Although the actual Mayoring does not take place until the summer, the Town Council elects the new Mayor and Deputy Mayor in February. On Monday there were four nominations for Mayor - but all for the same person, the present Deputy Mayor Councillor Frank Palmer. First nomination to be opened was signed by Councillors Le Fevre and Starkey, and the vote was unanimous. The Deputy Mayor-elect is Councillor George Shackleton, nominated by Councillors Champion and Bromley and also voted in unanimously. Frank Palmer joined the Council in 1983. George Shackleton has been on it for longer than most people can remember, but has only just retired (see page 3). Both are married, and Mrs. Palmer works part-time in the Council Offices in Cinque Ports Street. (Councillor Palmer will also be chairman, and Councillor Shackleton vice-, chairman, of the Town Council - but that doesn't sound nearly so splendid!)
The shops on Banister's Corner and in the town end of Ferry Road are becoming increasingly displeased about the length of time that the big gates have blocked off the new access to Station Approach - at what used to be the Goods Yard car park entrance. Several shopkeepers tell us that trade has not been as good as it used to be when the car park was functioning and out-of-towners therefore walked that way into the town centre.
Surprisingly, the continuing problem is due to a staff shortage at County Hall. Bexhill Highways tell us that although it would be possible to open the road now so that there was a clear run through from Ferry Road to Cinque Ports Street (and vice versa) via Station Approach - which is, of course, the eventual intention - it would not be possible to paint yellow lines on it until an official order had been advertised. Without parking restrictions, the road would clog up at once with cars parked on both sides - and even the buses wouldn't be able to get in and out of their garage, let alone any question of through traffic.
So why not advertise the parking restrictions, and then get moving with the yellow paint-brush? Because there is a desperate shortage of staff at Lewes who are able to draft these advertisements; those who can are already heavily overworked. Temporary orders (for imminent roadworks) take top priority, with major road schemes coming next and fiddly little jobs like ours very much the bottom of the heap. Bexhill promised to try and hasten matters, but wasn't very optimistic; it could well be the summer before the order is advertised, and any objections could slow things down even further.
The Mayor expressed the gratitude of the town recently to Sydney England, of Pottingfield Road, when she presented him with a certificate to mark his twenty years of service as a Special Constable. Although Mr. England has retired from the Specials (with a long-service medal after nine years and a bar to it after nineteen), he is still working for the Post Office, and any extra spare time he now gets goes on his two interests of photography and sea-fishing.
Mr. England joined the Specials after fourteen years with St. John Ambulance, in the days when it provided an emergency service as well as its present invaluable cover for pre-arranged events such as fetes. Once the main ambulance service was taken over by Lewes entirely, he felt the time had come for a move and joined the Specials in 1967, just after the new police station opened. In those days it was still the East Sussex Constabulary; there were 15 or more Specials at Rye, but then, on summer weekends, two were regularly on point duty, one at the bottom of the Landgate and another round the corner, outside Bryans - a chore which they must have been delighted to get rid of when the new traffic scheme came into operation!
2.
Mrs. Hylda Lowry, of Bridge Place, died on Saturday in St. Helen's Hospital. She is survived by her sister, Mrs. Sylvia White of Ferry Road. The funeral has been provisionally (as we go to print) arranged for tomorrow (Thursday), at 11 at Playden Church, followed by burial in Rye Cemetery.
Mrs. Dorothy Hobbs, of Cooper Road, died in Rye Memorial Hospital on 27 February. She was 91, and had been a member of the Monday Club until her failing health meant she could no longer attend meetings. Mrs. Hobbs was the widow of Mr. Alfred Hobbs, who died on 9 January; they had been married for 67 years. She leaves two sons and two daughters, twelve grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. The funeral takes place on Friday at 10.30 at Hastings Crematorium.
Mrs. Ethel Gutsell, of South Undercliff, died last week while on a visit to her daughter at Lambourne. The funeral takes place at Rye Methodist Church on Thursday at 2.0.
• Recent applications include the replacement of five timber-framed windows with white aluminium windows of a similar format, at 1-3 Bridge Place. The plans make it clear that these are not the period sash windows on the Bridge Place facade, but an upstairs one facing towards the Landgate and four more at the back of the building - none of them appear to be contemporary in style with the house, let alone the original windows. There is also an application to put up a detached house on land adjoining 68 Fishmarket Road; the site is the garden and parking space belonging to one of the pair of houses just past Skinners, backed by the cliff on which the Landgate Arch and Tower Forge stand. The plan shows an integral parking-space for the new house; it would take over the access relinquished by the built-over parking space for the adjoining one. Out at the Harbour there are two applications for new houses - a detached one next to 6 Mary Stanford Green, and a pair of semis in Tram Road. The final application is also for new housing, this time in Playden; outline permission has already been given for the two houses, on land adjoining The Orchard House in New England Lane.
• Controversy about the Mariners Hotel application (GAZETTE no. 259) continues. The local Mencap branch wrote to the Sussex Express in answer to a letter in the paper from James Menhinick referring to the project as "a mental home". The committee points out that the residents at the Mariners would be people "unfortunate enough to have a mental handicap (ie. slowness of learning) but who are not mentally ill - an important distinction. They would not be patients, but members of the community brought up by loving families and who have attained a high leve1 of independence; some have attended adult education courses. A similar project is in fact operating very successfully in the tourist area of York and has been acknowledged in Egon Ronay's 'Just a Bite' publication."
As for the matter of bed-spaces, the owner of the Mariners has told the branch that the hotel has not been running at anywhere near full occupancy during the past two years (and with Holloway House open, the overall number of beds lost would in fact be 16). But this loss does genuinely worry the Hotel & Caterers Association, who assure us that even now the town is full to capacity on Saturday nights. They would object to and change of use from any hotel to any other form of occupancy, for this reason. (We hear from other sources that such an application may well be coming up before long.)
The applicants, the Canterbury Oast Trust, are a registered charity founded five years ago which provides accommodation, work and leisure for mentally-handicapped adults; the patron is the Archbishop of Canterbury.
• A very helpful leaflet published by ESCC will be of interest to owners of period properties which were damaged in the storm. It sets out what is necessary by way of planning permission and/or listed building consent for different degrees of restoration work - and names as Rother's expert on the subject Mr. G. Dudman of the planning staff (Bexhill 216321, extension 234). The Council Offices have a copy, though not necessarily to take away.
- 3 - THE RYE GAZETTE, 2 March 1988
There is no doubt about it, Boots in Rye will never be quite the same again; after 37 years as the dispenser there, George Shackleton retired at the end of February. He has worked for Boots for just over 40 years, and got his gold watch after 25; before that, he served during the war in Italy with the 9th Lancers, which sounds tremendously dramatic but was in fact part of the RAOC by then (no cavalry charges with whirling sabres in WW2!). His last day in the shop was on Saturday; on Monday he was off to Nottingham to take part in a retirement seminar arranged by the company. These sessions are usually intended to teach retiring employees how to fill their long empty hours; we don't imagine Mr. Shackleton will be listening very hard to that part, since it is a problem which will not be afflicting him. Quite apart from his big Udimore Road garden, he is a very senior member of Rye Town Council (and now Deputy Mayor to be), and a long-serving member of Rother Council - its only Independent Councillor, in the best possible sense.
Dispensing nowadays is rather less traumatic than it was when Mr. Shackleton started, and he has some splendid vintage memories of doling out poisons loose, in a rather gingerly way, to farmers troubled by predators - and of other equally primitive procedures which would horrify today's pharmacists. When he started in the Rye shop, the manager was Mr. Hackman, who was there from 1939 to 1968 (and whose death we were sorry to record in June last year). Since then there have been a series of managers, none of them here for very long, and the popular Peter Milburn had not been replaced on a permanent basis since he was moved to a larger branch in Deal some months ago. Yesterday, however, a new and permanent manager was due to start at Rye; we welcome Mr. Truby to the town and hope he will like it here.
Patients at Rye Hospital are now able to enjoy vastly improved television reception, thanks to the generosity of people in Peasmarsh and elsewhere.
Before Mrs. Anne Sellman of Park View died of cancer last year at the age of 43, she had spent some time in Rye Memorial Hospital, and her husband Dick and two children were anxious to repay the kindness and loving care she had received there. Donations instead of flowers from friends and relatives amounted to a considerable sum, and this was increased to a total of £1,900 after a fete held in the Hare & Hounds field, with landlord Richard Lacey and his wife Barbara very much involved in its organisation.
Mrs. Sellmanls family were keen to give the hospital something which would specifically benefit local patients. Rye Hospital does not really need high-tech medical equipment - but the television sets in the wards were not in their first youth, and anyway once they were turned on everyone had to listen, like it or not. Barry Rivers of Cinque Ports Street was called in to advise - and the upshot is that the hospital now has a TV set in each ward, with headphones for all the beds, and a third set in the day-room; Barry tells us that these sets are in the Rolls-Royce class, able to withstand the heavy use they will get. He supplied the sets, and has installed the whole system without charge; he has also promised free maintenance, and is now working on the hospital's elderly radio system too. If anyone has a VHF radio tuner (now no longer made) which they would be willing to give the hospital, please ring Barry. Even if it is not in working order, he might well be able to resuscitate it and put it to good use again.
Two readers have commented on points raised in our review last week. John Smith tells us that the architect also designed the house at the top of Trader's Passage - built where cottages had been destroyed by the same bomb which demolished the Strand Quay houses. Clifford Bloomfield says there was only one ironmonger at the bottom of the Landgate (Mr. Henson, who later worked at Bassons), but he used to display his wares both outside his own shop and also in the cobbled yard across the road. Henson's was the bottom shop of the terrace of three which is now all the Freezer Centre; the middle one was Hatters, fishmongers, and there was a sweet shop at the top.
4.
On Thursday evening there was a party at Hill House Hospital - not only for Hill House staff, but for members of the Confederation.of Health Service Employees, who were making a farewell presentation to their Branch Secretary, Jack Skudder of Cyprus Place.
Mr. Skudder began work for the Health Authority some twelve years ago; before that, he was working on the last-time-around Channel Tunnel, and he and his wife Frances had the Aviemore Guest House in Fishmarket Road. In 1979 Mr. Skudder was elected Branch Chairman, and became Branch Secretary in 1982. He retired from office recently for health reasons, and on Thursday CoHSE national officer David Picking came down to Rye to thank him on behalf of the Union for all he had done for local members. "Local", in this case, has a much wider meaning than just our two Rye hospitals. Mr. Skudder was looking after the interests of some 650 members working not only at the HHA's nine hospitals (the five in Hastings plus Rye, Hill House, Battle and Bexhill) but also the considerable number of private hospitals, clinics and nursing homes in the area. CoHSE is keeping a very careful eye on the future of its Hill House members, and also those who work at Rye Hospital; the new secretary is Tom Rawlinson of Mount Pleasant, but the chairman is Mrs. Maureen Paine, so Rye certainly won't get forgotten.
Mr. Skudder, who used to work at Hill House, is now employed in the Transport Department at the Buchanan. Since he has to get over to Hastings, the farewell gifts may well have been chosen with intent: not only a handsome wrist-watch, but also a very attractive pendulum wall-clock - and a beautiful basket of flowers for Mrs. Skudder, whose home has been the venue for many a CoHSE meeting over the past ten years or so. There was also a present to appeal to all the family (Ashleigh and Andrew are still living at home and working locally) - a cake, specially iced with the CoHSE badge by Mrs. Pearl Sage, head chef at Battle Hospital.
The Trustee Savings Bank, which has been at 106 High Street since 1968, is to close at the end of April; customers were being notified last week, and told of alternative arrangements. TSB's Head Office tell us that they are always sorry when branches have to close, and far more of their news stories arise from new branches opening; but many people whose accounts are held at Rye nowadays conduct their TSB banking in other ways, and business is business...
In 1986 Ted Hickmott happened to be telling us about TSB's arrival in Rye. It came here in 1967, absorbing the Rye & Winchelsea Savings Bank and operating for the first year from its Bank Chambers office. The new office opened on 6 May 1 1968, and celebrations included a lunch at the Mermaid; among those present were the Mayor (Councillor Macer), and the Trustees of the Rye & Winchelsea S Savings Bank, all local businessmen - Messrs. Candler, Horner, Ellis, Foster, Thompson, Odell and Hackman. Ted Hickmott and Geoffrey Prentice were the joint actuaries of the old Bank.
The Rye & Winchelsea Savings Bank goes back a very long way - more than 170 years. It was founded on 5 October 1816, and the Dawes family were always closely connected with it - when Captain Edward Plomley Dawes died in 1961, he had been one of its joint actuaries for more than 50 years. It is a little sad that when the TSB departs in two months' time, such a long tradition will be broken.
The electricity supply seems to be not quite its usual self at present. We hear from various people about short power cuts in the course of recent weeks, and on Wednesday night half the town was dark, including all the Estate. In consequence, some of the street lights were running four hours slow at the end of the week: Seaboard said they had had "high voltage problems" on Wednesday; but it wasn't only Wednesday, and people dependent on timers, electric alarm clocks, etc., might do well to check them more often than usual - quite a short power cut can totally demoralise some clock-radios, for instance.
5.
The RAFA film show on Friday night was honoured by the presence of Jack Newton, of Brede - the first RAF man to be eligible for membership of the RAF Escaping Society, in whose formation he played no small part. In 1941 he and the rest of his crew brought down their damaged Wellington on what turned out to be a military airfield on the outskirts of Antwerp; they managed to set the plane on fire, with all their gear in it, before they escaped into the shadows. Mr. Newton gave the audience at the Community Centre a very condensed account of his adventures during the next six months, when he was led along the Comete Escape Line into Spair by the 18-year-old Belgian girl, Andree de Jonghe, who with her father had devised it and who survived the war to be honoured over and over again (she holds the George Medal, and was recently created a Countess by the King of the Belgians). In the course of his six-months trek across Europe, Mr. Newton lived with 47 different families; he kept in touch with all of them.- but time passes, and last Christmas there were only seven cards to send, and just four replies came back. He had only been married two months, to a WAAF on the same station, when he was reported missing; although the RAF knew three months later that he was still alive, security concerning the escape route was so tight that his bride was not told until he was safe in Spain - having had to effect a forcible entry into the British Consulate at Bilbao, since he had no British papers on him:
Mr. Newton's brief talk, and a few words from Bob Large (which, with his friend Murray Anderson, flew Lysanders into France during the war), introduced the film "Now it can be told". Made in grainy black-and-white by the RAF Film Production Unit soon after the war, it had background music from the LSO under Muir Mathieson - and the over-50s in the audience settled down in comfortable nostalgia.
The cast were not actors - but then they were not acting, simply re-enacting what they had actually done so short a time before. There was a story-line: a young couple were chosen for training, then parachuted into occupied France to set up a resistance network. Radio contact led to supply drops, a Lysander pick-up of a wounded man, and eventually the very difficult landing by a Hudson to pick up a larger party - some of the audience expressed a certain scepticism about this, but it made a splendid climax to the story as the whole village turned out by moonlight to free the wheels before the plane could take off from the isolated but squashy field. There was, of course, endless period charm: the dumpy barrage balloon used for parachute training, the farm truck which ran on charcoal, the huge steam-engines doomed to destruction, the wind-up gramophone with a radio transmitter hidden in its bowels - even the slicked-down hair-styles of the men, however tough the going got. Halifaxes, Lancasters, Lysanders - all were familiar to many of the audience, including of course the RAFA's Branch President Monica Oliver, who had been a WAAF during the war. She thanked her Secretary, Gordon Stambridge, for arranging such a fascinating and memorable evening. A display at the back of the hall included letters from some of those who, 40 years ago, had led escapers and evaders (the latter were those never actually captured) to safety in Spain or Gibraltar. A collection at the door was to enable flu, RAF Escaping Society to continue paying its debt of gratitude to the dwindling band of Resistance helpers and their families. But one of the letters summed it all up: "I am old now" the writer said, "and there is nothing I need. But it is good to know that you still remember."
The evening raised about £200, shared between the Escaping Society and the RAFA's Wings Appeal.
In January's Fixtures we noticed an advertisement which must have brought joy to the hearts of those who like entertaining at home but don't like the preliminaries. Tony Conti at Casa Conti will do it all for you, as long as you can give him at least six hours' notice; all you need do then is to turn up at 108 High Street with a cheque-book or credit-card and some form of transport, just before your guests are due to arrive. The ad gives full details of dishes and prices - and for those who have lost their January Fixtures, leaflets are now available at the restaurant.
6.
All those concerned with setting the 1988/9 rates have now made up their minds, and Rye domestic ratepayers will be paying 228.7p,in the £ on their rateable value (total local requirements add up to nearly 250p, but government domestic rate relief brings this down again). The "average" property in the county, according to ESCC, has a rateable value of £225, so the "average" Rye householder will be confronted with a rates bill of £515 next month (payable, of course, in instalments as usual).
The County Council rate will be 217.1p in the £. This is nearly 27p more than for 1987/8 - a rise of 14.1%. 4.2% of this is needed just to cover the cost of storm damage; out of the remainder, ESCC intends to provide some improvements, including an extra 50 teachers shared between its 39 secondary schools to help cope with the GCSE. (Hut falling rolls at Thomas Peacocke - not likely to be restored until the present baby bulge works its way through to teenage level means that our school has to lose six teachers at the end of the summer term. So here, "extra" is likely to mean merely one fewer departing.)
Without Education, Highways or Social Services on its plate, Rother Council has a much smaller slice of the rates cake. For the last two years it has been 20.4p in the £. This coming year, once again, the District Council has managed without raising the rate at all, and it will be 20.4p for 1988/9. Despite a great deal of extra work has been undertaken during the past year, much of it still under way: round Rye, the sports centre, new loos, the Magdala House flats and the Heritage Centre, for instance. Listing these and other projects else- where in the District, the chairman of Policy & Resources says "To achieve all this and still not require a rate increase has come about because of sound financial management and greater efficiency in all aspects of the Council's activities, and here I would pay tribute to our officers... I sense a mood of optimism and enthusiasm from both councillors and staff... Our management is second to none in East Sussex and I congratulate all members on their achievements."
In addition to Rother's standard rate, however, individual parishes are charged according to their individual needs. These vary from Playden's tenth-of-one- penny parish rate (and nothing at all for East Guldeford or Rye Foreign) to 9.7p in the L for Rye ratepayers. Rye usually has the highest parish rate, and it comes in two forms. "Special expenses" is our 20% of the bill for maintaining certain aspects of the town, and readers may be interested in the total cost of this. In the coming financial year, Rother expects to spend £97,800 on Rye's recreation grounds, gardens, open spaces, playgrounds, public seats, allotments, war memorial and closed churchyard; and £11,930 on maintaining our Ancient Monuments - a grand total of E109,730. Of this, £87,784 comes out of the gen Al rate fund and 20% (£21,946) is levied solely on Rye ratepayers - which amounts to 3.3p in the £ (2.3p in 1987/8).
The parish rate also includes "Town 6.4p in the £. Last year's figure Council requirements" of £42,150, a rate of was 4.2p; but recently the Council agreed rate to the new building for Playgroup, as to contribute the product of a 1.5p the increase is less than three-quarters of a one-off grant. Apart from that, normal inflation, but some intended for the one penny - mostly accounted for by contingency fund which the Town Clerk is anxious to have available in case major work should be necessary on the Town Hall. (There will, of course, be no income from the hibernating and indeed homeless Town Model during the coming season.) So Rye's total domestic rate will be made up as follows, in terms of pence in the £ of rateable value:
| ESCC's share | 217.1 |
| Rother's standard share | 20.4 |
| Rye parish rate: "Special expenses" 3.3p | |
| Town Council requirements 6.4p | |
| Rye parish rate total | 9.7 |
| Total | 247.2 |
| Less Government rate relief contribution | 18.5 |
| Amount payable | 228.7p |
A Local History Group party enjoyed a most instructive outing ten days ago. Clifford Bloomfield of Leasam Lane., whose knowledge of the structure of Romney Marsh is unequalled, led us on a minibus trip of the Walland Marsh end. He was a schoolboy here during the war and kept a keen eye on what was going on round Rye; and his commentary was an amazing blend of ancient and modern. We went up a lane to see the concrete bases of 400ft-high radar masts (someone challenged this fantastic height, but Clifford was adamant) and then turned round to face a bumpy bit of field - which was in fact the remains of one of the old innings walls dating back to mediaeval times. Centuries of grazing - and, more recently, injudicious infilling - have smoothed over the sharp edges of much of the Marsh's original drainage system, and Southern Water's giant screws and isolated pumping-stations do the job instead; but Clifford's expert eye can see the ridge which was formed by fourteenth-century waves throwing up the shingle, while the twentieth-century ones are several miles away. His series of maps, showing the different stages of development, were a work of art in themselves. Jo Kirkham acted as driver (discovering some bits of Marsh she hadn't known were there). If anyone can persuade Clifford to write down even a small part of what he knows about the Marsh, they would be doing posterity a real service!
TVS's "Facing South" programme on Friday evening revealed what could be a new DoT threat. In order to railroad through the routes which they urgently need to absorb Channel Tunnel traffic, the various highway authorities could go direct to Parliament (where the opposition would be in the hands of just the one local MP) instead of setting in motion the long-drawn-out Public Enquiry system at which local people get the chance to put their case. This has already happened in Hampshire. Lyndhurst badly needs a bypass, but the New Forest Court of Verderers were opposing one proposed route through the Forest; Hampshire County Council brought in a private bill, bypassing the Verderers' objections, and this is now at the second-reading stage. One of the speakers even envisaged an annual Transport Bill to authorise any routes which the DoT thought it would like! Under such a system, the only issues to be decided at local level would be the fiddly details - and Rye would undoubtedly get a throughway, while Dorking rubbed its corporate hands and looked around to see what it could vandalise next.
"Murder at the Vicarage" was coming along well when we dropped in at Upper School Hall last week to eavesdrop on a rehearsal; an ingenious set complete with french windows and a terrace was also taking shape. Tickets (2) are obtainable from Penny Royal, or from Upper School between 11.55 and 12.45 daily, and the play goes on for three nights - 10, 11 and 12 March. We don't often have the chance to see a good thriller, live; do let's support this very young company.
On 11 March there is light entertainment at the Stormont Studio. "What's Cookin'?" (with local artistes and children from Freda Gardham) is "a mixture of words and music designed to touch your tastebuds and pander to your palate". The culinary theme does have a (flimsy) justification: on 11 March 1945, Henry Jones patented self-raising flour! Tickets £2, at the door.
We are sorry to hear from Mrs. Munns of Broomhill Lodge in Rye Foreign that she has a grievance about the Pancake Race. As she has also explained to British Gas at Croydon, it is her opinion that the Championship Cup should not have gone to Dale Skinner since he was running under false colours - although he was part of the Monrow's team in the race, he was on the staff of her hotel at the time. Noel Varley tells us that there are in fact no rules whatever about the composition of Pancake Race teams; the prime object is to raise money, not to advertise restaurants! Although this shock-horror story was going round the town last week, we wouldn't normally have aired it here; but since Mrs. Munns herself insisted that we should, we are of course happy to oblige her.
Friday, 4th Vidler & Co's monthly auction sale, 10
WI Market AGM (speaker, Miss Head, on Crafts), CC, 2
Women's World Day of Prayer service (preacher, Rev.
Isabel Landreth), Methodist Church, 2.30
Movie Society (it is hoped that the speaker will be Geoffrey Parr, formerly of the Hastings Movie Society), FEC, 7.30
Ryesingers, "Gilbert & Sullivan Highlights", CC, 7.30 (tickets £2 adult, £1 child, from EMBS)
Saturday, 5th Winchelsea Floral Group, jumble sale, FEC, 10
Ryesingers (as Friday)
TPS PTA Barn Dance (Catsfield Steamers), Upper School, 8 (tickets £3 including buffet supper, from U.Sch. office - some still available, but don't leave it too late for this ever-popular evening)
Monday, 7th Town Council committees (see TH board for details) Camera Club, competition with Bexhill Club, FEC, 7.30
Wednesday, 9th Rye WI: "More of the Widow's Wanderings" (Mrs. Doughty), FEC, 2.0
• Congratulations to Mr. James Bateman of Mermaid Street - who celebrated his 20th birthday on 29 February!
• Mrs. Jeffery Waters (nee Foord) would very much like to get in touch with a school friend from the Lion Street days, Olive Cheeseman who then lived in Ferry Road. Mrs. Waters thinks she later became Mrs. Frank Attridge and went to live in Surrey. A Basildon branch of the Carman/Axell family came to see Mrs. Waters recently; they have photographs of Olive and her family and would very much like to meet her - as would Mrs. Waters. If anyone is in contact with with her and could pass on the message, it would be very much appreciated. Mrs. Waters lives at New Winchelsea Road, Rye.
• Although River Books in Lion Street is shut for a time while the builders are busy within, Ann Hamilton would like customers to know that if they like to phone for anything they want, she can dig it out from behind the dust-sheets with very little difficulty; what she cannot do at present is to welcome browsers, as anyone peering through the window can see all too clearly!
• Co-operation between the Hotel & Caterers Association and St. John Ambulance means that after 8 March, someone in each of our catering establishments should know what to do if a diner swallows a fish bone - someone in each hotel or guest house should be able to recognise a heart attack. St. John Ambulance are holding a special first-aid evening for the HOTCATS at 7.30 on Tuesday (8th) at the Conduit Hill HQ. The session costs £2.50 a head, and the committee hope that as many members as possible will be able to attend. The idea came from one of the senior members, who did have trouble with a fishbone in a restaurant which did know what to do; otherwise, we gather, there might have been a sad loss to the town recently.
• The Editor would be most grateful if whoever borrowed her copy of "The History of Rye Golf Club" some weeks ago would please return it - anonymously to her garage (side door) if preferred!
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 through Cinque Ports Stationers of Rye. The deadline is second post on Monday for Wednesday's delivery to subscribers and pick-up points; spare copies are usually available from Young Ideas, 7 Cinque Ports Street, Rye, price 45p. The Editor also keeps the Town Diary, and entries should be notified to her in good time for advance publicity or inclusion in the weekly diary, above. (Copyright Mary Owen 1988)