in people and their problems and has a wealth of experience in community, voluntary and charity work. Mr. Bulman will be based at the Sussex Rural Community Council offices in Lewes to begin with, but hopes to move into the RDA before the end of the year. We look forward to meeting him the and to being able to tell readers more about his plans.
When we were asked to find a flat for Scots writer lain Finlayson, we settled him very happily in Church Square; he liked it so much down here that he has now bought a house in Hastings, and we hope to record in due course the publication of the books he was working on here. The flat he vacated was promptly let again for the autumn, but will be empty once more in mid-November, and Joanna and Eric Le Fevre of 44 Church Square are looking for a tenant for the next six months. The flat, on the top floor of their house, has a superb view over the marsh to the sea; with its own entrance, it has a sitting-room, kitchen and bathroom, plus two bedrooms of which one is double. A non-smoking tenant, Joanna says, would be preferred. Phone her.
Rye is to be featured on both radio and television before the end of this week! Tomorrow, Radio Sussex's Lunchdate 27 programme will be an extended one, the first official broadcast from the new studio converted from the old police cell in the Town Hall. It will run from 1.10 to 2 (as usual, on the 258 medium wave- length only):, and local listeners may be sure of hearing various familiar voices on it. Next day (Friday, 18th) TVS is showing the "Rye in December" programme in its Country Ways series at 6.30, after Coast to Coast; we really can't remember what went into it, ten months ago - switch on and see!
3. THE RYE GAZETTE, 16 October 1985
Work has now been going on for ten days at the Baptist Church, where Ellis Bros are demolishing the old entrance steps before building a more convenient new entrance; they expect the demolition work to be complete in about a week's time. An unexpected discovery were the very stout chains, three each side, which emerged when the two side flights of steps were taken down; these, says Mr. Hall, had obviously been build into the original structure to strengthen it, but are causing the buil ders some problems - he offered his men a chain-saw, but they didn't think it was funny! There was, Mr. Hall says disappointmently, absolutely nothing in the triangular spaces under the steps (not so much as a Woodbine packet, we gather).
(Our recent report that Jane Double was the last bride to mount the original steps prompted Mr. Wyborn of Wish Street to tell us that the wedding of his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Wyborn, was the very first to take place in the Baptist Church after it was built in 1909/10 - he has the wedding photographs!)
When the Custom Paint Company set to work last week to burn off the paint - a dozen or so layers, they reckon - from the Frank Golden frontage, they thought they were dealing with a brick wall, so they were much surprised to find that the whole frontage is in fact covered in mathematical tiles. These who went on Ralph Wood's guided tour during Rye Festival will know all about these tiles, designed to make the old-fashioned timber frontage look like expensive brickwork; there is a good d_el of it about in Rye, but it only becomes obvious when repairs are done (as at the Midland Bank recently). The builders are not too pleased with their discovery, since it makes the stripping a lot more tedious; each tile has to be done individu ally, and there are a terrible lot of tiles...
Opened on Monday was the new doorway into the Post Office; the old one with its steps has been shuttered firmly off while the builders move round to that end. Mr. Clark, the Postmaster, tells us that work is likely to be finished within a month, but it is too early yet to give a definite date.
Also on Monday, the Anglia Building Society moved along the road to its new office at 92 High Street, taking the phone number with it. The handsome new double-fronted office has a great deal more room for customers (and, we would imagine, for staff) ; but for those who do have to wait, there are two delightful blown-up photographs on the wall - one looking up the High Street from the new office, one looking down, both showing the town as it was the best part of a century ago.
Another business move that has involved a lot of building work has been made by the Bistro Restaurant, now the Landgate Bistro. They have reopened in their new premises at 6 Landgate (on the left going down), where everything including the r ber of tables and the phone number remains the same - but all, so to speak, on the level, so that patrons need no longer negotiate the stairs to the basement of the Ironmonger's Extraordinary in the High Street. The Landgate Bistro opens at 7, Tuesdays to Saturdays. (We were interested to see, when their builders were at work, that the present party wall with the hairdressers next door must originally have been an outside wall; though next door is a taller house, the tile-hanging visible on the upper part of the wall in fact continues right down to the ground inside t)
Planning: the only Rye application in the current list is for a single-storey extension in Lea Avenue. We had one of last week's entries wrong: the proposal to divide one house into two was for 55 New Road (not Winchelsea Road as we said - that is where the applicant lives).
After a surprising front-page report in another paper last week, a worried Iden reader rang us: were our police, too, he asked, not interested in crime prevention? Of course they are, as all Rye knows; but we spoke specifically to Chief Inspector Dyson about it, and he said that both Rye Police and all the other stations in the County "set a great deal of store by the prevention of crime". They also spend a great deal of money on it! So keep right on Neighbourhood Watching, please, and do tell the police if anything at all odd is going on; they would much rather prevent crime than have to deal with its consequences.
4.
This, readers will recalls started life as the Annual General Meeting of the Rye Hospital League of Friends - at which, traditionally, the committee is re-elected and a satisfactory state of affairs reported by the treasurer. This did indeed happen; the League has almost £40,000 in hand, from which they have paid for various equipment and amenities for the hospital but which is still, in their view, largely intended for building on a new long-stay geriatric ward. The re-elected committee consists of Mrs. Ruth Lawson-Tait (Pett, chairman), Mr. P. Cracknell (East Guldeford, vice-chairman), Mrs. Kay Pearson (Beckley, secretary), Mr. Brian Tuck of Lloyds Bank (Peasmarshs treasurer), Mrs. Strong of Playden, Mrs. Ashby of Peasmarsh, Mrs. Daniels of Guestling, and Mrs. Hemmings and Mr. Phil Ellis of Rye. They obligingly identified themselves to the audience, since many of those present didn't know who they all were.
Back in August the committee had invited as speaker at the AGM the new (since April) general manager of the Hastings Health Authority, Mr. A R Martindale. They had intended to grill him on the proposal to axe Rye Hospital once the new one on the Ridge at Hastings was opened in 1992 - a proposal revealed in the HHA's Strategic Plan published in February and reported in GAZETTE no. 119, 120, 123 and 127. This, doubtless, would have drawn a good many people to the Town Hall on Tuesday.
However, the audience was vastly increased by those appalled at the threat reveal a month ago (GAZETTE no. 146) to close the hospital "temporarily" as a cost-cutting exercise to help the HHA out of a short-term financial difficulty. The hall itself was full, of course, with some of the Town Councillors sitting on the magis trates' bench and steps; the ante-room was full with people standing, hardly able to hear but persevering all the same; and to begin with there were even people sitting on the staircase, though they tended to drift away when they realised that they could neither hear nor see anything at all. Mr. Martindale knew just what Daniel felt like in the lions' den!
He duly said his piece. The proposal, he repeated, was only a contingency plan demanded of his District Health Authority by their masters, Region, and Hastings had told Region (who don't meet until January) that they would in fact consider such a step unacceptable. The money which should have come to our District for 1936/7 had been mopped up elsewhere in the Region, but he assured us that it should be restored for 1987/8 - hence the "temporary" nature of the closure (but the quotation marks round that word are intended to reflect the very obvious opinion of the meeting on this sccone). As for the proposed permanent closure in 1992, he told us how lucky we would be to have a nice new hospital with all sorts of modern goodies on the Ridge; doubtless, his listeners felt, it will be very nice - for - people who can conveniently get to the Ridge in the first place...
Then, of course, there were questions. We could take up the entire issue with a report of the debate, but other things have been happening in the town too, so it seems best simply to summarise the different aspects of the argument. First of all, put very strongly by people who remember the hospital being built, was the sentimental one: Rye should not be robbed of what Was raised as a memorial to our war dead. (Quite honestly, we don't feel that this is going to carry much weight with the HHA nowadays.) Secondly, an argument which is emotional rather than sentimental, and with which all our readers will agree: our people want to convalesce - or to die - among familiar surroundings and friendly faces, and we don't need the costly facilities at Hastings, which can be better employed cutting down the waiting-lists. Thirdly, the matter of outpatients of various kinds (day care and physiotherapy recipients as well as minor casualties and those who have appointments with the Hastings consultants who come over here): what will happen to them? Will the hospital car service and the ambulancemen go quietly mad trying to cope with the extra work? And how much longer will the waiting-lists for appointments at Hastings get? Fourthly, the running expenses of the hospital: various points were made in this connection, which the Action Group were noting down and will undoubtedly be using as ammunition, so we will not damp their pwoder by listing them here; but it seems clear that with a little more co-operation there are economies to be made.
(continued...)
5.
The document which people were signing at the end of the meeting was not, strictly speaking, a petition, merely a list of those willing to support the Action Group in its defence of the hospital. It has since been distributed to a large number of places in Rye and the villages, including the churches, voluntary organisations and pubs, and copies are available in many Rye shops, including Adams, Kettle o' Fish, Rye Fashions, Baxters, Terry's DIY, Huffs, Boots, Ironmongers Extraordinary, Fruits of Rye, Maison Fleur, the Dairy Shop, Rye Cleaners, Thunders, Blackmans, Horrells, and Longs (who were, it will be remembered, so successful with a petition in other circumstances a year ago).
What the Action Group really hopes for are letters of support, far more effectivethan merely names. These can be left for the Group c/o Rye Post Office; they are all photocopied and one set of copies will be sent to Ken Warren, MP, and another to the Community Health Council whose job it is to act on behalf of our
community in this fight. Please, if you can bring yourself to put pen to paper, do so; it needn't be a long letter, but it really will help.
At the recent meeting at the Community Centre to discuss the formation of a morning WI in Rye, a fair amount of interest was expressed; but they need 20 members to start a new group, and this is more than they have so far. There is therefore a hecond chance for people - particularly the young mums - to show interest, at a second meeting upstairs at the Community Centre on Wednesday of next week, 23rd, at 10.30; if the idea of a morning WI appeals to you, please turn up then or it may be too late. Rye WI normally meets on the second Wednesday of every month at the FE Centre at 7, and new members, or those thinking about joining, are very welcome then - whether or not the morning group (an idea which came from Head Office) ever gets off the ground. Playden WI, of course, meets in the afternoon.
A casual visit to Rye Tiles in Wish Ward recently sent us away giggling at the work of Michael Avery of Marley Road, who has been a painter there for some years. Michael has a special talent for caricature, and he can produce an entire mural of tiles to suit a particular setting, or just the odd joke on a single one. The set we were admiring elms a beach scene, which must he seen to be appreciated, and he is currently working on a Derby Day backdrop to go to Kentucky. Like all artists, Michael works to his own timetable, and it is wiser to cheese from what is available than to wait for a specified subject; but for those who want some thing new, different and very amusing in the way of tiles, Michael's work should be looked at.
Also at Rye Tiles, a third-generation potter has made his business debut. Josh Cole, aged 8 and finding himself in need of cash, collected up his output of raku pottery, wrote out a sign and instructed his mother Biddy to put it on sale at the Old Brewery - and to make very sure, he added, that he got the money! Will an early Josh Cole be worth rather more than 50p one day, perhaps?
Keith Williams of Northiam is in his third year at Thomas Peacocke School. He was the lad who was so successful raising money for Ethiopia at Lower School last summer; now he is about to appear (tomorrow and Friday, BBC1, 4.4o) in a children's show called "Beat the Teacher". This is pre-recorded, so we can reveal that in this somewhat complicated game Keith has already won £170 for a good cause nominated by the school (the Sports Centre has been chosen), and if all goes well he may find himself going to London again on Sunday to make a second batch of recordings and earn yet more money. Teachers Barry Fuller and Francis Paintin are also somehow involved in this, and Vicky McDonald of Brede is Keith's reserve - a coachload of supporters from school and family went up last Sunday to cheer Keith to success.
Congratulations, too, to another third-year pupil, Gillian Hunt of Peasmarsh, one of 100 winners out of 10,000 entrants in a competition run by the National Children's Homes; her prize, a Raleigh bike, was presented to her by a NCH representative in Lower School on Tuesday. Gillian is the daughter of George and Norma Hunt, both on the staff of Thomas Peacocke School.
6.
Lamb House has had some extremely distinguished occupants since the Lamb family built it in the early 1700s; last week the present tenants, Sir Brian and Lady Batsford, played host on consecutiv days to admirers of twe of their predecessors.
At lunchtime on Friday, representatives of the National Trust at regional and local level raised their glasses to Henry James - who looked back quizzically at all of them in that disconcerting way that some portraits have. The local Centre had offered to pay for a full-size replica, to be hung in Lamb House hall, of the portrait of James by Sargent - the original in the National Portrait Gallery, a copy in the Town Hall. In this context, replica means a photographic reproduction - but put aside all thoughts of a straight colour photograph: This is a picture which even shows the original brush-strokes, and in its period frame will certainly deceive the casual glance. Henry James was very pleased with the original:
"Sargent at his best and poor old Henry James not at his worst; in short a living breathing likeness and a masterpiece of painting. I am really quite ashamed to admire it so much and so loudly it's so much as if I were calling attention to my own fine points. I don't, alas, exhibit a 'point' in it, but am all large and luscious rotundity - by which you may see how true a thing it is."
Professor Powers of Michigan University, who kindly sent us that extract from one of James's letters, was among those watching Mrs. Mary Weslake unveil the portrait; a distinguished James scholar, he has been working for several months in Rye. Also present were National Trust officials including the Regional Director Arnold Kingston and the Historic Buildings Representative Peter Miall, and the committee of the Trust's Rye and Winchelsea Centre (Mrs. Weslake is the Centre's chairman). Mr. Kingston expressed the gratitude of the Trust to Sir Brian, who suggested the portrait, and to the local Centre who financed it. The original was paid for by 270 of James's friends and admirers as a 70th birthday present in 1913; now that another 70 years have passed, it seems fitting that this one for his old home should be paid for in much the same way:
Lamb House remains open until the end of this month, on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, so there is still time to see both the Henry James portrait and the wealth of other James material which the Trust has in its care there. Most of the literary establishment figures of the period visited Lamb House during James's time there, and a wall of drawings shows many of them - Wells, Kipling, Chesterton, Arnold Bennett and Max Beerbohm among them. (A much earlier and inadvertent visitor was the shipwrecked George I, of whom a portrait hangs in the small room leading to the garden - looking impeccable last week, as always.) In the Telephone Room, along with photographs and drawings relating to the house, are some of James books, salvaged after the 1940 bombing and sorted by the late Gilbert Fabes when the National Trust took over the house. The dining-room has paintings by old and modern artists (including Brian Cook Batsford) of scenes which James would have known and also a delightful model of the Garden Room, presented recently to Lamb House by its American maker.
On Saturday afternoon the members of two fan clubs, the Tilling Society and the EF Benson Society, stood applauding when Sir Brian's ingenious "curtain" over the new plaque beside the garden door was lifted aside by the Mayor. The slate tablet, on which Michael Renton carved the lettering, commemorates EF Benson and his brother AC, both of whom had lived at Lamb House; EF, of course, installed first Mapp and then Lucia there, but AC's claim to popular fame arises from just one poem, "Land of hope and glory" (though, like EF, he wrote other things too). The Tilling Society had organised a petition for a plaque to EF on Lamb House, but the National Trust felt that AC should be included; eventually, we understand, the cost was shared. Mr. and Mrs. Reavell, whose Tilling Society was holding its annual day out in Rye, were of course present, as was the Society's founder Fay Hodges of Deal, the chair man and committee of the London-based EF Benson Society, and Peter Miall from the National Trust. The Mayor, speaking of his predecessor across half a century, put it all in a nutshell: "If Benson were alive today" he declared, "he would realise that Tilling still lives!" How very true, one way and another…
7.
• Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Sheather - May and Bill - who celebrated their Ruby Wedding on 5 October with a dance for 50 guests at Ma Beetons. 20 of those guests were found beds in and around the Sheathers° home in Pottingfield Road, thanks to kind friends. Mr. and Mrs. Sheather (her maiden name was Cotterell) were married in St. Mary's in 1945, and both their children were christened and married there too. Three grandchildren also shared the celebrations, which continued far into the night - a very memorable and enjoyable party.
• Condolences to Chris Ashbee of Military Road - the younger of Rye's two marathon runners - who was taken to hospital on Thursday after a serious accident near Lamberhurst which closed the A21 for several hours. Mr. Ashbee was driving his lorry when a car overtaking traffic on a bend found it had run out of room; the car driver is still in intensive care, but Mr. Ashbee was allowed home with half-a-dozen stitches in his head and a very nasty headache.
• The Tourist Office has helpfully compiled a list of accommodation available in the Rye area and has put it in the window for the benefit of visitors who arrive when the office is shut. We were mildly surprised to see that Rye has 11 hotels and inns, plus one motel, but completely astonished that there are also 37 guest houses (or anyway, people who let rooms) - and we weren't counting up the ones in the villages at all!
• The press book this week records that £120 in £10 and £5 notes was stolen from the bar of the Ship Inn at midday on 2 October; that a quantity of fish in boxes was stolen from the Fish Shop beside Monkbretton Bridge on the night of 5/6 October; and that on 8 October £150-worth of criminal damage was done to a car parked in the town centre between 7 and 9.30 pm, when someone scratched the aide and punctured two tires.
• Adams tell us what we didn't know and doubtless other people also don't, that the shop's stationery department is bigger than it looks. As well as the goods on show in the room upstairs - which includes a variety of stationery for personal rather than office use - they have items in stock which they have no room to show, while other things can be ordered, from office desks downwards, at a couple of days' notice out of wholesalers' catalogues. Through their printing department, too, they can offer excellent prices for paper of all kinds, and an urgent printing order can be dealt with very quickly indeed.
• The Post Office has been celebrating an anniversary this year - the 350th birthday of the postal service (remember, back in the summer, the 35p stamp which showed a pitman delivering in Church Square?). Last Wednesday the commemoration touched ha again when two of our postmen did their mid-morning delivery rounds dressed in scarlet jackets and tall black hats - more or less as worn by their predecessors a good many years back.
• The monthly coffee morning of the Civil Service Retirement Fellowship last week was particularly well attended, with 18 members present. On Friday, 25 October, they plan an outing to the production of "Dear Octopus" at the De La Warr Pavilion at Bexhill; members and friends should ring Jack Hemmings on Rye 225961 for seats. The group is always pleased to see new members - either ex-civil servants or their families - at the meetings at the FE Centre (watch the GAZETTE back page for dates).
• There has been a delay over the issue of the leaflets about November fare conces sions for holders of Senior Citizen railcards, which did not after all reach Ashford on Friday. However, the Waterloo press office told us on Monday that the printers had just delivered them, so they should be available from Rye, Hastings and Ashford by the middle of this week. The next jumble sale, as far as we know, is the one arranged by Inner Wheel for Saturday, 2 November, at the FE Centre at 2; they are attempting to make up the money lost on the sale of refreshments at the washed-out Country Fair, and cakes will also be on sale. Offers of jumble to Mrs. Bosher or Mrs. Vincett, who can arrange collection on 1 November between 9 and 1.
Thursday, 17th Thrift Shop, Red Cross Centre, 10.30 to 4 (and Friday, Saturday) Radio Sussex studio opens (listen on medium wave 258, 1.10 to 2) Local History Group, Library, 7.30
Saturday, 18th "Rye in December", TVS, 6.30
Presentation of Town Council Youth Award to St. John Ambulance
Nursing Cadets, Town Hall, 7
Museum Association, "Historical buildings of Rye and Winchelsea" (David Martin), FEC, 7.30
Saturday, 19th East Sussex Association for the Blind coffee morning, FEC, 10 Old Scholars Association Annual Dinner, Hope Anchor, 8
Sunday, 20th Dr. Vidler preaches at St. Mary's 300 years after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in the presence of members of the Meryon family whose ancestors first came to Rye as Huguenot refugees (GAZETTE no. 147) - 10.30
Monday, 21st Monday Club Annual Sale of Work, Clinic, 2
Tuesday, 22nd Coffee morning, with stalls, for Day Centre, Baptist Hall, 10.30 Thomas Peacocke School PTA AGM, Upper School, 7.30
Wednesday, 23rd WI meeting about morning group, CC (upstairs), 10.30 (see p.5)
• The recent house-to-house collection in Rye for the National Children's Home raised £155, plus a £10 donation, and Mrs. Florence Horner of Military Road would like to thank all those who collected and also the generous givers.
• Bowls Club members will be glad to know that Mr. George Shipton, who was in hospital in Hastings having knee surgery, is now back in Rye Hospital, where he will be delighted to see his friends.
• Rye Sea Cadets raised £240 at their Michaelmas Fair on Saturday.
• The memorial service for the late Mr. Victor Wear of Point Hill will take place on Tuesday, 19 November, at 11.30 at St. Mary's. Donations in his memory for the Intensive Treatment Unit at the Royal East Sussex Hospital may be sent c/o Mr. Peter Howlett, Goalthorpe, Point Hill, Rye.
• The proposed closure of Ferry Road early on the morning of 10 November, which we mentioned some weeks ago, will not now happen; British Rail "cannot now carry out the works as planned" on the level crossing, and can't say when they will be doing it. The milkmen -.several of whom live in Udimore Road - aren't sorry:
• Rye Players and their guests much enjoyed a Patrons' Party at the Playden WI Ha. on Friday - food, drink and entertainment went down exceedingly well.
• Rye Scouts held their first camp since the Troop was re-formed, out at Playden last weekend: super weather, and a proper breakfast cooked over a real fire.
• Can anyone speak modern Hebrew? Miss Sue Turner is learning it, and would like to improve her command of the spoken language before she goes to Israel for Easter. Messages left for her will be passed on; either lessons or simply the chance of conversation would be welcome.
• The Transport Users Group has taken up the matter of the 9.30 bus from Icklesham (GAZETTE no. 149), and Group secretary Michael Dearing would like to hear from Icklesham people affected (6 Holmhurst Lane, St. Leonards, TN37 7LW, Hastings 752424) - and indeed from other people affected by am transport cuts or alterations in our area. His Group pulls a punch that individual complaints simply can't achieve.
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)