Andrea Wickenden, 16, of Marley Road, has obviously very much enjoyed her fort-night's cruise on the sail-training ship "Sir Winston Churchill". Andrea was the first winner of an annual place under this scheme awarded from the John Williams memorial fund; she should have gone last Easter, but her particular cruise had to be postponed. The ship left Southampton with 39 trainees, all girls, aboard, and many of the regular crew - "seapersons" as someone described them - were also female. They cruised in the Channel, visiting France and Jersey; but some very green-faced girls with a force 8 gale behind them were glad to see Shoreham Harbour on Friday! Andrea says that, weather apart, the first week was not always easy, with none of them used to being at sea, but the second week passed far too quickly for her liking. She has made new friends - the group were drawn from all over the country; and she comes back to Rye to start her first job, at Hill House.
The cost of these cruises - the Fund hopes to provide one each year for seven years - is rising more steeply than the organisers had quite expected, and if they are to fill all seven places they will need more money in the kitty eventually. Saturday's concert in St. Mary's, beside being very much enjoyed, raised £86 towards the Fund, but Mrs. Kate Davson (5 Market Road) would welcome topping-up donations. The organisers hope, early in the New Year, to show a sail-training film at Thomas Peacocke School, with Andrea giving a commentary from her own experiences, in order to encourage applicants for the 1985 place; 1984 winner is Roy Pierce.
Rye WI Group Home Economics Show had its large crowd of admirers in the FE Centre on Saturday positively drooling, so that it was almost a relief to go into the far room and look at the flower arrangements! As usual, the most spectacular entries were those in the co-operative cookery class, this year entitled County Fayre, with exhibits representing ten different counties plus extra marks awarded for staging. There were 45 entries in the class for a savoury flan - though they all looked delicious, none gained the coveted gold star, but we noticed at least six scattered around the preserves section. There were apparently only three entries of eggs, and only 6 bottles in the wine section, which was surprising; the fruit section (apples and pears) saw three gold stars going to Iden. The trugs of vegetables were a co-operative effort. The herb section included both dried and pot-grown varieties (the judge was said to have upturned the latter to make sure they really did have roots!)
Five flower classes included a ruby wedding pedestal arrangement, a posy for a blind person, a dried arrangement, a miniature in a 3” space (much admired here was the tiny posy in a mirrored box), and an arrangement in an unusual container. Here the winning entry, with a gold star, was set in a glue-pot, but other contestants used shoes (real and ornamental), various pots and pans and even a bird's nest!
The trophies were presented by County Chairman Mrs. Stewart, who always enjoys coming to Rye where they "do things the right way"; she congratulated Mrs. Betty Cramp and her helpers on putting on such a splendid show. The gardening cup went to Iden; Playden won the cup for flowers; Beckley, with 1982 points, gained the co-operative cookery cup, and also had most points for preserves - they won the rose bowl for cookery with 5712 points, just beating Rye's 5702! The very choosy judges had awarded 19 gold stars altogether.
2.
Readers may have seen that the Weslakes management was to make a statement to its employees at the end of last week in connection with the future of the company. By the weekend there were so many rumours going round about what was or was not said, that we tried to extract from the firm an accurate version for publication. However, our request was met with a firm refusal - a statement would be issued to the press when there was something to report and not until. Full stop. Sorry!
Rye's new Day Centre, first instalment, is to open on Wednesday, 2 November, in the Baptist Hall. The members of this first small group, all elderly, will have been recommended by community services in the area, and the organisers are not yet able to offer membership to everyone who would like to attend, though they hope this will come later when the Centre is more established, possibly with more than one session.
The organiser is Mrs. Barbara Wild of Camber, and she tells us that although they have a useful core of volunteers to help, they could do with more, either for the whole day or just for a couple of hours. If you feel you could spare some time on a Wednesday, please ring Mrs. Wild (Rye 225497) or leave a message at the Social Services office in Cinque Ports Street. They still need some armchairs, too; offers, ditto.
We mentioned recently, in connection with the suggested sports hall for Rye, Rother's proposal for a swimming pool in Bexhill. This was discussed at the full Council meeting last week, and support for it was far from unanimous. Some Councillors thought it a waste of money, some said the site was wrong. CouncillorBrampton, of the Recreation and Leisure Committee, said - or was quoted as saying - that by agreeing to the building of the pool, members would go down in the history of Bexhill! But this doubtful honour seems to be at the cost of losing a great deal of ratepayers' money - at least £55,000 a year. There had originally been a question of seeking private funding for this project, either by public subscription or from private enterprise, but this question has, Councillor Shackleton tells us, lately been studiously avoided. We have heard two very different opinions about the likelihood of a grant from the Sports Council. Mr. Shackleton has prepared a very full report on the pool project for Rye Town Council.
Mr. Harding, the Chief Executive and Clerk, has prepared a very full report on the project for Rother Council. He speaks in very suitable terms about the significance of recreation and leisure - but it does seem odd that this particular form of recreation should be proposed so expensively for Bexhill, of all places! Reference is made to "dual use of educational facilities" in some areas, something of which Mr. Harding has had previous experience in Norfolk, and this would apply to our sports hall. But the report does give the impression of trying to persuade the non-Bexhill Councillors to agree to the pool in return for "a policy commitment to a review of the Council's contribution to leisure and recreation facilities in the rural parishes" - which sounds rather like "you scratch our back now, and we might undertake to think about scratching yours one day"!
An excavation to lay a new mains pipe in Eagle Road the other day revealed, about four foot down, the same grey clay as is found on the beach at Pett - calling to mind the time when St. Mary's Marsh, now the site of Thomas Peacocke School, was just that. But an excavation by Segas, round the south and west end of St. Mary's Church, revealed nice friable soil all the way down - and the implications of that are obvious, too! There was also a double-thickness brick foundation of a wall coming out at right-angles from the south-west window (towards the Old Custom House side of Church Square). The bricks didn't look very old, but there is nothing above ground; does anyone know what used to be there?
- 3 - THE RYE GAZETTE, 12.10.1983
This week's planning list includes a change-of-use application from Mr. R.R. Watson of Tunbridge Wells for permission to use 113 High Street (ex Southern Rentals) as a solicitors office; alterations to 8 Mermaid Street; and improvements to the Ypres Castle pub loos.
In connection with the West Undercliff planning appeal, we wondered last week why the Rye Town Map, drawn up in 1967, is still in draft, more than 15 years later. Rother's Planning Officer, Mr. Powell, tells us that this is not because the lines laid down by the Map are still, so to speak, fluid; it is regularly used by the planners as a hard-and-fast guide. However, it was initiated by the East Sussex County Council when that body was responsible for planning in the area, and was still in draft when Rother took over the job. Rother can't get the Map finalised because this has to be a job for the initiating authority; but the initiating authority no longer has any responsibility for planning at all. There are, Mr. Powell says, other similar drafts in the same predicament all over the country!
Also last week we mentioned a change-of use application for the Appledore Antiques shop at the top of Conduit Hill. The applicant is Mr. G.K. Johnson, who has a business in Camber and plans to move from Bromley to the Rye area very shortly. He applied to open a "snack bar" in the High Street premises, and this phrase seems to have engendered alarm and despondency in the neighbourhood; so we phoned Mr. Johnson to ask just what he has in mind.
He tells us that he himself had been uneasy about the "snack bar" description. What he plans is a Continental sandwich and snack bar, selling coffee, quiches, pastries, etc., to people shopping, working or just strolling in the High Street who feel it is "time for a little something" as Winnie-the-Pooh used to say. The plan shows eight tables and a display unit, the rest of the space being given over to storage, food preparation, cloakroom, etc.; there will, Mr. Johnson assures us, be no frying on the premises at all. Nor will there be any music, certainly not a juke-box; he is not after the juke-box trade. Opening hours will more or less correspond to those of the shops.
Mr. Johnson's enquiries convince him that there is a demand for an establishment of this type in the High Street. He hopes to offer reductions for old-age pensioners; but even for those not yet in that category, it would be really pleasant to be able to enjoy a coffee and a sandwich in the High Street at midday without either having to order a full meal or being looked at by askance by a teenage clientele.
We are still nagging for the street lighting plans and photographs prepared by ESCC for the Conservation Area to be on display in the town. In the meantime, we have gleaned some surprising information from Mr. Ken Shaw at County Hall on the relative merits of the different types of lighting. As a comparison, let us say that an ordinary 150-watt tungsten lamp gives off 1,500 lumens (this is a way of measuring light output); and a 70-watt high-pressure sodium lamp gives off, on this basis, 5,500 lumens; and a 35-watt low-pressure (yellow) sodium one 4,500 lumens. Since the electricity consumed (and paid for, of course) is measured by wattage, it will be clear that the sodium lights, and particularly the yellow ones, give much better value for money. In addition, Mr. Shaw says, whereas a tungsten lamp left on all night will need renewing about four times a year, a sodium lamp of the type proposed for the Conservation Area should last three years (six years if it goes off at midnight), and although the sodium lamps cost considerably more to buy, there is a huge saving on labour for their replacement.
Readers passing Banister's Corner may have noticed the spirited pair of racehorses which adorn the new window of F.J. Tolhurst, Licensed Bookmaker. As we reported at the time, the shop recently had its window knocked out by an incautious car; and with excellent taste, the proprietors have commissioned Louis Turpin to paint the traditional design on the replacement panes!
(We hear a rumour that there is another hitch about the Conduit Hill bollards, and their erection is less imminent than we forecast recently - more next week.)
4.
When May Hinde was eleven, in the summer of 1916, she came over to Rye on the back of a motorbike from her home in Staplecross to try for a scholarship to Rye Grammar School. She took a written examination in arithmetic and English, and read aloud to the examiner; and passed (subject to the required medical examination)- though, alas, her friend Faith Clayton, the motor-cyclist's daughter, did not. That Thursday, May's mother and aunt took her to Tunbridge Wells in the train to buy a stout second-hand push-bike they had seen advertised - three-speed, in good condi-tion and costing somewhere under £2. The following Tuesday was the first day of term, and May and her aunt cycled the ten miles to Rye, left the bike at the digs recommended by the Headmaster, and May's grammar-school life began.
Her first lodgings were with the Southerdens in South Undercliff, where her parents paid 12/- a week (60p) for five days' stay with full board. When her brother Ernest joined her at the school, the two of them moved to live with the Heasemans at Cadborough Villas, and eventually back to South Undercliff to Mrs. Masters.
Mrs. Masters liked taking grammar-school lodgers so that she could have her weekends free to work on her allotment; she charged 14/- a week, but then prices were rising because of the war. Fish was plentiful and cheap, and at weekends May loaded her bike with this (she remembers buying 24 herrings for 1/-) as well as with fruit and her homework, and cycled the ten miles home - whatever the weather, though in winter she stayed in Rye over Friday nights. When the school was given a holiday on Armistice Day, the Hinde children cycled home for the rest of that day and then back in time for school next morning (and that was a Friday - we feel sure that Mr. Balcomb never had to call on business on the Hinde family, see page 5!)
Their route lay past the gipsy camp beside the lonely road from Broad Oak to Cripps Corner, but the gipsies never troubled them, though they usually asked what the time was. The cyclists frequently encountered cattle and sheep being driven along the road, but very rarely any motor traffic.
The staff at the time were headed by Mr. Molyneux Jenkins - who was very much part of Rye's life both then and later. Miss Stott and Miss Flagg taught English; Miss Le Heurey and Miss Seed, French; Miss Tunstal, History; Mr. Broome, Geography; and Mr. Pigrome, Science and Mathematics. "We spoke of the lady teachers by their proper names" writes Miss Hinde, "but the masters acquired nicknames... There was no disrespect in all this, they were terms of endearment rather than otherwise." The girls played tennis on the courts at the back of the school, but with no coaching, so young May never did learn to serve overarm; she never grasped the point of hockey, either, though later on her sisters enjoyed it.
In 1920, May passed the Oxford Senior examination. The school had no sixth form as such, so thereafter May and four others (interestingly, three girls and a boy) worked on their own in one of the upstairs laboratories, for the London Matriculation examination. They had no formal class teaching, though the teachers did mark their books. The system must have worked, since all five passed; the other four left at the end of that year, and just May remained to work for the intermediate examination for an arts degree. She still remembers the trouble she had with Latin, despite help with coaching and books from Mr. Pigrome.
In due course the younger Hinde children, Edith and Harold, went to the Grammar School daily on a little two-stroke Francis Barnet motorbike; they were dressed appropriately in leather helmets, g oggles and leggings. "Edith had to ride in the mornings when there were few pupils about, and Harold rode it after school when there was a larger audience!" says their older sister. Mr. Snee, one of the masters, referred to the machine as "that little wasp". By the time the youngest child, Ruth, was at the school it was possible to cycle to Broad Oak and then get the bus.
Five of the seven Hinde children attended the Grammar School and passed the Oxford Senior examination. Harold and Ernest are now dead; but Miss Hinde herself continues to lead a busy life, and is still in touch with Ella Waterhouse who was a fellow-pupil living in Winchelsea Road. We are most grateful to her for taking time to let us have these recollections of her days at the Grammar School.
5.
Rye Bowls Club dinner was held at Peppers on Saturday, presided over by Mrs. Joan Yates and graced by the presence of the Mayor and Mayoress. The season's trophies (see GAZETTE no. 51) were presented by the President, and included a new one - the Captain's Prize for the member who has contributed most to the well-being of the Club, which went this year to Mr. Albert Atkinson. 62 members and guests enjoyed an excellent meal, followed by dancing to the music of Mr. W. Crosbie at the organ; Mr. Crosbie received a well-earned vote of thanks at the end of the evening.
A previous Mayor, Mr. R.J. Reynolds, tells us he is very pleased to see that the game of bowls is again being played in Rye. He is the immediate past president of the only bowls club in Spain, the Costa del Sol Bowls Club; their green is in the grounds of the Continental Hotel in Torremolinos and is one of only four or five in the country. During the winter, the hotel brings out parties for festivals which the Club organises, and there are always casual bowlers visiting - several from Hastings, and a large party from Brighton. Mr. Reynolds hopes that he may one day see a familiar face from Rye; how about it, Bowls Club members?
Mr. Peter Ewart, who now lives near Canterbury, was interested in the article in GAZETTE no. 52 about Mary & I / Odell's. He searched his extensive collection of Rye directories between the 1880s and the 1930s and election registers going back to 1851, but he can find no mention at all of either F. Crane or R. Pyle, nor does he remember either name cropping up in any of his local researches.
A bit of a puzzle, as he says. He points out that although Milsoms' High Street and Market Road premises were regularly mentioned together (until Richard Milsom drops out of the directories in about 1930 - did he die, or move, or just retire?), he is very surprised that a legal document should have referred to the Mary & I building as being even part of 29a High Street. He adds that in the early 19th century. Market Road was known as Jarrett's Yard.
Mrs. Kath Parkes is our Educational Welfare Officer (EWO for short). Based in Hastings, she covers Thomas Peacocke, our village primary schools and those in Rye, and several Hastings schools as well; and if a child is persistently absent from school, she calls on the home to find out why, and if possible put matters right. We need hardly add that she runs a car...
...But doing the same job (excluding Hastings) on a bicycle in the early 1900s was the School Attendance Officer, Mr. Balcomb. Born in St. Leonards and apprenticed to F.J. Parsons in Claremont, he had to leave the printing business because of lead poisoning. In 1903 he brought his family to a new job in Rye, and settled in Udimore Road; and on his pushbike he chased up truants in the parishes of Winchelsea, Icklesham, Pett, Udimore, Brede, Playden, Iden, Peasmarsh, Beckley, Northiam, East Guldeford, Camber and Rye Harbour! All this fresh air and exercise was extremely good for his health; he lived to be 86. His wife outlived him by four years. He was, his son Raymond tells us, neither illiterate nor yet an academic, but well mannered, cheerful and kindly and known to everyone - in every sense a gentle man, and much loved by his family. When he died in 1956, the nave of St. Mary's was full for his funeral service - fully choral as befits a member of the choir. His son glowed inwardly when it was publicly said that he had given "fifty-three years of cheerful and utter dependability". There is a memorial plate on the choir-stall which he occupied for so long; but we feel sure that no plate is needed to remind some people, even now, of his visits in a professional capacity.
With perhaps a small twinkle in his eye, Mr. Balcomb speculates that deepening educational cuts may yet find our EWO doing her rounds on a push-bike!
(A six-page GAZETTE this week, because there is not a lot happening; it will revert to eight pages when necessary.)
Bulletin board
Thursday, 13th Friday, 14th Tilling Green School parent-teacher evening
CSRF coffee morning, FEC (room 2a), 10
TPS Inter-House Quiz Final, followed by items from the inter-
House Music competition - The Grove, 7
Natural History Society, John Goodman of Mallydams, Pett, on
"The Ecology of a Woodland", FEC, 7.30
Saturday, 15th RNLI coffee morning, FEC, 10.30
Scouts' jumble sale, Scout Hut, 1.30
Old Scholars Association dinner, Mermaid (marked in this week's
GAZETTE by two educational "Rye as it was" articles)
National Trust outing to the Wallace Collection
Celebration evening, Dr. Clifford Hill on "The Signs of the Times", Methodist Church, 7.30 (see GAZETTE no. 52)
"Mainly Acoustic" concert, Saltings, 8 (see GAZETTE no. 53)
Sunday, 16th
Conker Contest, Ypres Castle pub (see below)
Monday, 17th
Monday Club's annual sale of work, Ferry Road Clinic, 2
TPS 4th-year parents' evening, The Grove
Wednesday, 19th
Handing-in for Thrift Shop, Red Cross Centre, 10.30 to 12.30 -
National Society for Cancer Relief, branch AGM followed by a talk on "The Art of Astrology", TH, 7.30
• Congratulations - sorry we are a bit late - to Lena van Puyenbroek and Derrick Baldock on their recent marriage; Mrs. Baldock is, of course, our senior traffic warden.
• After a successful trial run last year, the Ypres Castle is staging its second Conker Contest on Sunday evening (16th) at 8. Teams from pubs and clubs are invited to compete, and all conkers will be supplied the organisers - not baked, not pickled, but straight from the tree! The proceeds are for the Rye Harbour Inshore Rescue Boat Fund, which needs to raise a lot of money for its new... well, "shed" doesn't seem quite the word, but its new accommodation.
• The Cancer Relief jumble sale on Friday evening, in daunting weather, raised around £75, and the Cadborough Jubilee Social Club made £78 at theirs, next day.
• Rye Harbour Boys Football Club holds a jumble sale at Rye Harbour Village Hall, >2.30 on Saturday. They really would be glad of some show of support from parents, both on this occasion and for their more traditionally sporting activities at home and away.
• Humble apologies to Brian Lovell, whose colourful rendering of "Where There's a Will" somehow slithered out of our report of Rye Players' Variety Night. How that avaricious bunch of relatives could possibly have got away without being noticed remains a mystery! An apology, too, to Miss Wickersham, whose name we spelt wrong last week.
• We are very sorry to hear that the town's Second Mace-Bearer, Mr. Les Paine of Bridge Place, is back in hospital, and hope he will soon return to us. It is, however, pleasant to report that Mrs. Cawdron of Fair Meadow is now home again.
• Congratulations to St. Thomas's School, Winchelsea, winners of the six-a-side football tournament fought out among seven village schools at Brede on Saturday. One team, we hear, included three girls - and, indeed, why not?
THE RYE GAZETTE is registered as a newspaper with the Post Office. It is published by Mrs. Mary Owen, 94 Udimore Road, Rye (Rye 222303), and news items for inclusion are always welcome - deadline is Monday afternoon, 9 am Tuesday for emergencies. The GAZETTE costs 25p weekly, and is delivered to subscribers and pick-up points on Wednesday; spares may be available at Squirrels, 9-13 Cinque Ports Street. (Copyright Mary Owen 1983)