Figures just issued by Rye Police are a real credit to the local CID. There were 829 crimes in the Rye area in 1986, 251 of them in the town (this is, of course, crimes of all kinds, some of them very minor). The figures for the villages vary wildly, from 16 in Icklesham to 179 in neighbouring Winchelsea - but for this purpose Winchelsea includes the holiday areas of the Beach with its caravans and Pett Level, where thefts from parked cars are a positive plague in the summer.
The figures reveal that Rye is top of the county in its burglary detection rate - 39.4%, compared with 26.6% for the Eastern Division as a whole; and our police have the second highest detection rate in the county for all crimes 42.2% as against 38.3% for the Eastern Division, with the overall county rate lower still.
This is very gratifying, and although some of the credit may be due to Neighbourhood Watchers, most of it undoubtedly goes to our CID officers and other police with, so to speak, their ears to the ground, their eyes peeled and their sixth sense well sharpened. Congratulations - and Neighbourhood Villains, please note!
Ever since Christmas there has been a strong rumour circulating in the town that Gateway would not after all be the name above the supermarket windows. Since it was only a rumour, we had not mentioned it; but its implications were worrying many of the town's traders - what was wrong with Rye, that Gateway was pulling out?
We are now glad to say that nothing is wrong with Rye; Gateway, however, is undergoing a change of policy at the top, and is no longer interested in small shops (indeed, the one in Lewes High Street is to close, to the sorrow of shoppers there). Our supermarket comes in the category of small shops by Gateway standards - so, no Gateway. (Nothing personal, so to speak.)
However, another tenant has been waiting in the wings, and the name above the windows when the supermarket opens in time for Christmas is likely to be Budgens; John Walker of Ward Construction, the developers, tells us that terms have been agreed, and the documents only await formal signatures. John Ciccone looked up Budgens for us. It is a chain now part of the Barker Dobson group; it lays emphasis on fresh foods, and has 147 stores in the south and south-east, all in the 5-15,000 sq.ft. size range - which means that ours, by Budgens standards, will be middle-sized.
The fastest ladies in town work at Rye's smallest restaurant, Monrow's in Cinque Ports Street! This point was established on Tuesday afternoon, when both the ladies' races were won by Monrow's staff - Carmel Doughty and Zoe Metcalf. The other two winners were Paul Masters from Durrant House and Shaun Mitchell from the Union, and the champion's title went to Shaun Mitchell in the final race.
Runners and audience alike went on to the Community Centre for the prize-giving. Shaun won an engraved copper frying-pan, the Gas Board provided other prizes, and another frying pan (given by the Sussex Express) was auctioned. Raffle and cake-stall, and the sale of refreshments including pancakes, brought in further cash, and when all the sponsor money is paid, the Centre is likely to benefit by around £300 from the event. The Community Centre Association is most grateful to donors of prizes, umpires, collectors, cooks, sponsors, runners - all those who helped in various ways (but not to the owner of the car left locked in the middle of the police No Parking bollards marking the course!)
2.
The Sports Centre is now ready except for a small problem with the drains, and will be in use by TPS pupils next week (they can use the school loos anyway). It is expected to open to the public after school on Monday, 23 March. We still haven't seen the brochure about prices, etc., but doubtless copies will soon be available - hopefully, in time for next week's GAZETTE.
The recently-appointed supervisor, one of Stewart Lees's two assistants, is Tim Bolton of St. Leonards, and it is very pleasant to add that Tim, 23, is an ex-pupil of the school and used to live in Broad Oak.
... To Dr. Bruce Cawdron and his wife Jackie, of Wye in Kent, on the birth of their much-longed-for daughter Joanna Louise on Saturday (7th) - a first grandchild for Dr. and Mrs. Cawdron of Fair Meadow.
... To Catherine Wood, daughter of Ian and Daisy of Rye Foreign, who has just been awarded her RGN, the modern equivalent of the old SRN nursing qualification. Catherine left TPS for Hastings College, and did her main training at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital. She is now to be a staff nurse at Margate General Hospital.
... To Mary Lestocq, who is displaying proudly in her studio window an unusual cut-glass goblet, the London Portrait Group's 3M Award for a group portrait. It is the first time Mary has won this particular cup, which was awarded to her for a charming and romantic study of the Bagwell children (see her window).
... To Joan Cottrell of Badger Gate, who collected no fewer than three sacks of rubbish along the railway footpath recently!
1987 is the centenary of the birth of Sheila Kaye-Smith, and there is a proposal to mark it by the formation of a society to honour the novelist. To this end, one of her admirers, Brian Graebe of Bexhill, has written a little book about her, which is obtainable from Artique in Lion Street at 75p (£1 posted). He goes into well-researched detail about the novelist's life and work, but leaves some questions unanswered - among them, did she ever live in Rye? She used it in her books, certainly; indeed, one scene in her religious play "The Shepherd of Lattenden" is set in the anteroom to Rye's Council Chamber. Mrs. Connolly at Artique has heard that Sheila Kaye-Smith once lived in Hucksteps Row; this could be a confusion with Radclyffe Hall, but it could equally be true. If " anyone knows, or has other memories of the writer, Mrs. Connolly would be very glad indeed to meet them; admirers from outside Rye could write direct to Mr. Graebe at Buckhurst Court.
The Careers Convention at Thomas Peacocke School on Thursday week, 19 March (Upper School, 6 to 9.30) is bigger than ever this year. Some fifty exhibitors will be there to discuss job opportunities and further education courses at various levels, from both local and national viewpoints. In addition, there will be a new feature - two "workshops", one a continuous programme of careers videos (details of timings will be posted in the school on the evening). The other consists of two informal lectures on how to apply successfully for jobs! The speakers will be Glenda Rogers, from builders' merchants MP Harris & Co. (at 7.45) and the chief personnel officer of Rother Council, Mr. Richardson (at 8.45). From two very different points of view, they will talk about filling in application forms, cvs, and the way to behave at interviews - with, we understand, video'd examples of do's and don'ts - and they will also refer to the jobs available in their organisations.
Brian Atkins, Head of Careers at TPS, tells us that he is keeping up the good work of George Blacker, who started these two-yearly conventions. Incidentally, visitors will have the chance to admire the redecorated foyer and downstairs corridors - and there will be refreshments available during the evening.
3 - THE RYE GAZETTE, 11 March 1987
A very pretty wedding graced St. Mary's on Saturday afternoon, when Janette Gilbert of King's Avenue married Tony Booker from Rolvenden. Janette looker lovely in a white lace crinoline dress with a tulle veil; her mother's smart black velvet suit and white hat were perhaps more proof against the biting wind in the churchyard than the very pretty pink flounced dresses (made by Mrs. Brett of Tilling Green) worn by the five bridesmaids. All the attendants, including the page, were relatives of the bride - her niece Marie was, at 21, the littlest bridesmaid we have ever seen (and she behaved beautifully, we are told). The reception was held at Frenchman's Beach, and the honeymoon is being spent in Faris. The couple will be living in Hastings, where Tony is a self-employed electrician; Janette will continue to work at Simon the Pieman.
Rye's WI Market has once again achieved a record sales total, the AGM was told last week. The Treasurer, Mrs. Holmes, reported that sales in 1986 (over the usual nine months only) amounted to E,11,050, as against 210,697 in 1985 and barely more than half that figure in 1980. The bonus paid back to producers meant that in effect only 81% commission was deducted, and the very modest running expenses of the Market - which gives so much pleasure to both buyers and sellers - were easily absorbed. Mrs. Cramp gave her Controller's report on another successful year, thanking the committee members and officers for their help in various ways; there is no change in the committee for 1987. Mrs. Brittain, VCMO, gave a lively account of Market affairs at county and national level - our £11,000 is part of a £64m turnover in WI Markets throughout the country. She was thanked by Mrs. Goadby; in fact, there were a good many thank-yous in the course of the afternoon. Everyone will be looking forward to the Market's reopening on Friday week, 20 March.
Hilary Bolton apologises on behalf of Rye Red Cross to those people who missed out on the free EEC butter distribution. With the next issue (cheese?) she asked Rye Post Office if it would be possible for them and the offices to give the approximate numbers of those drawing supplementary benefits. No; try DHSS, was the answer. DHSS said sadly that they had 14,500 pensioners and 6,500 people in receipt of supplementary benefit, and there was no way they could sort out from their lists the numbers for the Rye area. So all Mrs. Boll can do now is to say that those who did not receive butter last week, but who co into the category of "needy" and would be glad to get whatever comes round next, should please leave their name and address at the Red Cross office in the High Street, and she will do her best to make sure they get something next time. (Last week's effort meant 21 separate distribution points - and some new friends for BRCS, including one man who dealt with the whole Estate list himself.)
This week there is an application from Alsfords for a two-bay timber store (148' x 240') at the wharf in Harbour Road; one for a 2-storey extension for 174 Udimore Road; and one for a pair of semis, with balconies overlooking the river, replacing Ian Addy's Strand Coachworks down past St. Margaret's Terrace (tiles, black weatherboarding and brick, with two garages). And...
Readers may remember Sheffield Place, the pair of derelict cottages tucked away behind Dennis's shop with their only access via the side entrance to Gassons in Lion Street. Permission to rehabilitate them as separate houses was refused a year or so ago, on the grounds of inadequate access. Now there is a new application - to incorporate them into the George Hotel. The plan is to convert the two into a block of six bedrooms (with a second floor in the roof-space) connected to the rest of the hotel by a bridge crossing the courtyard space at the back. Assuming the fire precautions are satisfactory (and THE are not likely to be faulted on this count - the firm with the most sensitive smoke alarms in England!) the plan seems an admirable use of otherwise unusable buildings, and we wish the applicants luck.
4.
As the Marina Feasibility Study unfolded at the Saltings on Thursday, and we sat muttering incredulously and making notes peppered with exclamation marks, the Town Clerk leant across. "Remember you're a newspaper" she said, "You've got to be objective."
It is not possible for anyone living in Rye to be objective about a proposal such as the one recommended by LRDC (see GAZETTE nos. 187 and 203 for the prelude to this RDA-generated study). The consultants advocate funding a marina by allowing the erection of 124 dwellings (some of them flats) priced between £60,000 and £120,000, immediately across the river from the Fishmarket - on the Rother-owned land between the flood-bank and the lane down to the swimming-pool. The suggested layout given in the brochure (copies are avail- able from the Council Offices, and the full report can be studied there by anyone who can spare a couple of days!) offers an appalling prospect. It shows peninsulas of housing for the rich, rows and rows of them, with mooring pontoons sticking out into a yacht basin cut off from the Rother by a lock. The -hole weekender ghetto is completed by its own restaurant (as if there weren't enough here already), club and even supermarket ("only a very little one" said a team member plaintively). The consultants reckoned that this development, with up to 250 moorings, would create 40 jobs; but when pressed they admitted that fewer than a dozen would actually be generated by the marina - the rest would arise from the housing ("window-cleaners, for instance"). If we are to build houses to provide jobs for window-cleaners, the proper place for them is Hastings - where most of the window-cleaners seem to come from, anyway! In mitigation, the consultants said that the development would bring £m or more a year to Rye; they didn't say exactly how (apart, of course, from the increased spending-power of window-cleaners). The rates raised from this estate would be spread over the entire Rother budget, apart from the very small Town Council precept, and there is no guarantee that the sort of people who would buy these houses would walk over Monkbretton Bridge to do their shopping. Meanwhile the town would be irretrievably spoilt for those who like it the way it is. As for what the development would look like, the consultants showed an "artist's impression"of a marina village (the polite name for this kind of housing estate) showing three tasteful villas and three yachts; perhaps wisely, they didn't draw attention to the pictures on pages 62 and 63 of the full Report which show the proposals for a similar marina at Hythe, and which might repay a study? Finally, access: here someone hadn't done their homework, since the consultants thought that ESCC had the say-so about the Freda Gardham field; in fact the Town Council has a very long lease on it, as we all know!
LRDC's runner-up site would be the big field at the beginning of Harbour Road, in which the Jehovah's Witness chapel stands. The owner of part of this land asked why they didn't recommend this site rather than the one across from the
Salts? Answer: there wasn't much in it, but it was further to walk into the town, and there was no mains gas. The Rye contingent was not, we thought, impressed by these arguments; anything which might get mains gas laid on to Harbour Road would be a godsend to the Hatleys tenants, quite apart from the village itself.
LRDC spoke quite kindly about the Sailing Club scheme for 120 wet moorings out beyond the clubhouse at the Harbour; they considered, however, that it would be impossible to raise the money because the return would not be good enough unless there was housing too. The same argument applied to the North Point scheme (proposed by the Golf Club) along the Camber road; they said that this large ready-made lake was very suitable for small-boat sailing already, without any need to connect it with the river and risk salt seeping into agricultural land beyond, quite apart from the site's general ecological value to wildlife.
Which leaves the fifth site, just upstream of Alsfords' wharf. Its 1981 planning permission was given subject to a Section 52 Agreement securing that, among other things, "the residential buildings were not be be commenced until the harbour/marina works were completed to a satisfactory stage". This Agreement is still binding on the detailed planning permission given by Rother in 1985.
(... from previous page) 5.
(For full details, see GAZETTE no. 78, or the planning committee agenda for January 1985.) Although we remember discussion about this development way back in 1973, nothing had actually happened on the site until a few weeks ago, when - as readers will remember - contractors acting for the owners made an entranceto it from the road and went straight through the flood-bank!
LRDC were not at all enthusiastic about this project; it would not be a good place for housing, they said, right in the middle of an industrial area like Harbour Road - and, they added, it wasn't really likely to go ahead. To everyone's surprise, a voice from the back of the hall announced that it was certainly going to go ahead, and indeed work had already started (news to anyone who had missed out on the floodbank episode). T-e voice turned out to be that of Mr. Albert Gubay, of the Celtic Bank in Douglas, Isle of Man - his bank, he said, owned the site in association with Montrose Properties. Flanked by his lawyer and his architect, he announced that his development would include houses at much the same price-level as on the LRDC site, and the sale of these houses would finance the rest of the work. He appeared not to be aware of the Section 52 Agreement on which both his planning permissions were contingent, and which would mean that the marina had to be largely built first; but doubtless he will have checked this point, raised indignantly by several local voices, when he got home. Since he had a plane to catch, he left the meeting after having answered sundry questions - hotly pursued by the press contingent who knew good copy when they saw it. We therefore don't know how the rest of the meeting went!
To summarise. LRDC consider that the Sailing Club and North Point schemes, which don't include housing, are financially non-viable. They don't think that Mr. Gubay's scheme, the only one of the remainder which already has planning permission, is likely to get off the ground - but Mr. Gubay disagrees. They consider that the two remaining sites , the Jehovah's Witness field and the land opposite the Fishmarket, could both be viable (as alternatives) as long as they include a housing development of a hundred or more dwellings there was no detailed scheme prepared for the Jehovah's Witness site - but of the two they personally preferred the Fishmarket site. (How's that for editorial objectivity, eh?)
The fat Report-and-Appendices goes into immense detail, setting out the research LRDC and their colleagues Quantum Associates have done. It was interesting to learn that marina fees would be around £20/Z25 a foot (present Harbour moorings, says Carl Bagwell, work out at £2.50 a foot, so local boatowners are unlikely to be interested). Indeed, only a quarter of the potential boat-owning market in the likely catchment area expressed any interest at all in having a marina mooring in Rye - not really surprising, in view of the tight limitations on entry and exit imposed by the state of the tide at the mouth of the river.
This Study was commissioned jointly by the Development Commission, ESCC, Rother and Southern Water. Its findings, says the brochure "have not yet been commissioned formally by any of the client bodies. Publication of the Study is, therefore, without any commitment on the part of the authorities involved, who will wish to take account of local interests before deciding whether or not the Consultants' proposals can be supported. Anyone wishing to comment on the findings of the Feasibility Study should do so, in writing, to the County Planning Officer, Southover House, Southover Road, Lewes, BN7 lYA."
We hope to goodness that local people will write. When someone raised the question of the view from East Cliff if the LRDC scheme were to go ahead, the reply, terrifyingly casual, seemed to imply that it was a matter of taste whether it would be spoilt or not. Doubtless New Road, New Winchelsea Road and Cadborough (now Udimore) Road were also considered matters of taste when they were built in the 1930s; but no-one would claim that they enhance the appearance of the town, and now - short of another 1287 cataclysm - we could also be stuck with this chi-chi ghetto across the Salts. Mr. Gubay is a rather unlikely White Knight, but George Roberts tell us he has done his research with the SWA. Possibly, studying the alternatives, there is something to be said for his scheme after all?
6.
The D o T has yet again altered the date of the booking for what we all assume to be the public consultation on the bypass routes. But the new date - 21 to 23 May - is a great improvement on the earlier one which clashed with the local government elections on 7 May (though we were, alas, wrong when we said there would be no Councillors at all to be consulted; Tony Lee at Rother tells us that the newly-elected ones don't take over until four days after an election). This time Mrs. Metcalf at the Community Centre has had the booking in writing, so maybe the Department will be able to stick to it. From the point of view of the town, it seems a very suitable date.
Talking of elections, last week there was a report in The Independent that "the Home Office has just sent returning officers all over the country instructions on how to organise a general election and local elections on the same day". Rye will certainly need an election for our three Rother seats - at least four candidates are known to be standing, and there could be more. Four of our 16 Town Councillors have announced that they will not stand again; if more than four new names are put forward, there will also be a Town Council election. And, of course, without any question at all there will be an election for the parliamentary seat Rye shares with Hastings. In the (we hope) unlikely event of all three elections coinciding on 7 May, Rother would have to be extra cartful over the count - or one of our Town Councillors could quite inadvertently end up at Westminster! (What a mercy the D o T has had second thoughts.)
The new manager of both the Stormont Studio and the Easton Rooms has now been appointed, from nearly 30 applicants and a short list of five interviewees. He is Eric Money, of Iden Lock, whose appointment was announced at the Annual Meeting of FRAG last week. Eric has been associated with the Easton Rooms for the past ten years, and regularly hangs the exhibitions there; himself a painter, his contacts with other local and not-so-local artists and craftsmen will be qinvaluable in his new job. At the meeting, Friends' chairman Tim Bishop and Trustees' chairman David Maundrell both expressed appreciation of the work which Margaret Casson has done for the Stormont Studio during her five years there, and both wished her well in whatever she decides to do next. Miss Casson leaves Rye on 18 March.
One of the first decisions taken under the new management system (which we shall be outlining later on) is to have both galleries changing their exhibitions on the same day, with a shared private view normally on the Saturday morni3ng. The first-fruits of this appear on 21 March. At the Stormont Studio an Arts Counci1 touring exhibition, "Wild Creatures", could well turn out to be more than just a collection of wild-life studies; at the Easton Rooms, "Where are they Now?" is bound to be of particular interest locally. This is a show suggested originally by Kitty French and her successor as Head of Art at TPS, Peter Lee; they felt that although pupils' work was shown in Rye from time to time, once the young people went away the town lost touch with them. So they have contacted as many as possible of the TPS students who are known to have gone on to art school in the last ten years, and asked them to submit work for what will be, in the main, a selling exhibition. Kitty tells us that perhaps 30 people will be sending in work by the end of this week, in a wide range of techniques and materials. What is finally shown will, of course, depend on Eric Money, but it should be a most interesting exhibition - and could, of course, include early work by artists who in another ten years will be commanding fabulous prices in London or New York!
Vidlers' auction sale last week produced two particularly satisfactory prices £900 for a Georgian mahogany bureau, and £650 for a pair of antique giltwood carvings. Other lots above £200 included an oak bureau-bookcase (£250), an old pine dresser (£80), and an antique oak dresser base (£300) - presumably this went to someone who already had a matching top! A stripped oak bookcase sold for £260, an Edwardian tea-table for £380, a rosewood chaise longue for £280, and a quantity of matching pieces of Axminster carpet for £200.
7.
The large and handsome portrait in the window of the Anglia Building Society this week shows the Mayor of Hastings, Councillor David Thornton, and his wife - standing on the steps of St. Clement's Church in Hastings Old Town, backed by Council officials and clergy and flanked by a young guard of honour. It is the work of Tina Gray, of Church Square, and was commissioned by Councillor Thornton to hang in the Council Chamber at Hastings Town Hall. Mrs. Gray is also painting a less formal portrait of Councillor Thornton,to hang in his own home.
The speaker at the Methodist Ladies Fellowship meeting on 19 March will be Mrs. Rozel Poole of New Road, asking the question "Is God in Control?".
Frank Palmer's talk to the Museum Association (non-members welcome) at the FEC on 20 March at 7.30 is entitled "Rye Then and Now" - and those who have already seen some of our Deputy Mayor's carefully-chosen pairs of slides will welcome the chance of a full evening's showing.
The following evening, 21st, FRAG has a social-cum-fund-raising event in the Stormont Studio, at 7.30, when Basil Dowling will be reading his own poetry.
Saturday was a bitterly cold day in Rye; television viewers snug indoors realised that it was also a bitterly cold day out at Camber, where TVS's children's programme "No. 73" was going out live. The unfortunate presenters, obviously chilled to the bone, kept on bravely smiling, but we felt very sorry for them as they milled about on the beach and the dunes. The insert about Rye Foundry was a real eye-opener, and we look forward to doing a follow-up story soon; whether the interviews with SWA staff concerned in the maintenance of the foreshore were live or not, we noted that the SWA men were dressed for the job. But the Fairlight policeman and the two bomb-disposal men, staging a suspect mine discovery (and obliging with two real explosions for good measure) were also visibly shivering; even the beach donkeys, brought along for the occasion, huddled together against the cutting wind with deeply displeased expressions. Honestly, TVS, it isn't always like that! And at least it didn't rain...
The new half-year for GAZETTE subscriptions begins on 1 April and runs until 23 September; we shall be taking one week off just before Easter, and two in August.
If your copy is marked 'S' beside your name, please don't pay us twice! You have already signed a standing-order form, and your bank does it automatically. You don't do anything further at all.
Other subscribers who like to pay half-yearly will owe us £6.90 (for 23 weeks) - payable either by cheque to THE RYE GAZETTE, or in cash, whichever suits.
Quarterly subscribers should pay £3.60 (for 12 weeks), in cash only, please.
If you pay in cash, please state on the outside of the envelope whether you have included £6.90 or £3.60 inside. All payments should have the subscriber's name and delivery address, please; some surnames appear three or four times in our list, and the delivery address is what we know you by (about half our subscribers now collect from one of our six pick-up points).
The usual one-tick-or-two system will operate for the next two issues, and all receipts will go out on 1 April; to enable us to get them written in time, please try not to leave it until the last minute to pay! In any case, subscriptions must reach Cyprus Place by Friday, 27 March, at the latest.
Finally, our regular reminder that if the paper should cease publication in the middle of a subscription period (which Heaven forbid!) all outstanding subscription money will not be refunded but will go to the RNLI.
Save-a-Life class, Clinic, 7 to 9 (see below)
Action for Epilepsy Group meeting, Freight Express, 7.30
Coin Club, bring-and-buy, FEC, 7.30
ATC wine and cheese evening, Upper School, 7.30
Civil Service Retirement Fellowship AGM, FEC, 11 Nat.His.Soc., "Crete" (Trudy Side), FEC, 7.30
Greenpeace beach clean-up (meet Rye Harbour car-park, 10) Woten's British Legion coffee morning, cakes, bric-a-brac, Red Cross, 10
Nat.Trust, "Images of China" (Rev. Brian Soper), CC, 2.30
Camera Club, "Imaginative Printing" (Karl Diblicek and Meg Webb), FEC, 7.30
NSPCC Annual Meeting (with the Society's Appeals Director, Giles Pegram), FEC, ,3
TPS Parents Evening, sixth-year
Thrift Shop (handing-in only), Red Cross, 10 to 12
Landgate WI, "Ellen Terry and Smallhythe" (Mrs. M. Weare), CC, 10.30
Community Lunch Group, Clinic, 1
Freda Gardham PTA Open Forum, New Road, 7.30 (GAZETTE no.215)
• Mrs. Peggy Batcheler and her family would like friends and relatives to know that donations to the Pain Relief Trust (for the Macmillan Nurses) in memory of her late husband Peter amounted to £279. This will purchase a special mattress, something which she knows from experience is really helpful.
• The TPS team supervised by Jo Kirkham and looking into memories of Rye before the war have, she tells us, worked marvellously on their own during her illness. She would be glad if any questionnaires not yet returned could be sent back to her at Upper School as soon as possible, so that the group can begin to assess the results.
• Thursday's Save-a-Life resuscitation session at the Clinic has not been as widely advertised locally as the organisers intended, so although there were not many bookings by Monday the class will still be going ahead. This means that anyone who had omitted to book in advance can simply turn up at the Clinic at 7 with £2 and be sure of getting in. (Next session, 4 June.)
• Miss Pembleton at Rye Hospital assures Emergency Department is indeed open 24 hours a day (the question had been asked through the GAZETTE recently) .Minor casualties are dealt with there and then, whatever the hour anything potentially serious is sent on to Hastings for X-ray, etc, if necessary by ambulance; cases collected by ambulance at the scene of the accident go on to RESH anyway.
• The Police Station press book shows a series of minor villainies and accidents connected with cars, including wanton damage to the rear window of a Mini left overnight at the station. We offer condolences to Dr. Jeelani, whose caravanette was damaged in a (no-injuries) accident in Guestling, when a car coming the other way failed to negotiate the bend.
• Pupils from Thomas Peacocke School will take part in the East Sussex Schools Music Festival at the Albert Hall on 19 March, when 2,500 Sussex children from 46 schools will combine to make music. Profits from the evening will go once again to saving sight in India.
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, Monday afternoon for Wednesday's delivery to subscribers. The paper costs 30p a week, and spare copies are sometimes available from Cyprus Place. (Copyright Mary Owen 1987)