Southern Water, doubtless with other problems on their mind after The Weather, were not pleased at all to be told on Friday that a firm of contractors from Kent had just made a breach in the Harbour Road floodbank. The workmen arrived on Thursday evening, an amazed Harbour resident told us, and first made a new entrance into the land upstream from Alfords - and then continued on, straight through the bank so carefully constructed as part of the sea-defence measures! George Roberts promptly sent over a Superintendent, and the contractors made the damage good within an hour. But a tidal surge driven in by a south-west gale just could have flooded the whole of Rye Harbour; it was the principle which was worrying Harbour people.
The contractors assure us that they acted in good faith, and were simply providing manpower and machinery in accordance with the instructions of the consultant architect in charge of the proposed development; the architect is based in Hampshire, and we have tried but failed to speak to him.
At one time the owners of this site were called Cornus Properties. An outline planning application to develop it was approved by the County Council in March 1981, despite considerable local opposition. Just before this permission was due to run out, the owners (by now Merton Properties, based in the Isle of Man) applied to Rother with details of what they proposed to do. We described the plans in GAZETTE no. 78, April 1984; the development included 80 assorted dwellings, parking for 567 cars, a pub, shops, a restaurant - and (which is why the project is included in the current marina feasibility study, GAZETTE no. 203) moorings for nearly 300 boats. Despite over 90 letters of objection, planning permission was finally given in January 1985, subject to a large number of conditions some of which began firmly "Before development is commenced..."; we understand that questions of drainage, screening, materials and so forth are still outstanding. However, work had to be begun within two years (before the end of this month) or the permission would lapse - hence, presumably, the arrival of the diggers last Thursday evening.
The Planning Officer feels sure that, having established the start of the work, Merton will do no more without negotiating as required on the outstanding matters. The question of the floodbank is the SWA's concern rather than Rother's. It runs alongside Harbour Road except where it has been moved riverwards to encircle various later developments - a considerable diversion was made, for instance, when Alsfords built their wharf. If and when the Merton Properties scheme does go ahead, another diversion will be needed, after prior consultation with the SWA and all sorts of precautions. Just cutting through the existing bank to give access to the site is definitely not the answer - as doubtless George Roberts will be pointing out to Merton's architect at a site meeting today!
Barry Yates tells us that the news from the Rye Harbour Nature Reserve is better than many people had feared. There is still (Monday evening) no clear water on the Reserve - even the brackish Ternery Pool is still frozen over. But the ducks have access to the river and the shore, and managed to feed on the fields where the snow had blown off; the small birds survived with the help of feeders put out for partridges; and three Lapland buntings turned up, which means it really is cold. Some birds, including the ii4cylarks, left the Reserve entirely - Barry thinks they crossed the Channel - but have been flocking back over the past three days, a good sign.
Despite the snow on the 14th, Landgate WI members flocked to hear Dr. Yates speaking with slides about the wildlife of the Reserve; members felt encouraged to go and see for themselves - but not, we imagine, for a day or two.
2.
Mr. Gerry Phipps, formerly of Phipps & Co, died on 6 January; it is the wish of his widow that there should be no fuller obituary notice.
Miss Grace Knight, formerly of Devonport House, died last week; she was 95. The funeral takes place at Hastings Crematorium at 12.30 today.
Mr. Raymond Haffenden, of Cooper Road, died in hospital on 24 January aged 74. He leaves a widow. The funeral takes place on Thursday at 11.30 at Hastings Crematorium.
Mr. Leonard Skinner, of Mason Road, died on 25 January aged 77. He is survived by his widow. The funeral service, to be followed by burial in Rye Cemetery, will be at Playden Church on Friday at 11.
Mr. Alan Brumby, affectionately known as Brum by his friends in Icklesham where he died recently, will be remembered by Rye Players as their producer in the years after the war.
Miss Alma Oakes, whose death we reported in GAZETTE no. 208, was born in London 97 years ago; a VAD in Brighton during WW1, she went to the Heatherly Art School after the war, travelled in Italy with her father, and then settled in Veere in Holland where she ran a folk museum and art gallery. Back in England in 1939, her knowledge of Dutch was useful to the Ministry of Information. She came to live in Hylands Yard in 1964, and took a keen interest in the artistic affairs of the town; she also published a comprehensive study of rural costume. Miss Oakes is survived by her friend Mrs. Cooper, whom she regarded as a daughter.
"SNOWS SHOULDER-HIGH IN RYE" ran the front-page headline on 17 January - but the cutting which fell from the envelope sent us by Molly Parsons was from The Denver Post, the Voice of the Rocky Mountain Empire. Their snow came a couple of days after ours, and was considerably more spectacular; "Folks didn't even have to stoop to shovel snow Friday in Rye. When the white stuff is shoulder-high, you don't have to. It was that high in Rye, and residents feared more was on the way. At one point, it was coming down about four inches an hour, I measured it at 63 inches on flat ground, said Keith Baxter, owner of The Rye Grocery. As he spoke, customers stocked up on canned stews, chili and other crock-pot type stuff..."
Rye, Colorado, with a population of just over 200, is almost 7,000ft above sea level and reckons on over 220 inches of snow a year - but not all at once; this was their biggest fall in 30 years. We both had much the same problems. The schools were closed (schools plural, in a place that size?), the old people were looked after by neighbours ("people in this town are very helpful to one another"), the letters got through - but couldn't be delivered because the three postmen couldn't find the mailboxes. It was the best part of a week before the highways people (the Colorado City Metropolitan District) arrived with snow-removal equipment. And the sheriff's name? One respected in our Rye too - Mr. Bryan!
Those who used to appreciate, some years ago, the near-club atmosphere of lunchtime at The Old Vicarage in East Street will be glad to know that the restaurant there once more serves a light mid-day meal. Under its new owners Stephen and Jackie Tarrant, the big dining-room with the view across the marsh is open in the evening, and for lunch-parties; but if only a few mid-day guests are there, it is cosier in the bar with the view into East Street. Somehow the Tarrants kept the guest-house open all through the work they had done there, and among the guests was one who had been quartered there during the war, when he was called up as a land-worker. He and his wife spent their Silver Wedding anniversary in the same room he had shared in very different circumstances in the early 1940s! (No four-poster beds for a dormitory full of farm-hands...)
- 3 - THE RYE GAZETTE, 28 January 1987
At this time of year, Rye's hotels and restaurants have the chance to show local people what they can offer, since it is the season when many groups celebrate their year's work with a dinner - indeed, someone heavily involved in the town's affairs can find themselves dining out three or four days running. Two ex-Service groups held such celebrations at the weekend: the RAF Association at the George on Friday evening, and the Women's Section of the British Legion over Sunday lunch at the Hope Anchor.
Local RAFA members and their wives were joined by colleagues from the Bexhill and Battle branches for an extra-special event this year - the 40th birthday of the Northiam & Rye Branch. It started as the Northiam Branch, and also drew members from Kent until other branches opened. Its first AGM was in January 1947, but before that there had been a dinner served to 11 members at a total cost of £7.15.Od. At much the same time a dance, 2/- a ticket, raised £10.10.0d - and that was allowing for the 5 cost of hiring the Frank Chatfield Band. As chairman Brian Sealy said on Friday, anyone who could get Frank Chatfield for £5 now...! The only founder member present was Gordon Stanbridge, the branch secretary, but tribute was paid to the late Fred Humphrey who had done so much for the Association. The evening's guests included the Mayor, whose speech recalled her own WAAF service and the comradeship which made it so enjoyable (despite the chilly Nissen huts and midnight encounters with warm, hairy, slobbering - cows!) The main speaker was the guest of honour, a new and distinguished member of the Branch: Air Marshal Sir Edouard Grundy, KBE, CB, who lives in Winchelsea and is former president of the South Eastern Area RAFA. He too recalled his RAF service, dating back to Cranwell in 1926, then cast aside his notes and regaled his audience with a lively account of some of the things which had happened to him in the course of his career. None of those present will forget his picture of Winston and Eden, both stark naked beside a North African swimming-pool, solemnly sending a toy motor-boat to and fro across the water!
The Women's Section of the British Legion was revived less than five years ago, when it had a total membership of 7. Now there are 160 names on the register and 35 of "the girls" met for Sunday lunch, leaving husbands and children to look after themselves ("and make sure you do the washing-up too" had been the parting shot of one). Joan Gamier has resigned as chairman and is now president of the Section; new chairman is Mrs. Agnes Gatten of the Old Brickyard, Joan Kingham continues as secretary and Pat Magrath is treasurer. It was with mixed feelings that members heard a message from Lady Jones: she would like to have been with them, and sent her best wishes - but Sir Charles is not very well at all nowadays. Since its revival, the group has raised a total of £4,565 for Legion funds, plus £705 specifically for the Poppy Appeal; donations have gone to the Star and Garter Homes, both the Army and Navy Benevolent Funds, SSAFA, RAFA, the Burma Star Association - and the WRAC in Northern Ireland, to help provide a rest-room where the girls can relax and gossip in peace. Like the RAFA on Friday, the ladies of the Legion obviously remembered with much pleasure the comradeship of wartime days, carried on into their meetings; Mrs. Gamier urged each to recruit a neighbour or relative to join the group and help with the good work it does.
On both occasions, there were thanks both to the organisers of the event and to the staff of the hotels which provided and served such truly delicious meals.
... It must be, says Marjorie Nettle; she went back twice in the past few days to one of our larger shops to buy some more tights for her daughter - and was told both times that tights are seasonal items and they wouldn't be ordering any more "though we might be sent some". How incredibly foolish of her, she says bitterly, to expect that anyone could possibly still be selling tights to wear in February! Perhaps she should be looking for a bikini for her daughter to go to school in on frosty mornings? (We refrain from naming the shop, but they will be getting a copy of this issue.)
4.
After the exploratory meeting on 6 January, it has been decided to start a branch of the Mothers' Union in Rye. The first regular meeting will be on Monday, 2 February, at 7.30 in the St. Mary's Upper Room, when the speaker will be Mrs. Goodchild, the Hastings Deanery's presiding member. She will be talking about her wide MU experience, which includes a particular interest in the upbringing of young families. Meetings thereafter will be on the first Monday of each month, with speakers on subjects relating to the life of the family; those who would care to come along will be most welcome and will certainly not be pressed to join - indeed, enrolling member Chris Emson feels it is much best if people come to several meetings before they commit themselves. She stresses that membership is open to anyone who is willing to support the MU aims; the only qualification is that they must have been baptised (into any of the Christian churches). If you would like to know more, call at Landgate Stores to talk to Mrs. Emson, or contact Ruth Ingham at St. Michael's House in Fairmeadow.
Jo Kirkham - feeling much better, but not yet back in school - has been very much amused by some of the happenings revealed in the answers to the questionnaire about Rye as it used to be, which a group of pupils is working on under her direction. We hope in due course to be allowed to print some of the projectet findings. Meanwhile, will those who have not yet returned their questionnaires please do so as soon as possible, either to Thomas Peacocke School or direct to Mrs. Kirkham at 10 Cadborough Cliff. Anyone who would like to fill in a questionnaire and has not yet had one could ring Jo or ask for one at the Upper School office (in the pink folder by Mrs. Pennington's desk) - or we can enclose one with your GAZETTE.
Unusual lighting in the Town Hall on Thursday evening may have puzzled passersby; inside, the Town Council's planning committee and a handful of others were watching a demonstration of the three types of bulb which ESCC has suggested when we get new street lights in the centre of the town during the next two years. The lantern (light-fitting) to be used, made in two sizes and painted black, is copied from one which was taken down in the Gun Garden, and is the four-sided one with a knob on top which at present hangs from a bracket in The Mint (not the six-sided one with a rounded top and no knob, further up the street); it is costing ESCC a good deal more than a standard light-fitting would, but Ken Shaw from County Hall said that, in effect, Rye was worth it.
The Councillors made no particular comment on the lantern, but there was considerable discussion (in which members of the audience were invited to join) over the actual quality of the light (bulb) to be used. Three samples were shown: ordinary tungsten light, expensive to run and needing frequent replacement; a white mercury light, which ESCC would normally find too expensive but which they were prepared to offer here; and an amber sodium light, much gentler than those which adorn our main roads. The ESCC proposal was for tungsten in Church Square, mercury in the rest of the cobbled streets, and amber in the High Street and The Mint.
The Counillors didn't like the white light at all. They voted for tungsten in all the cobbled streets, and proposed that the amber area should be extended to Market Road which takes so much of the High Street traffic. Some thought that there were too many lights (twice as many as now), and that Rye would look like a film set. Mr. Shaw countered by saying that older people needed good lighting to avoid bad pavements, whereupon Robert Bromley retorted that it would be better to mend the pavements...
All three types of bulb, plus a fourth which may please the Council better for the cobbled streets, will soon be on display in the Gun Garden - when it will, of course, be necessary to go up after dark to inspect them!
5.
After the street-lighting presentation on Thursday (see previous page), ESCC staff were here again on Monday for a press conference about other work to be done in the town over the next few years. Graham Barnett of the County Hall information staff introduced Ralph Olesen of the Bexhill highways office to explain.
We already knew, said Mr. Olesen, that work on the Mermaid Street cobbles was already scheduled (delayed, of course, from a New Year start by the bad weather) - and arrangements have been made not to inconvenience the St. Valentine's Day wedding there! But this is not all that ESCC has planned for Rye, much of it to be done before we celebrate our 700th anniversary as a Cinque Port in 1989.
Because he finds it even more annoying than we do when a newly-surfaced stretch of road is promptly excavated down one side by the Gas Board and up the other by Telecom, Mr. Olesen started with the various utility companies. What had they got planned for Rye in the next year or so, he asked? Nothing, said Telecom. Servicing the new street lights, said Seeboard. Southern Water would be available to replace anything which was revealed as a nasty when work began. But the Gas Board, once again, has major plans; they will be laying new mains and connections in The Mint (surely they did that last year? - but apparently not), West Street, Church Square, Watchbell Street, Trader's Passage and part of the Strand. They will need temporary road closures while they do it. This will mean that our one-way and street-parking systems will suffer set-backs from time to time, with both the Gas Board and ESCC working on the roads; it is very important, says Mr. Olesen ruefully, that they don't inadvertently close both ends of the town at once! He has two meetings here this week, one with the Gas Board and one with his own staff, walking the streets to decide in situ the exact sequence of the work.
Trader's Passage is not, of course, a road, and no formal closure order is needed before work can start there, so this is where the Gas Board will be encouraged to begin. 9 March is the earliest starting date compatible with legal notice to close a road which carries traffic; the Gas Board is therefore being urged to start work in The Mint on that day, and to get a swift move-on so as to be through by Easter (they reckon on .six weeks' work there, but Easter is late). After that they will do the rest, normally working in such a way that access to a street can be either from the top or from the bottom if it is not possible to get past the digging. (Last year the Gas people were very reasonable, and appreciated the importance of the Easter trade to many of the town's businesses, and we are sure they will do their best to co-operate again.)
Fitting in with the Gas Board, ESCC has its own plans - starting with the cobbled streets and then dealing with other bad road-surfaces, repairing pavements as well if necessary and generally tidying.;.up the town in time for whatever 1989 celebrations the (new) Town Council will propose. For the pavements, ESCC are looking at smaller and tougher slabs, or perhaps even bricks, which are less likely to crack when lorries inevitably drive over them. The idea is to get the first stage finished within two years. All this will cost the sort of money most of us find difficult to contemplate: £10/15,000 per annum for three years for the new street lighting, plus £35,000 per annum for other street repairs. We shall hardly be able to claim that ESCC is neglecting us, after that little lot!
Mr: Olesen admits that all this is like papering the living-room; it gets worse before it gets better. He doesn't want to inconvenience people if he can avoid it, and would be glad to hear now from anyone uphill of Cinque Ports Street who, in the course of the next six months, has urgent need of the roadway immediately outside a house at a particular time, eg. for repairs involving major scaffolding, or even for a complicated house move or a big social event. He can't promise to fit in, but will do his best - if he knows in good time (ESCC Highways, Sidley Depot, Bexhill).
6.
A "to let" sign on the Antiques of Tomorrow showroom in Tower Street sent us to see its tenant, Simon Burke - and we discovered, after a fascinating tour of exploration, that the 17,000 sq.ft. floorspace of the old Wright & Pankhurst yard and premises includes some very unexpected buildings. The business which Simon and Robertina run - and for which she so unexpectedly drives enormous lorries across Europe - is continuing; but they now live in Playden, and have quite enough room in the Tower Street stables for the firm's purposes. So the lease of the showroom (plus, if required, one or more of the four floors above it) is for sale - details from Geering & Colyer. So is the lease of the house, for office use; and so is the lease of the - studio?
Yes indeed; Simon led us across the yard. One long stable block is visible from the street, but concealed behind subsequent building by Deans Rag Books (tenants here in the 1960s) is another at right-angles to it. Both were used by the Wright & Pankhurst business in the days before they went over to steam lorries. The firm also dealt in coal, wood and corn in a yard opposite the Post Office; they were also undertakers, and their horses were rushed up to the Town Hall when the fire engine was called out - so the stabling, with its beautiful boarded lofts above, would have been in active use before and after WW1. Between the two blocks, a narrow way leads first to the mortuary (and when Deans came to view the premises, Simon was told they were startled to find this occupied!). Past this again is a small two-storey building - small by W & P standards, anyway; the downstairs room used to be the horse hospital, and an outside staircase leads to the room above. Once, probably, this was living quarters for one of the stable-men, but it now has a big north light and provides probably the most secluded working quarters anywhere in the town centre. It even comes with its own indoor plants - the ivy overgrowing a smaller window beside the door has found conditions much more to its liking on the inside wall. Another window, perhaps to the lower room, is visible from the Eagle Road back lane - a charming little mini-church one with three lights, now blocked; and a mark on the outside of the boundary wall just could indicate the original positioning of a "W & P 1907" plaque, only one of which now enhances the Tower Street frontage.
Several years ago an old lady, now dead, visited Simon and told him that she had been born in the house (which dates back to 1880, with the stables possibly earlier still). As a girl her portrait had been painted by an American artist who used the studio and it now hangs, she said, in an American gallery. Can anyone tell us who this artist was? - and who used the studio between the wars Oswald Moser had it after WW2, and the Deans' designers used it during their tenancy. How very nice it would be to have it back in use by one of our local painters!
"You may as well see the rest" said Simon nobly, and took us back across the yard - where, when Deans dug deep for their new foundations, they came across remains of mooring piles - past the period-piece hand-powered petrol pump which still works, to the astonishment of the firm's drivers. The remarkable building which William Newton Wright and his partner built in 1907 as a fireproof furniture repository was architect-designed, and they took out a £3,000 mortgage to finance it; the builders were a firm from New Romney - possibly the parent company of what later became our own Ellis Bros? There was a steam lift to serve all five floors (the tower at the back housed the mechanism, and some of the original pulleys, etc., are still in the boiler house at the foot); the lift is still there, but by Deans' day it had an electric motor. Since the building was intended for storage, large windows were not needed, and those facing the house were subsequently bricked in; those on the top floor give wide views up the Tillingham valley and over the roofs of Rye - but we preferred to take Simon's word for it that the ladder up to the roof itself would reveal an even more amazing prospect.
The property still belongs to the Wright family. If it ever ceased to be practicable for industrial use, the stables would make the most delightful shops - and the lift could even serve a flat five floors above the street: Rye Mews?
7.
• Landlords of the Bedford Arms since November, Tony and Sandra of Mizpah in Military Road held a 1940s Night last Wednesday. The pub was packed, with most of the guests appropriately dressed (and joky prizes which would have been valued at the time, like 31b of marg!), and the music was by Vera Lynn, Glenn Miller, etc... The genuine, and super, raffle prize of a week in an apartment in Spain went to Terry Ede of Ferry Road. Delighted NSPCC secretary Anne Wood will be asked to receive the cheque for £175 later.
• The Lion Street knotter (GAZETTE no. 200) has an addition to his display in Freight Express-Seacon's side window this week - a row of elaborately knotted pulls for bell-ropes. He is Derek Lawrence, who lives with his wife Joyce on the paddle-boat Manjack; they converted her from a bare hull into the sort of boat he wanted. Until the building work started in Rock Channel, Manjack was moored there - and regarded with proprietary affection by people whose windows looked that way; she has now moved further downstream.
• With Easter very late this year, the Community Centre's Shrove Tuesday pancake race will take place on 3 March. Entries from pubs and restaurants for the usual six races (plus Championship final) will be sought by Yvonne Metcalf, but we are asked to urge their customers to sponsor the runners generously. The Community Centre has to find thousands of pounds for a new roof in the near future, so they really do need the money more than ever this year.
• Clive Wall, of Sea Road, Winchelsea, came home to tea one day last week to be greeted by his family singing "Weren't you a beautiful baby...". He doesn't mind at all admitting that he was one of the Wall babies who won the 6/12-months class in the 1938 Carnival baby show (last week's GAZETTE); his twin sister Olive now lives in Brighton. Their mother had told them that they once won a baby show, and he thinks she said it was in the Baptist Hall. (Babies Bowen and Smith haven't owned up; maybe, if they were girls, they prefer to keep quiet about having their age so publicly identified!)
• Social Services acknowledge gratefully two donations from private individuals intended to help local people. Neil Weatherall has a Samaritan Fund which he can use in small emergencies without having to go through the entire standard welfare procedure, and he had no trouble at all in spending the gifts.
• On Saturday, don't be surprised if you see a Radio 2 mike walking round the town; the hand holding it will be that of producer Michael Meech, who is putting together a talk about Rye to be broadcast in the interval of a Radio 2 concert from Hastings. This will be on 21 February at 7.30; if you want to know what Mr. Meech will say about Rye, note the date in your diary - but he is likely to be civil about us, since he tells the GAZETTE that he and his wife come and stay here from time to time for the sake of their sanity!
• We wrote some time ago about "the council house in Church Square" - a Rother-owned three-bedroomed house in need of considerable modernisation, which the
Council was proposing to sell. This (1 Church Square) is now on the market with local agents, priced at £55,000 - plus, of course, whatever the new owners find they have to spend on it thereafter.
• Three guesses as to the site of the worst avalanche disaster in Great Britain? Don't bother - you'd never have thought of Lewes, would you! But our account of the Christmas 1836 snowstorm in Rye prompted Frank Palmer to check the date - and sure enough, on 27 December 1836 there was an avalanche in Lewes which destroyed a row of houses and killed 8 of the 15 people in them. In terms of death and destruction, this still is the worst avalanche disaster in Britain, and it was clearly part of the same storm which needed 70 men for five days to clear Rye's streets. Frank (who, incidentally, recently ski-ed down a snow- covered Mermaid Street, just to say he had) adds that the avalanche is still commemorated in Lewes. The demolished cottages were replaced by a pub - and the pub is called The Snowdrop Inn. Frank was at the street lighting meeting (reported on page 4), and tells us that in 1575 the Council was also rethinking the lighting problem; everyone who could afford it was asked to put a lantern or candle outside their door. This was not, however, suggested on Thursday!
Council of Churches AGM (all welcome), Baptist Hall, 7.30 Local History Group, "The Cinque Ports Confederation" (Kenneth Clark), Library, 7.30
Rye Players AGM, FEC Room 2, 8 (see below) NSPCC jumble sale, FEC, 2
Candlemas Service (with choirs, procession of candles, and a traditional dramatic presentation of the story - preacher, the Precentor of Chichester Cathedral), St. Mary's, 6.30
Camera Club, competition with Battle Club, FEC, 7.30 FRAG, "Chelsea Scent Bottles" (Kate Dayson), Studio, 8
• Birthday greetings to Mrs. Varley - "Mick" - formerly of Udimore Road and the mother of Rae, Noel and Judd, who was 80 on Friday. Rae, with whom Mrs. Varley now lives at 11 High Street, invited fifteen of her mother's old friends to join in the celebrations. We are delighted to hear that Mrs. Varley is in much better health now than she was six months ago.
• Planning: the Dairy Yard application was deferred for further negotiation by Rother's Planning Committee last week; we couldn't get through to Planning about the other two (non-controversial) Rye applications!
• The WRVS lunch club, which met on Monday for the first time since the Christmas break, now has eight or nine vacancies for new members. The Club meets on the fourth Monday of each month at the Community Centre, and serves an excellent meal at an excellent price. Enquiries to the WRVS office at the FE Centre (mornings) - Rye 223362.
• The Rye Players AGM on Friday is rather late, says Joan Parkes guiltily - four years late, in fact! Members will have received invitations, but newcomers may find themselves greeted with a welcoming round of applause. The Players have been going through a slack period, and need some new blood; those who might give it are urged to turn out on Friday night.
• The Greenpeace jumble sale on Saturday raised £300.
• Quite separately from the town-centre road plan (page 5), the SWA plans improvements to the King's Avenue sewer system, which will involve closing a short stretch of carriageway on the side of the triangle furthest from the town, for up to five weeks from 2 March. Access will be from either side.
• The press release from ESCC about grants for summer playschemes has arrived late, but there is still just time to apply by Friday of next week (6 February) if you have something of the sort in mind; Social Services (Rye 226922) will be able to advise you.
• Mrs. Muriel Ellis has given two teddy bears (24” and 20”) to the Blue Peter Sight Savers Appeal, and they are to be sold as a pair at Vidlers' auction on 6 February. Mrs. Ellis hopes that buyers will be generous for this good cause.
• Two thefts in the press book: a £240 microwave stolen from Upper School kitchens over the Christmas holidays (police suspect the use of a duplicate key), and a white Ford van, CGT 397S, stolen from the Squash Club on 19 or 20 January.
THE RYE GAZETTE is registered as a newspaper with the Post Office, published by Mrs. Mary Owen, 2 Cyprus Place, Rye, East Sussex, TN31 7DR (0797 222303), and printed by Cinque Ports Stationers of Rye. Deadline is Monday afternoon for Wednesday's delivery to subscribers/pick-up points; the paper costs 30p, and a few spare copies Em be available from Cyprus Place. (Copyright Mary Owen 1987)