The most memorable slide in a memorable evening at the Community Centre last Friday showed, of all things, elephants - wallowing happily in the river below Monkbretton Bridge during the visit of a circus to The Salts, probably between the wars; we also saw a much earlier shot of the legendary bear and its keeper, standing at the top of Mermaid Street.
Wildlife apart, Laurie Band took his packed and fascinated audience on a tour of the town, with slides arranged in topographical rather than chronological order; this gave the opportunity to notice earlier changes in particular areas over the past hundred years. La Rochelle, for instance, was a shop in about 1910, with quite a different roofline from now and a large shop window facing down East Street; but earlier still it was quite a small house, almost a cottage. We all know the Conduit Hill end of Devonport House was originally a private house; but there was a slide of it as a warehouse with the words "ceramic Stores" across it - though the greenhouse was there just the same. At Banister's Corner we saw an E.E. Stocks, Baker, and also an International Stores frontage adjoining the present ironmongers - certainly Longleys was once a grocers on that site (bombed in WW2 and not rebuilt), but the International was in the High Street in 1890, so did it precede Longleys, and if so when? (A later picture of the International, undoubtedly in the High Street, shows nearly 20 members of the staff grouped beaming outside.)
Ships were built right in the town, just below the cliff at Strand Quay, and also at the Fishmarket where a huge one dwarfs Ferry Cottage - which really was a ferry cottage before the bridge was built. Another slide shows ships with their flags at half-mast for the death of Queen Victoria; there is a picture of the steam paddle tug, and one of men barrowing coal for the gasworks down planks from ship to quayside. One of the swing-bridge views shows it with a proud group of its builders. Trees grow with the years, on The Salts and also in the churchyard where successive pictures show a thickening hedge along the path from Watchbell Street, and on the same corner we see St. Anthony's when it was two shops. At one point there was a gate across the entrance to the north side of the church; and also stout wooden gates to shut up the Gun Garden - shown with at least two successive types of gun.
Mr. Band's collection preserves memories of buildings now gone - the cottages where Lucknow Place is now only a car park, the alms-houses built along Military Road to replace earlier ones demolished to suit the railway and the fine pumping station where Cliff Court now stands, the impressive workhouse entrance on Rye Hill, the splendid Bank House demolished to build Woolworths and the picturesque cottage opposite demolished to build Lloyds Bank. Three slides of the Old Hospital show its transformation from a virtual slum to its present respectability; and a labelled view of the town from the Salts marks either Chequer or La Rochelle as a convent (any more information about this?). We also saw Barrack House, the original home of the Rye Museum (also not rebuilt after WW2 bombing) and the cottages behind it which adjoined the Ypres Tower. (And why was the picture of the coach-and-four outside the George so familiar? Because, of course, an almost identical outfit had been outside it this summer as part of a Trust House promotion!)
A thoroughly enjoyable evening, as well as (we would imagine) a financial success for the Community Centre; but the 200 slides shown represent only a part of Mr. Band's huge collection, so may we hope for a further instalment before too long? In any case, we have a March show to look forward to, when he will be dealing with "The Port of Rye" for Museum Association members and others.
2.
Mr. Herbert Osborne, of Udimore Road, died suddenly at his home on Wednesday (26th); he was 68. The funeral took place yesterday. Mr. Osborne came to the Rye area with his wife and teenage sons as huntsman to the Romney Marsh Hunt when its kennels were in Iden. Later, leaving their sons to set up their own businesses in Rye, Mr. and Mrs. Osborne moved to other hunt jobs in various places, and only returned to Rye eight years ago when ill-health forced Mr. Osborne into early retirement. Much sympathy goes to his widow Ruth, and to Patrick and Terry Osborne and their families.
Mrs. Eleanor Owen, who died at a St. Leonards nursing home last week aged 88, had lived at Cliff Court in Military Road from 1973 until she suffered a severe stroke in 1980. She was 78 when she came to Rye from the Wirral in Cheshire, to be near her daughter Mrs. Ella Kurrein and others of her family; but in spite of her age, she made many friends among neighbours and members of the Rye Methodist Church. Cremation takes place at Hastings on Friday (4th) at 3.30.
We are also sorry to report the death of Mr. Philip Weller, of St. Margaret's Terrace; and of Mr. Warren Haffenden, of Poppyfields, Playden.
Those who still think of 11 November as Armistice Day, and who like to keep the 11 am two minutes' silence, will like to know that this year the Women's British Legion are laying a wreath and observing the silence at the parish war memorial at St. Mary's at 11 on that day (Friday week). There will be a short service before-hand in the Clare Chapel, and anyone who wishes to take part will be very welcome. Mrs. Camier tells us that Women's British Legion members all over the country are taking part in similar commemorations on the same morning.
The following day - Saturday, 12th - is Poppy Day. The collectors will be six people short towards the end of the day, since back in May the Women's Section applied for half-a-dozen tickets for the Albert Hall ceremony that evening, and much to their surprise got them. The lucky members get back late on Saturday night; representatives from the Legion, men and women, will be at a service at the Iden war memorial at 9 on Sunday morning, followed by the Remembrance Day parade in Rye; and then, on top of all that, the Women's Section is again taking a coach over to Hastings in the evening for the Remembrance ceremony there.
Anyone who would like to join the coach party should get in touch with Mrs. Camier at the cycle shop in Wish Ward.
The Legion has issued details of the Remembrance Sunday parade on 13 November. It will fall in in East Street at 10.40, and the service will begin at 11, followed by the wreath-laying ceremony at the war memorial at about noon. (The instructions needed to get everyone in the right place at the right time in this complicated parade and service are most carefully thought out and minutely detailed, in a truly military manner - even to the stern directive to the Rector, Churchwardens, Organist, Choirmaster, Town Sergeant and Parade Commander to synchronise their watches before the commencement of the proceedings!)
The Annual General Meeting of the Community Centre Association will be held on 28 November at 7.30 at the Centre. The Committee hopes that all the organisations who use the Centre will be represented at the meeting and will also welcome individuals who would like to know what has been happening at the Centre over the past year and what are the plans for its future.
The Centre's next Attic Sale will be on Sunday, 11 December, from 10 to 1 - just nice time to clear out the attic and make a bit of extra cash for Christmas.
Cheerful noises from the Centre on Tuesday evenings mean a meeting of its new Disco-Fit group, at present weekly from 7 to 9. The time is spent dancing to pop music - hence the Disco part - but there is also a keep-fit aspect which should appeal to young and old alike; this is something the whole family can enjoy.
- 3 - THE RYE GAZETTE, 2.11.1983
Notices are going up in Rye shortly, couched in Olde Englishe style and signed by "The Piano Forty", inviting sponsors for an unusual effort on Sunday, 13 November, in aid of cancer relief. Organisers are Lew Goddard - the new branch secretary of the Cancer Relief Association - Allan Jones, who ran in the London Marathon this year, and Lester and Marie Dawson, the proprietors of the Green Owl Tavern, all Camber people. The group (around 40 in all, hence the jokey title) are proposing to push a piano 18 miles from Rennie's Club in Hastings to the Green Owl - and not just push it but play it all the way as well!
They are hoping for a fine day (and a mention on the Friday evening weather forecast on TVS if Ron Lobeck is good to them). The push starts from Rennie's Club in Priory Road, Hastings, at 9 am, and they hope to do about four miles an hour if all goes according to plan, passing through Winchelsea and Rye in the course of the lunch-hour and reaching Camber soon after 2, to celebrate with the two barrels of beer presented by the brewers for the occasion.
The route lies along the A 259 (round the back of Winchelsea), and the piano will ride on a trailer, its own wheels not being really suitable for outdoor exercise. For safety's sake it will be towed both up and down the hills ("Piano runs amok in Guestling" is not the sort of publicity they want!), but on the flat it will be pushed, with Mr. Goddard playing it as long as it doesn't rain (when, of course, the piano would have to be covered and Mr. Goddard would descend, making a lighter but less cheerful load for the pushers).
This is not just a stunt; the piano has to make the journey anyway to its new home at the Green Owl - but Mr. Goddard saw an opportunity to make some money for a good cause. Sponsors are earnestly invited - wherever you see a poster, enquire within.
We have now extracted from Radio Sussex some information about its weekend plans. On Saturday it is mostly music and sport (the latter presumably with a useful local flavour). On Sunday mornings from 9 to 12, Sunday Scene has more music but also live interviews and pieces about the arts, etc. This is followed by About Sussex, a weekly down-your-way visit - it was to Burwash last weekend and is due to come to Rye before long. Later on there is an "access programme" with local amateurs talking about their interests. We are promised a proper leaflet with programme times before long. Some of the magazine items are really interesting, and there is up-to-the-minute travel news as well as national and local news at frequent intervals - the station looks like providing a useful alternative to some of the rather weary BBC 4 programmes, for anyone at all interested in local affairs.
David Arscott - who came to have a look round Rye some weeks ago (GAZETTE no. 51) - tells us that he has persuaded them to call him not "Eastbourne producer" (with, as he says, all that that implies), but "East Sussex producer" - a small triumph for places east, indeed. His office is now at 3 Cornfield Terrace, Eastbourne (no phone yet, which must be infuriating), and he would like to hear from people who have stories, interests and events worth a mention on one of the Radio Sussex programmes. The new producer of Sussex Scene is Jim Beaman - this is the 11 to 1 weekday magazine programme where local items are apt to crop up. It would be interesting to report in the GAZETTE when Rye people have been interviewed for this - do please tell us.
Condolences to the proprietors of Peppers Restaurant, who were burgled while they were away on holiday in the middle of last month, and lost favourite pieces of jewellery among other items stolen; they had taken all the proper precautions, and the discovery was a distressing end to their holiday. Other thefts recently include stove polish and log-splitters taken from the Woodstove Centre; two jackets taken from the Oasis Club; several thefts from cars; and frozen food stolen from a freezer in a Fairlight garage.
The Romney Sheep Breeders Society's Ram Show and Sale took place at Rye Market on 10 October (sorry this report has been delayed). This prestige event is held annually, but for the first time this year the two judges were unable to agree on the champion and had to call in an arbitrator to make the final choice - the result was that close between the rams entered by Messrs. J. Hacking & Sons of Rye and Messrs Peter Skinner & Son of Brookland. The judges were Barry Skinner, of Wootton near Canterbury, and Joe Pilcher of East Guldeford; Bob Langrish had the responsibility of the casting vote, and he placed the Hacking ram first.
There were over 163 rams entered for the sale, and 122 were sold with an average price of £165, as against £142 last year. Both the champion and the reserve champion went to Messrs. Blacklock & Sons, of Jacques Court Farm, Lydd, at £530 and £410 respectively. Exhibitors came from all over Romney Marsh, and there were buyers from a wide area.
Roger Pickett of Vidler & Co tells us that once this year's lamb crop began to come to market at the end of the summer, there were three weeks when more than 2,000 sheep passed through the market. The problem here is not in the market area itself but in the approaches to it, when the cattle lorries find themselves queueing up in Cinque Ports Street to get in for loading and unloading - another complication which will have to be considered when the plans for the whole station approach area are finally unveiled by the supermarket developers - if ever that happens.
Mrs. Hill, better known to all old Ryers as Edie Baker, wonders how many other people can remember the small school which she attended during the early part of this century? She writes:
"It was run by a Mrs. Sellman, who lived at the end of a row of small houses in Cinque Ports Street, where the new office of Rother District Council is now situated. We entered by the back door and went up a very narrow staircase to a room overlooking the market. We sat on forms and were taught the three Rs very efficiently, doing all our writing on slates with slate pencils. The girls were also taught to knit, but I cannot remember what the boys did in the way of handwork. The highlight of the week was Market Day, when as a reward for good behaviour we were allowed to take turns, sitting by the window and watching the animals.
"In winter, the only means of heating this small room was a tiny oil stove standing in the centre of the floor, where we young children might easily have knocked it over. We must have been very well disciplined!
"At the end of the week we each had to take six pence to pay for our tuition - not a very high rate of pay for Mrs. Sellman. She certainly gave her pupils a good foundation." (6d = 2 1/2d day for the groundwork of a good education!)
Are any of Rye's present Sellmans descended from this very small-scale headmistress? It would be interesting to have on record how long the school lasted, and how many pupils usually squeezed into the upstairs room. The row of cottages was demolished when the prewar cinema was built on the site of the Cinque Forts Assembly Rooms and the Bijou (alias Byjoe) Theatre - Arthur Woodgate was one of the demolition gang. One pupil was Mrs. Bertha Longley, who died in 1962 but whose notes on Rye schools of her youth were reproduced in a Museum Association newsletter the following year. She wrote that "many Ryers learnt to spell and read under the excellent tuition of this very refined and genteel lady. Her husband was a harness maker glorying in the name of Henry Augustus Cobb Sellman. The pupils, sitting on low forms, wrote round O's, hangers and pothooks by the hundred on slates. I can just remember attending this school for a short time and the greatest impression left on my mind is of the smell of the wet slate rag."
Frank Wright was also a pupil, in 1890, so it must have lasted for quite a while.
5.
The happening on 8 December, hitherto billed mysteriously as "Rachel and Geraldine's fund-raising event", is to be a Mastermind contest this year. Taking place in the parish church (not the Town Hall as originally announced) and starting at 7, the evening includes a hot buffet supper served in the interval between the two rounds. Chairman, question-setters and contestants are already preparing themselves for the ordeal, and the organisers have even found an appropriate chair for the victims - four of them (as yet unnamed) to begin with, the winner to receive a cup at the end of the evening.
Mrs. Sarrieddine and Mrs. Bromley are dividing the proceeds of the event between the Additional Curates Society and Brother Jonathan's Children's Home in Devon, both charities which have received support from this annual event before. Mr. Edwin Gibson, of St. Anthony's, Church Square, is treasurer, and tickets can be obtained from him at £5 a time which of course includes supper. Cheques should be made payable to "Mesdames Sarrieddine & Bromley" - a title for the account devised by a bank manager with a sense of humour!
There will be a public meeting at the Community Centre on. Thursday, 15 November, at 7.30, to hear Brigadier Harbottle, OBE, speak on "War Games the Superpowers Play". Brigadier Harbottle is Director of the Centre for International Peace Building. After the talk, there will be an opportunity for questions and discussion, and whatever your point of view on this subject may be, the organisers will be glad to have you put it. Admission is free.
St. Mary's Tuesday Club meets at 2 East Street on Tuesday, 8 November, at 7.30.
Mr. and Mrs. Laurent at Cadborough Stores have a black tom-cat which they are sure has a home of his own somewhere - enquiries to Rye 222141. And Mrs. Goldsworthy at Iden 312 would be very glad to contact the owners of a pure white cat with tortoiseshell markings on its head and back, which has been living rough round Houghton Green for at least three weeks. It is friendly, thin and permanently hungry (she suspects worms); she thinks it is female, and young, and it needs to be taken home before the cold weather sets in.
Every parking problem in Rye has at least two sides to it. Recently Mr. Tollemanche was mourning the loss of parking spaces in the Strand Quay area. But we hear from Frank Palmer, who lives in one of the houses which does have parking allowed outside it (and who himself has a garage) that there is very little joy in such a situation. Visitors' cars, particularly at weekends when the traffic wardens are off duty, settle in for the day; the owners picnic and even sleep in them, and when they do depart leave their litter, including disposable nappies and sometimes worse, behind them. Garage entrances are blocked without any apology; and the street cleaners don't clear up the mess because the parking spaces are never empty for long enough in working hours. Mr. Palmer makes the visionary but, alas, impractical suggestion that the whole of Rye should be one vast pedestrian precinct, with no motorised transport allowed in at all! Mrs. Fearon also complains about the street cleaning outside the Rye Model premises; she says her first job there is often to take a broom to the road outside, to make the place presentable to customers.
Perhaps we might squeeze in here a mention of a book we were recently lent which is partly set in Rye and Winchelsea: John Christopher's 1978 story "Empty World". One of this well-known (and, we understand, local) author's books for young people, the early chapters paint a memorable and gradually more horrifying picture of the two towns, corpse-filled, rat-ridden and eventually in flames, as a plague depopulates the country. This would, of course, also solve the parking problem...
6.
Decisions by last Thursday's planning committee were, in effect, as follows (though some applications were then still inside the time-limit for objections). Alterations were approved for houses in Market Road and Mermaid Street, and for the Ypres Castle pub. Change of use is permitted for 113 High Street, and for the first floor in Pocket Full of Rye. Subject to various conditions in view of the previous history of the site, permission was granted for a horse shelter in a field along Rye Harbour Road. The Community Centre can get on with its wheelchair toilet, and the house in Ailsworth Lane can build its extension, though the Gluepot was refused permission for two advertising signs.
Permission was granted to Mr. G.K. Johnson to open a coffee-shop at the former Appledore Antiques premises in the High Street, subject to conditions banning live or recorded music and amusement machines; any structural alterations must also receive the consent of the planning authority. Mr. Johnson tells us that (despite the Lease For Sale notice which went up briefly, owing to a misunderstanding) he hopes to be open before Christmas.
The D o E recently dismissed a planning appeal for a lean-to garage for The Grist Mill on Strand Quay; the decision says, in effect, that it would be all wrong there.
There are two planning applications this week; one is for an extension in Marley Road - the other is likely to be rather more controversial!
In 1979, the County Council, already scraping round for money, decided to sell off the outlying part (some 6i acres) of the Freda Gardham playing fields, which had of course originally been laid out for a secondary rather than a primary school. An application to use the land for a camping and caravan site met with howls of execration, a protest march, and (we gather) thumbs-down from the D o T because of the exit onto the A 259 and was eventually withdrawn and the land put up for sale at "playing-fields" price. Rye Town Council bought it last winter with £11,000 from Town Lottery funds in order to preserve it for the town.
The Town Council then made extensive enquiries from organisations who might be expected to need the land for recreational purposes, and found precious little response; in fact, Camber Football Club were the only people showing any interest at all. A sub-committee was set up in the summer to consider alternative possibilities for using the land - 52 were suggested, some of them rather more possible than others... Allotments were among them, but there are already vacant allotments more conveniently sited. Sheep keep of course would be logical; we were told that the income from that would not be a reasonable return on the town's outlay, but it is not clear whether any local farmers have in fact been asked to tender?
Rather as a last resort, therefore, the Town Council is now asking for planning permission to use most of the land as a site for up to 60 touring caravans from April to October, reserving a strip immediately behind the gardens of the houses in New Road which back on to the land (the last seven, we counted from the plan). It is pointed out that there is nowhere in the immediate vicinity of the town where motorists towing caravans can stop overnight - or indeed stop at all, come to think of it - and this loses trade which we badly need. The site would be under the jurisdiction of the Camping Club, which would provide a warden living (in a caravan) on the site; and we are told that such wardens are very strict - only Club members are allowed in, and misbehaviour means not only ejection from the site but loss of Club membership as well. Only campers with their own elsans or the equivalent would be allowed to use the site, though a water supply would have to be provided.
If this application is refused - and, quite apart from anyone else, the D o T may well object again - the Town Council might have to consider selling the land, since just keeping it mown would cost £800 a year. If it is sold for agricultural use, there would be a considerable loss; or perhaps there might be other uses - grass-track racing was among those suggested. Has anyone got a better solution to this difficult problem? If so, the Town Council would be delighted to hear about it. In the meantime, the planning application should come up at Rother's next planning committee meeting at the end of this month, and objections should go to the Planning Officer at Bexhill Town Hall as soon as possible.
7.
Radio Sussex had a reference on Friday to a fund-raising event (not round here) which sounds like a good idea for a charity with useful contacts. It was called a "Promises Auction", and buyers would be bidding for someone's services rather than for actual objects. Most of us can think of small jobs which we need help with, either just from another pair of hands or from some special gadget or serious transport; and many people might be willing to volunteer, say, an hour with their hover-mower, or five miles with an estate car, a special cake made or an article typed or a weekend's dog-walking - or simply a couple of unskilled hours helping with a tricky household job. If anyone in Rye thinks of organising something of this kind, the GAZETTE will be glad to publicise it both to buyers and sellers of time spent in a good cause. (Perhaps the slack weeks after the New Year would be better than the pre-Christmas rush, when most people have quite enough to do anyway! Remember the Saturday morning last December when the town had five separate charity coffee-mornings?)
The new Exhibition at the Easton Rooms is of work by Frederick Cuming, RA. Mr.Cuming, who lives in Hythe, was elected an Academician in 1974. He has exhibited in London galleries as well as in New York, Monaco and Paris, with one-man shows many provincial galleries, and his work is in private and public collections including that of the Royal Academy. His calm, atmospheric oils are a pleasure to study - his skill can make even stubble-burning attractive.
Ann Brunskill started the World's End Press in Wapping in 1971 and has produced several books for it; her water-colours and prints, and some framed mirrors, are on view in the Craft Gallery upstairs. The gallery also has a permanent exhibition, most of it in the top room, of work which has been retained from earlier shows, so if there is something you regret not having bought from a specific exhibition, it is always worth going to see if perhaps it is still there; this part of the gallery is, of course, a marvellous source of Christmas and wedding presents and the like.
Another of our rare empty shops is now back in action, we are glad to notice; Mr. Simon Connolly has moved his antiques business from 19 Lion Street just up the road to what used to be Bee Antiques and is now Artique. The room up the steps is now part of the Connollys' private house, while the new shop allows much more room for browsers - particularly dolls house fanciers, who much appreciate Mr. Connolly's penchant for these popular grown-up toys.
Most of you will not have noticed that at the foot of the Bulletin Board page we now say that the GAZETTE is delivered on "Wednesday" - i.e. not necessarily on Wednesday morning. Deliveries are normally completed by 1.30, but there is no absolute guarantee of this; so please don't be cross with your pick-up point if your copy is not there when you call in during the morning - it is not their fault. We aim to cross the railway line at about 10.30 and reach the Freezer Centre within the next hour, and the George and Penny Royal between 12 and 12.30; but if something of interest for next week's paper crops up en route, we are not going to avert our eyes, stop up our ears and trudge on!
If there should be a serious delay, e.g. a malfunction of the Editor or the photocopier, we would hope to notify the pick-up points (Cadborough Stores, Hazel's, Squirrels, Freezer Centre, Tuck Shoppe, George bar and Penny Royal). So if your copy is not through your letter-box by Wednesday afternoon, you can always check with one of them to see what is happening.
Most subscribers probably know by now that if the paper should fail to appear at all one week, their subscriptions will simply be extended accordingly - or, of course, repaid if there was a major upset, which Heaven forbid!
Friday, 4th Vidlers' monthly auction sale, 10
Talk on wine by Alan Cheeseman of Sainsbury's (organised by Inner Wheel but open to all) - CC, 8 (tickets £1.50 inc. glass of wine)
Saturday, 5th Coffee morning and sale, Women's BL, Town Hall, 10 to 1
Playden Church Autumn Fair, FEC, 10 to 12
• At the Women's British Legion coffee morning on Saturday there will again be work on sale from the disabled ex-servicemen's workshops at Maidstone - and Joan Camier tells us that the standard is even higher this year.
• Congratulations to Canon and Mrs. Maundrell on the arrival ten days ago of their first grandchild (Caroline Mary).
• The WRVS Lunch Club celebrated its fifth birthday at the Community Centre on Monday with a birthday cake and candles, and sherry all round, as well as the usual excellent meal which Mrs. Judy Brown cooks and serves with her helpers.
• £280 was raised at the wine and cheese party at the Town Hall last week in aid of the Church of England Children's Society, when one of the attractions was a vast selection of Christmas cards - all old ones recycled by Mrs. Viola Bayley and her friends. These cards are also regularly available from the Rye Bookshop, with the proceeds going to the Society.
• The Rye Town Model has now closed for the winter, though special shows can be arranged for visiting groups (contact the Town Hall).
• The National Trust has a talk at the New Hall, Winchelsea, tomorrow at 7.30 on "Porcelain" by Mr. J. Cushion.
• Ken Warren's first Rye "surgery" on Friday was not crowded - but then, we are not yet used to having our MP so accessible! Mr. Warren is holding another on 9 December, from 3 pm - appointments as before from Hastings 423110 between 9.30 and 12.30. One constituent tells us that Mr. Warren was surprised by a point she made and has promised to raise it with the appropriate Minister - we hope to report further on this in due course.
• Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Waters were interested to read about Rees Geophysical's oil explorations round here, because their second son Pip is involved in the next stage of just such a project - but in Charleston, West Virginia, where he is working very hard indeed as a borehole logging engineer.
• Poppy Appeal house-to-house collecting has already begun, and culminates in the street collection on Saturday, 12th (and see page 2).
• Michael Renton has an exhibition of watercolours, prints, wood engravings and lettering at the Library Gallery, Cecil Square, Margate, open in library hours from 5 to 26 November. Under the auspices of Kent County Library, the show is advertised by a very attractive -poster - also, of course, the work of the artist.
• Betty Spencer enlivened the craft market on Saturday by demonstrating her new thick-knit knitting machine; she is very pleased with it, and is now taking orders, while her husband Keith is busy with wooden houses and forts and farmyards and a whole range of birdboxes, etc. Phone Rye 223648 for details.
• Rye does get around - a very well-written and informative article about the town appeared in April in an Ontario local newspaper, the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, and was sent by Canadian friends to Mr. and Mrs. Alan Crick of Church Square.
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; a few spares may be available at Squirrels, 9-13 Cinque Ports Street, or can be ordered (along with back numbers) from 94 Udimore Road.
(Copyright Mary Owen 1983)