On St. George's Day, 1938, Flora Ashcroft of Tenterden and Albert Booth of Rye were married at St. Mildred's, Tenterden. The new Mrs. Booth had come to Rye to work at Jeake's House for the Aiken family, and was with them for about 18 months before Conrad took them back to the States. Mr. Booth worked at Spun Concrete for all his working life, except for what sounds like quite a lively war: a Territorial, he joined the Royal Sussex Regiment and went out to France, was one of the last back fron Dunkirk, and later served in the Middle East at El Alamein. Mrs. Booth, with two very small children, was evacuated to Kidby, near Scunthorpe; Mr. Booth saw their third child when he was a babe in arms, and then not again until young Victor was just starting school. All three now live near their parents - Bryan at Udimore„ Jean (Igglesden) in Rye and Victor at Fairlight, and there are five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. At the anniversary party at Broonhill Lodge (on the exact day, 23 April), the youngest guest was Mt. and Mrs. Booth's first great-grandson, just a month old, and the oldest was one of Mrs. Booth's closest friends Mrs. Dora Tiltman (and we hope Mrs. Tiltman won't mind us saying that she is over 80, so there was quite an age-range!). Also present were both bridesmaids, Mrs. Betty Tooth of Rye and Mrs. Rae Wells of Ashford, meeting again for the first time in half a century. Mr. and Mrs. Booth live in Pottingfield Road, the only family ever to have lived at no. 92: it was finished on the Tuesday, said Mrs. Booth, and they moved in on the Thursday!
On Tuesday, the Community Health Council meets in Rye - at the Town Hall at 2.30. Apart from the normal business of the meeting, there will be an opportunity for members of the general public to speak; since the closure of our casualty will be on the agenda, it might be as well for those with special reasons for wanting it retained to be there and say why. Any other matters of general medical interest which may be worrying local people can also be raised; we can think of one, for starters.
In the course of the meeting there is to be a presentation by Colin Tarry of the HHA ("presentation" in the currently fashionable sense, that is - no-one is actually getting a silver salver!) on the development of the Mentally Handicapped Services, which will include references to Hill House. So it should be a useful meeting all round, and those who don't bother to turn up can't complain later that .hey are never kept in the picture.
Rye is now certain of enough trees to fill the gaps left by the October storm - and probably, since the Chamber of Trade's "Trees for Rye" Appeal is still open c/o Lloyds Bank, Rye, to fill any other gaps too (we are thinking of that moribund cherry in Ashenden Avenue?). The Chamber's new chairman, Tony Wills, announced with justifiable pride at the end of the wine-and-cheese party last Thursday at the Town Hall that the fund had reached £800 - enough to provide and plant at least 40 trees.
Earlier, the Mayor had referred to the complete devastation in some areas - Rye got off comparatively lightly - and this was confirmed by a second showing of the Seeboard video recently seen by Red Cross members and friends, underlining the enormous task tackled by the enormous task-force organised jointly by all the electricity boards with help from the army.
Donations came from the WRVS, Inner Wheel, Women's Royal British Legion, Royal British Legion Club, Rye Conservation Society, Rotary, Round Table, The Rye Gazette, Rose-Anne, Mr. and Mrs. Brian Thompson, Serendipity, No-Venn, Maison Fleur, Davie's Coaches, Derek Proctor, Rye & District Floral Club, Mr. and Mrs. Ron Lampon, Landgate WI, Roger Breeds, Mr. Emson, Rye Pottery, Rye WI, Rye Town Council and Sussex Men of the Trees (£100 each from the last two). If we have left out anyone, sorry - please tell us for next week.
2.
Mr. William Dunlop, of Lunsford Farm, Pett, died at his home early on Saturday morning, 30 April; he was 72, and his health had not been good for the last few years. Quite apart from what he did for Pett - whose County Councillor he was for 17 years, following in the footsteps of his father - Will Dunlop will always be remembered with gratitude and affection by past pupils of Rye Grammar School and Thomas Peacocke School. He left the Grammar School in 1932 (and went briefly into banking before returning to the hundred-year-old family farming business). In 1938 he became secretary of the RGS Old Scholars Association, and started its Bulletin which found its way to Old Scholars all over the world and was particularly valued by those stationed in remote WW2 postings, because of the link it gave them with home and normality. He continued with both jobs for the next half-century! As Ray Fooks said at the Stone Age Reunion in 1985, there were times when the Association rested entirely on Will Dunlop's shoulders; and John Smith, his contemporary at the Grammar School and colleague on the OSA committee, told us that without Will there would not have been an Association at all. But Mr. Dunlop was not only concerned with past pupils of the school; he became a School Governor in the early 1950s and remained one until his death; he was also a Foundation Governor of the Grammar School (the body which administers some of the RGS endowments); and he wrestled very successfully with ESCC on behalf of Leasam House. His son Thomas and daughter Ruth were pupils at the school. But Will Dunlop had one interest which went back even further than his school commitments: he founded Icklesham Casuals Footba]lClub in 1937, and although he very rarely played he was its secretary from then onwards. This was something very special in football clubs; members were drawn from the surrounding area, many of them ex-RGS but not all. Of course they played football and played it well - some very well indeed, as their subsequent careers showed - but there was more to it than that; the Club won the local Sportsmanship Cup several times and the members were good types as well as good players. Perhaps, in a wider sense, the same can be said of Will Dunlop himself, whose loss will be felt by many sections of the community. (Because of the Bank Holiday, funeral arrangements are not definite as we go to press.)
God was good to St. Anthony's on Monday - the day was beautifully fine until well after lunch and the stall in the Gun Garden flourished, with many Museum visitors stopping to spend money. Pink cherry blossom lay in the gutters all round Church Square and even in Market Street (much of the blossom is now over, but it has been lovely this year and Ashenden Avenue was a picture last week despite one tree putting out only a few pathetic last-gasp leaves). Apart from this stall, Monday was eventless in the town - which is more than could be said of Saturday, with four fund-raising events before 2.0. We have not heard the results of three; but the St. John Nursing Cadets were delighted to raise £88 selling off the contents of the HQ attic before roof repairs were able to start!
Talking to Joan Yates at the Bowls Club coffee morning on Saturday, we were glad to hear that the final decision about closing casualty at Rye Hospital will not be taken until the September meeting of the Health Authority. In the meantime, General Manager Alan Martindale has promised Mrs. Yates that he will himself study the views of all those who write to him; reasoned argument will of course carry more weight than just general complaint. So it is really important that as many people as possible should write, putting forward their personal points of view; Mrs. Yates is already urging her Parish Councils to do just this, since many villagers will find it even more difficult to get over to Hastings under their own steam than people from Rye. She feels that there is no possibility of retaining 24-hour cover; what we should be pushing for is day-time cover.
Urged by Roger Breeds, Rother is to ask HHA to think again about Rye's casualty; Mr. Breeds mentioned at full Council the schools' problem, and also the difficulties facing visitors in caravan accommodation. George Shackleton supported Mr. Breeds, and so did Michael Bishop, who represents Beckley and Peasmarsh and is chairman of the Environmental Health Committee.
- 3 - THE RYE GAZETTE, 4 May 1988
Budgens' recruiting team were well pleased with the response to their two-day session at the George interviewing prospective staff. Their personnel manager tells us that they hope to fill almost all the jobs with people based locally, though the manager will of course be an established member of the company's staff.
The store will open on Tuesday, 26 July. Hours will be 8.30 to 8 Mondays to Fridays, 8.30 to 6 on Saturdays. There will be seven check-out tills. Departments will include garden produce, fresh meat and fish, a dairy cabinet, a delicatessen counter, grocery (including of course cleaning materials etc.), and wines and spirits. Also an in-store bakery; this is not what their Head Office told us but the personnel manager was quite certain; and what is also certain is that it will have to be something quite out of the ordinary to attempt competition with the town's three existing bakeries - three out of fewer than 4,000 in the whole country!
We asked about car parking, and were told that the whole of the parking space on that side of the station was to be for supermarket use. This was something of a surprise, and we wonder if the Chamber of Trade will wish to take up the matter with the developers and with Planning, since as far as we remember this is not what was said at the time of the original planning application? If it is true, it reduces the number of spaces in the town for general use quite dramatically since BR has now firmly allocated half its park for coaches only, with a grim threat of wheelclamping for those who disobey, The number of car spaces was causing concern when plans were still being discussed - and it looks as if these fears are justified, if only supermarket customers are allowed to use the 80 or so spaces shown on that side.
Ian Thomson of Pottingfield Road is a radio amateur, and he was much interested to receive recently a card from a radio contact (Les Bober, of Shrub End, Colchester), showing HMS Rye, on which Mr. Bober had been a petty officer. She was J76, Bangor Class Fleet Minesweeper, serving with the 14/17th Minesweeping Flotilla. Mr. Thomson has been doing a good deal of research since then, The ship was built at Troon in Scotland and commissioned in 1942; she served throughout the war (Atlantic, Malta, Sicily, Normandy) and was scrapped in 1948. Her White Ensign was placed in St. Mary's at a ceremony that year, and now hangs in the south transept with a commemorative plaque. The Town Hall has a wooden plaque and accompanying document which was presented to the ship on its adoption by the town and then returned here for safe keeping; it should also have the ship's brass inscribed (presumably) HMS Rye, but Frank Palmer has been cataloguing the contents of the Town Hall attic and doesn't recall seeing it. Can anyone tell us its present whereabouts?
When Mr. Thomson has completed his research, he hopes to have something suitable for public display in the town. In the meantime, he would be very grateful for copies of any photographs or letters or other information referring to the ship. He wonders if anyone local served on her? Mr. Bober says that five of the crew are still in touch with each other.
There were three earlier ships bearing the name HMS Rye: built in 1696 and sunk in 1727, built in 1740 and wrecked in 1744, and built in 1745 and sold in 1763. Any information about any of these would be most welcome. Mr. Thomson lives at Pottingfield Road, Rye - or messages may be left at the police station.
The WRVS has a beautifully-arranged and instructive display in the window at the top of Lion Street, generously lent by Freight Express, to celebrate the fifty years of service to the country which members have given since the WVS was founded in 1938. Not all the serviette illustrated can be carried out by the local branch, but many of them are. The original uniform (what a very desirable tweed!) was worn by a local member. If you are passing, you can hardly miss the window; if not, it is well worth a special visit.
• After dramatic alterations behind the polythene sheet screening off the window, the Black Sheep in the Mint has now reopened (normal shop hours, closed Tuesday afternoons at present). Diane Gordon has expanded the range of wools stocked to include Sirdar and Wendy, and there is plenty of Aran on the way. Local knitters will be pleased to hear that she aims to keep prices for both wool and patterns a little below those recommended by the manufacturers. The shop also has some beautiful hand-knitted sweaters (for adults and children) and shawls - there appeared to be a dew-spangled cobweb in the window on Monday! All are for sale, but are also samples (so they can do you one "just like that but longer" or in a different size or whatever). The shop itself now covers the whole of the ground floor in one large room - black beams, white walls, red tiles - with a tiny trying-on room tucked into one corner and plenty of room for stock storage upstairs. By a curious coincidence both Mrs. Gordon and her predecessor Mrs. Sarkies trained as home economics teachers, but Diane Gordon moved on to being an air-hostess from her native Edinburgh, and then married and came south for good. The family live just over the Kent border - and she has no intention at all of returning either to teaching or to air-hostessing, she says firmly!
• Rye Stamps is the new name for what used to be Rye Havana, at 113 High Street, so we need hardly tell readers what it sells. However, Mr. Bonnefoy (also of the Duke's Head pub at Ham Street) is anxious to buy as well as sell stamps, singles, sets and collections; and the shop deals too in accessories for stamp-collectors and in postcards and postal history - though, says Mr. Bonnefoy sadly, he's a bit short on postal history just at present. Rye Stamps is open on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in the summer, from 10.30 to 5 (closed 1 to 2); phone Rye 224634. Mr. Bonnefoy will be very happy to meet local collectors; so, whether you are one yourself or just want to get rid of your great-uncle's collection in the sideboard drawer, do call in and say hullo - it could be well worth your while.
• Many people who never actually shopped there will be sorry that the unusual little boutique, Concoctions, has finally departed from Market Road after closing for the winter. It has been replaced by a children's-wear shop called Smarty Pants - under entirely different management, we understand.
Those who feared that violent crime had finally come to Rye on Monday morning, when what sounded like gunshots were heard in the town, will be reassured to know that the noise was made by British Rail detonators which some idiot had placed on the line after breaking into the permanent-way shed beside the station. Becau Bank Holiday had only a Sunday service, there were no early trains, and both drivers and passengers on the 10.28 to Ashford and the 11.28 to Hastings must have been considerably startled at the effect of their arrival.
The press book shows a nasty record of vandalism in the town just lately. £200-worth of damage was done to four windows at Thomas Peacocke School on the night of 22/23 April; between 22 and 25 April, boats at the Fishmarket were damaged and several hundred pounds' worth of work will be needed in repairs; and soon after 10pm on 27 April a number of cars parked in Lucknow Place were hit with bricks and kicked, with bills for some £600 for the unlucky owners. There were thefts from Seeboard, where a Binatone 5" TV, a battery shaver and two beard trimmers (!) were stolen on Saturday (the suspect is a tall man of about 35, well built, with a red T-shirt and dark jacket, who was in the shop with a holdall at the time); from Lochin Marine, where a 12' clinker-built dinghy in varnished wood was stolen between 23 and 25 April; and from a boat at the Harbour, whose owner has lost a heavy-duty 12v battery worth £35.
An elderly lady at Westfield had two lawn-mowers stolen from her garage; suspects are two men who called to tell her her roof needed mending. This is the second such case recently; please, please be wary of strangers, and don't let them into your house, or even out of your sight while they are on your property.
5.
Condolences to our Mayor-Elect, Frank Palmer, who ought to be high in the Swiss Alps on a late ski-ing holiday with a group of mountaineering colleagues. In fact he is back in The Strand with a badly-bruised arm and shoulder, after having been run into by one of his mates! At least the journey home was simple, on a French coach which went half-way round Switzerland and then France before crossing to Dover with no trouble at all and then dropping him off to finish the journey by train. The Mayoring takes place on 30 May, so Frank had been instructed not to come back with a leg in plaster - and he didn't, but it was a near thing.
"Training for Tourism" is a project set up at the beginning of the year by the RDA (which covers the Marsh area as well as Rye and the immediate villages). It was launched officially at Lydd Airport on 25 March by the MP for Folkestone & Hythe, Michael Howard QC - and we have only now been able to find room to report on the occasion. The project manager is A.G. Thirsk, who works from an office in New Romney.
The guest-list included over 80 representatives of various councils and tourist organisations, and some tourist-related businesses. (Among them was "Mrs. J. Townsend, Iden Pottery" - would this be Denis, Maureen, Jim or David, we wondered?) The Rye-based contingent consisted of Councillor John Ciccone, the Town Clerk, Ron Dellar from the Hotel & Caterers and James Menhinick from the Rye Promotion Group, Winchelsea's County Councillor Robert Bromley, and your reporter. Leslie Bulman, the RDA Field Officer, was there (but the mysterious Mrs. J. Townsend was not!) Rosemary Bagley told us that the Museum knew nothing about the project at all and had certainly received no invitation; Dax Copp and his wife were there on behalf of the Art Gallery, but had asked for an invitation after hearing something about the launch by chance. Neither Rother's Director of Tourism (David Blake) nor Rye's Tourist Information Officer (Rita Swaine) were there; the only Rother Council representative on the list at all was DA Waite (perhaps a member of Mr. Blake's staff?). Shepway and Ashford Councils were represented by Councillors as well as officials; in general, we got the feeling that Rye was included at all as merely a limb of Kent.
So what is it all about? We weren't too sure, even by the end. It is apparently felt that more tourists would be drawn to the area if more professional skill were to be shown by those responsible for looking after them. A questionnaire, said the handout, had been sent to "every family business, firm and company involved in tourism in the area" (but not to Rye's main tourist attraction, evidently). There had not been a very good response to it, and the organisers hoped that publicity arising from the launch would produce a better reaction to the second stage - personal visits from Mr. Thirsk to some (but not all) such businesses to see if he can persuade them to have their staff trained in handling tourists.
"Doubtful" would be a polite word for the Rye contingent's reaction to the scheme. As Ron Dellar pointed out to us, most of the local guest-houses are family businesses run by one or both halves of a married couple with part-time help for the housework. So who gets trained - Mr, Mrs or the daily? As for the bigger establishments, the George (THF) has its own training scheme, and so doubtless does the Mermaid; which really only leaves Lena and Derek Baldock at the Hope Anchor, and the Barker family (new owners of the Saltings). Will they welcome this RDA scheme? We do hope so, simply for Mr. Thirsk's sake; and doubtless he will be glad to hear from anyone who never got a questionnaire but who would welcome advice on staff training for tourism.
As a matter of interest, two award-winning businesses in Rye, both directly concerned with tourists, were founded and run by people who admitted to knowing nothing about their chosen line of business beforehand - Mr. and Mrs. Thompson of The Old Vicarage in Church Square, and Mr. and Mrs. Simmons of The Mint. For all we know, either might have welcomed guidance on staff training - but it would have been a brave man who suggested it!
6.
Another successful year of fund-raising was announced at the NSPCC Annual Meeting on Thursday: £8,533 was raised during the year, and that's not counting £1,000 from the Raft Race which came in after the 1987 accounts were closed. In her secretary's report, Anne Wood welcomed Carol Bourne to the committee, and expressed sorrow at the death of Mrs. Peter James, at one time secretary and treasurer of the Branch, in whose memory £200 had been given to the Society. It was, said Anne, a great help to have the support of the Lions (now in charge of the Raft Race), but she also thanked everyone who had supported the Branch in any way during the year. The committee members were re-elected en bloc, secretary's and treasurer's reports were adopted, dates of coming events were noted, and then the meeting settled down to listen to Peter Dale, who as Team Leader (Inspectorate) for East Sussex is based at the new Hastings Child Protection Centre, speaking about just some of the problems they had to face. Thanking him, Alan Webb commented on how inter-generation communication had improved in recent years: "Our children talk to us about things which I would never have dared think about in front of my parents!" he said amid laughter. The usual delicious tea was much enjoyed after the meeting.
The three latest volumes (£1.99 each) in the TPS local history group's series, "Rye Memories", are now on sale from D & P Street, Anthony Neville, Salon 54 and Adams of Rye, or from Mrs. Jo Kirkham c/o Thomas Peacocke School, The Grove. "Rye Childhoods" (green cover) contains a trio of childhood recollections, plus a final section on nicknames - so popular in the pre-war days with which the school group is primarily concerned. The first contributor is the late Miss Blanche Rhodes, who was born in 1902, daughter of "Jokey" Rhodes and his wife Bessie; some years ago she described the Rye of her pre-WW1 girlhood, and this section is introduced by Peter Ewart, a Rhodes on his mother's side. The other two contributors are a generation younger, both born in 1930. Ken Clark lives in Eagle Road and is much involved in local history - he writes of the life led in Rye by himself and his friend the late Don Henley in the 1940s and early 1950s. Bob Croucher has been corresponding from his home in Auckland, NZ, with Sheila Axell; his parents moved to Hastings when he was born, but he spent a good deal of time as a boy with his grandparents, first in South Undercliff and then in Military Road.
The next book (grey cover) consists mainly of the memories of Bill Cutting, who came twice to talk to the group. He is one of the four children of William and Caroline Cutting, and started school aged 4 in 1913 at the Harbour; the family moved to Rye four years later, and he ended up at Playden School - running there and back daily in company with Chippy Jordan. (Playden pupils really should read this one, particularly the bit about the drinking water!) Mr. Cutting and his wife - who came to the area "in service" at Pelsham - are now three years off their Diamond Wedding. His recollections are absolutely fascinating, not to be missed. There are also two shorter pieces written by members of the group - Kay Beeching's account of her great-aunt's early life (Miss Dolly Beeching of the Harbour), and Una Piggott's ghost story. The Editor takes the opportunity to mention other local ghost stories too, including a modern one in Mermaid Street.
"The Postal History of Rye" (pink cover) is a very different matter, and is based on a talk given to the group by John Priestly of Winchelsea. It deals with postal history generally, though with a local slant, and ends with personal memories from Rye's one-time postmaster Frederick Orford, and from one of his telegraph boys (briefly, during the war), Clifford Bloomfield.
Looked at as a threesome, the books make one wonder about the value of photographs as illustrations in this school-produced series. Line drawings (as in "Postal History") come out beautifully. But 27 of the 87 pages of "Childhoods" are taken up by photographs from which it is almost impossible to make out any of the detail; unless a better system can be found, are they really, worth the cost of the paper they are printed on? The text is invariably splendid; the illustrations, alas, are not. Fair comment, from a newspaper which doesn't carry photographs for just that reason?
7.
• The final two places on sail-training ships to be sponsored by the Canon John Williams Youth Adventure Fund will be allocated in July. This is the Fund's last year, and "to climax the venture worthily" says Kate Damson, they have been promised two berths on the July 1989 Tall Ships Race to Hamburg, one on the boys' ship and one on the girls'. Applicants should live in one of the Rye Group of Parishes, and be over 16 and under 25 by the date of the cruise; entries close on 30 June, with interviews on 2 July. Forms from Thomas Peacocke School (where a film is being shown to the appropriate age-group), or from Mrs. Dawson, 5 Market Road, Rye.
• Everyone will be delighted to know that the National Trust has new tenants coming to Lamb House, some time in June. Mr. and Mrs. William Martin now live in Sutton Valence, but were earlier the owners of Long Barn, associated with Nigel Nicholson and Vita Sackville-West, so they are well used to houses with literary histories; and their present house is opened to the public, so they are used to that too. They know Rye well and have already met some of the Lamb House guides. There has been a caretaker at the house since Sir Brian and Lady Batsford moved to Winchelsea„ and the house is now open as usual on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, with the public rooms fully furnished, and the Henry James items on view. (Recently, through the kind offices of the London-based EF Benson Society, a number of Benson's books have been added to the library there.)
• Current planning applications include the one we described last week, for the Bateman & Maxfield premises in Landgate; a request for a new door and frame for 29 High Street (over Martins); and a proposal from ARC for development of a wharf on land to the east and north of Long Products in Harbour Road. This is a site which already had outline permission for a wharf, and is roughly half-way along Harbour Road, some way both from the village and from the edge of the town - which is just as well, since the plans include sundry plant as well as the wharf itself. Harbour people feel that it may finally settle any question of the Montrose housing estate going ahead, since who would want to live between two wharfs, one with extensive shipping operations and the other incorporating a s tone-crushing plant?
• We have been asked to insert the following rather sad little notice:
"Rye & Rother Valley Ladies Circle have ceased to be. We would like to thank everyone who has supported us at our fund-raising events over the years."
Just that. Ladies Circle is composed of the wives of Round Table members, and we would like to thank them, too, for what they have done for the town while the organisation has existed here.
• Leah Mercedes at the Peacock Wine Bar has now completed the reorganisation of the bar area, with a long bar counter and shelves behind in near-old pine - and the most impressive bottle-opener we ever saw. Leah is now turning her attention to her next improvement, and is looking thoughtfully at a bricked-up door in the cellar. She is told it leads into the cellar which goes with the house next door; but Freddy Kurrein owns the house next door - and he didn't think he'd got a cellar...
• John Collard of Watchbell Street read about the Elizabethan jollifications planned for 19 July (GAZETTE no. 266) and "without wishing to damp down such harmless hilarity" thinks we should put the Armada and Rye's contribution to the defence of the realm at that time in proper perspective. "I feel" he says "that we are often in danger of romanticising past history at the expense of the truth, and the Armada celebrations will provide an irresistible temptation for those who have no regard for the facts." We cannot, of course, speak for Winchelsea, who are making a Big Thing of this with a binge lasting a week; but as far as the Rye organisers are concerned, it seems clear that "harmless hilarity" is just what they have in mind, and no more than that. However, those who do want to know the full story can find it all set out in detail in Mr. Collard's book, "A Maritime History of Rye", pages 23 to 25.
Vidler & Co's monthly auction sale, 10
Movie Society, a member's evening, FEC, 7.30
FRAG coffee morning (bring-and-buy, cakes, produce), Studio, 10.30 (goods to Osma Jones, 222507, or to Rye Art Gallery)
"The Shroud of Turin", Chez Dominique (Tower Street), 7.30, also on Tuesday (see below)
Community Health Council, meeting in public, TH, 2.30 (page 2)
Tea-party, TPS local history group (by invitation), Upper School, 1.30 to 3.30
Rye WI, resolutions with a VCO, FEC, 7
• Congratulations to Helen (nee Duffy) and Paul Head on the birth of their son on 20 April - the day after his mum's birthday. He is the third grandson for Jim and Kathleen Duffy of Lea Avenue, who also have a grand-daughter. Paul, a petty officer in the Royal Navy, is stationed at Portland.
• The Women's British Legion raised £129 for the Poppy Appeal, selling roses at the Town Hall on St. George's Day - for the sixth year running.
• Winners in the MSS draw on Saturday were (no. 706) Rees, Cross House, Udimore; (205) Bourne, Winchelsea Post Office; and (423) Mrs. Still, Fairmeadow. The draw raised £512 for the local branch. George Cumming was not running in the London Marathon this year, owing to ill-health.
• Mrs. Dominique Chapuis of Tower Street is acting as hostess for two showings of a video "The Shroud of Turin" on Monday and Tuesday next week. Tickets £1.50 from River Books, include coffee and biscuits, with profits for the St. Anthony's Restoration Fund.
• On Sunday week the St. Anthony's Sunday-school children are holding a "sponsored skip", also for the Restoration Fund, from 10 in the Gun Garden. Grown-ups who would like to join in but don't fancy skipping can jog on the spot or do press-ups instead. Sponsor forms are at River Books - or ring Arlene Ellis on Peasmarsh 605 after 4pm for more information.
• The power cut last Thursday afternoon was caused, we hear, by a swan flying into a power line somewhere out Winchelsea way. We don't know what happened to the swan; the power was off for more than an hour-and-a-half from 4.0.
• Frank Golden's in the High Street has a vacancy for someone to work in the shop four fall days a week including Saturdays. Shop experience would be very welcome, and an ability to get on well with strangers is essential. (The job might well appeal to those with a sense of history, since Goldens is not only one of the longest-established shops in Rye, dating back as a draper's to 1663, but also the oldest drapery store on the south-east coast!)
• Congratulations to Richard, middle son of Daphne and Basil Jones of The Grove, who has recently become an Inspector in the Nuclear Installations Health & Safety Inspectorate; the family (two children) are now living in Heswall, on the Wirrall. His younger brother Martin, with a Cambridge MA, is working for an electronics firm in Cambridge; Peter is still at home, spending all his spare time on his passion, fishing.
• John Ryan was heard on Radio Sussex last week, talking about the Pugwash books and he dropped a hint that Captain Pugwash might possibly drop anchor at the Harbour in a future adventure...
• Birthday and all-occasion greetings cards are needed for recycling, please, yet again in aid of St. Anthony's Restoration Fund (we aren't getting paid for this, honestly!). They may be left in the porch at the church.
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. Deadline is second post on Monday for Wednesday delivery; spare copies are amilable (45p) from Young Ideas, children's wear, 7 Cinque Ports Street. (Copyright Mary Owen 1988)