Industrial action by teachers' unions is expected to have led to the closure of Thomas Peacocks Lower School on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this week. In Upper School, third-year pupils are being asked to stay home, and available teaching staff will concentrate on the senior pupils from fourth year onwards.
This year's Pancake Race was the best ever, Kathy Varley told us - a total of 36mrunners, and more spectators than she remembers seeing before. The stretch of High Street closed for the race needed only a quick scrape to shift the remaining patches of ice; and the sun shone as the rainbow-coloured pancakes were tossed at appointed intervals. Winners:
| Role | People | Hotel |
|---|---|---|
| Hotel Chef | Paul Masters | Durrant House |
| Hotel Waiter | Paul Davenhill | Mermaid |
| Restaurant Chef | Derek Bayntun | Old Forge |
| Restaurant Waiter | Philippe de Weppe | Mermaid |
| Pub Barmaids | Julian Rolstone | Olde Bell |
| Michelle Warner | Crown | |
| Jaque Ball | Durrant House | |
| Diane Hickman | Hope Anchor | |
| Tracey Ring | Ship Inn |
Paul Masters of Durrant House won the Champions' Race, and with it the frying-pan presented (together with a contribution to expenses generally) by the Sussex Express. Jif Lemon presented the prizes which went to the Barmaids' races. Durrant House's success will give particular pleasure, since the hotel has been very badly hit by burst-pipe trouble.
Rye's catering establishments supported the Pancake Race very well, and all the races were "full". Those sending runners included the Hope Anchor, the Queen's Head, the Ship, the Union, the Bedford Arms, Durrant House, the Crown, the Ypres Castle, the Saltings, the George, the Mermaid, the Old Forge, the Old Vicarage in East Street, the Globe, the Olde Bell - and "Barclays Boozers" (there was no room '-r a specific race for bank entries this year).
The Community Centre collected C28 in the street, but hopes for somewhere between £300 and £400 once all the sponsor money has come in - which takes ages. The committee is most grateful to Margaret Owen and her helpers who produced the refreshments, including the usual delicious pancakes; and to the Mayor, who came to present the prizes.
Tomorrow will see a rather important visit to Rye and other parishes in the new Rural Development Area. Development Commissioner Mrs. Patricia Batty Shaw, accompanied by her chief executive John Williams, will arrive at Thomas Peacocke Upper School soon after 10.15 to inspect the site of the Sports Centre. After a trip out to the old school at Udimore, where there is a proposal for conversion to workshops, the party moves on to study the Harbour Road junction (where RDA funds are being sought by FSCC to unlock development land) and to look at development prospects generally along Harbour Road. After lunch at the Mermaid, they visit Camber and then on to Kent. We received yesterday a useful document about RDA plans on which we will report in more detail next week.
At a recent meeting in Rye, the point was made that it is for Us to tell Them what is needed here. But local people worry that we are not yet fully aware of the sort of response required. Perhaps this visit, or COSIRA's proposed "surgery" here, may make it easier for ordinary citizens to appreciate the practical aspects.The GAZETTE regrets to announce...
Mrs. Margery Gilbert, whose death we reported briefly last week, came to Rye after the war with her husband, who had been director of a large Indian railway. Watchbell House had been occupied by the Army, who had seen the floorboards as a suitable supply of firewood, so there was a good deal to do inside; Mrs. Gilbert also put a great deal of work into her garden over the years, and many of the plants there are the result of swaps with her gardening friends. As a young woman she had trained as a singer and had sung at Covent Garden, and this experi¬ence she put to good use in Rye as conductor ofthe WI choir, who came to Watchbell House for their practices - at which time her husband Gilo would hastily retire to the living-room with his newspaper! He was a member of the Town Council; Mrs. Gilbert served the town in another way, starting (with her friend Hrs. Le Breton) the Meals on Wheels service in Rye as a private enterprise, before it was taken over by the WRVS. (Her sister !iss Aldington recalls one client who lived on a very inaccessible boat in Rock Channel; he later went to Canada, and wrote Mrs. Gilbert a long letter about his adventures there which he signed "Love, Doug"!) Mrs. Gilbert recalls her meals-on-wheels experience in one of the noems in the little book "Songs and Laments on Life Observed" which, as Margery Lyon-Gilbert, she published in Rye. Her short verses, sometimes sad and more often delight-fully witty, in this and the companion volume "Songs my Mother never Taught me" are indeed worth preserving - for example, her succinct lines on "The Good Do'er"
"There she goes
On her prissy bitchy way
To Heaven".
It is abundantly clear that Mrs. Gilbert herself, another of Rye's unique charac¬ters now lost to us, was not like that at all!
TWO traffic accidents in the town on Sunday failed to find their way into the police
station nress book on Monday, presumably because no-one was hurt. Cn Sunday morning a youne man from Idea, driving a fibreglass Lotus Elan, swerved off the road onto the railway line at the Ferry Road level crossing - for no reason that he or anyone else can make out, his mother told us; neither he nor his passenger was hurt, but she suspects the car is past repairing. She adds that everyone concerned was so kind to him - the people in the car behind, the police, the neirhbour who took him to phone for help; he really is most grateful for all their help and solicitude.
Another driver ill-advisedly went up the Landgate to disaster, we are told; there areno- details, but traffic at the corner was being directed round whatever it was. Pat Bonham tells us that it is a daily occurrence to see cars goine the wrong way ur the Iendeate - two went past his shop on Monday morning. The implications are extremely worrying, particularly if the driver has left it too late to escape via ea fie -eeed. ?at says that the white lines across the road have become very faint, which en coeethine that could be remedied; and are the' direction signs not perhaps as clear as they might be?
Peter Laaenett of Butler & Hatch Waterman, whom we rang to ask about the "Sold" board on the ColebroolOs building (more about this soon), tells us with pleasure that his firm has sold Jeake's House. Those who remember Conrad Aiken's years there will be interested to learn that the new owner is another American, Mr. illia^;'axwell, who already has a house in Tower Street; he is a building contractor Lased at Balboa Island, California. Mr. Dennett adds that the firm has recently sold two other properties in the citadel area to people from the States: Tudor Cottaee in Church Square to Americans, and the Old Customs House to a British couple who are returning to this country after having lived in the USA. (This is by no means a new departure for Rye, which has welcomed many of our transatlantic cousins both between the wars and in the pre-1914 days of Henry James.) The Colebrook building has been sold, however, to a much more local buyer.
- 3 - THE RYE GAZETTE, 27.2.1985
Rye and District WI Market members, meeting for their AGM at the Community Centre
on Friday, were delighted to hear that they had had a very good 1984. Total sales amounted to £9,287, up by £1,367 on last year's figure and with Z8,370 paid to producers = and all this from a market which opens for only nine months of the year, once a week, for less than 45 minutes! Reports were received from Miss Dean as chairman, from Mrs. Bennett as secretary, from Mrs. Holmes as treasurer, and from Mrs. Cramp, the market controller, on sales and trends during the year - she thanked her assistant controller Mrs. Ingham and the helpers (not forgetting the coffee ladies) for their cheerful support.
"Your figures are fantastic" declared VCMO Mrs. Britten (she was of course speaking financially), and she added how much she was impressed by the whole spirit of Rye Market - where there was always a welcome for customers, and even a visiting VCMO got a bouquet! Mrs. Britten referred to the Market Parcels scheme, and we asked her about this afterwards. To send an unusual present to someone in another part of the country, ask at Rye Market for the name of the VCMO.in that area, who will in turn put you in touch with the Controller of the local Market. You then arrange with her what you would like sent, and post off the money, inclu¬ding any delivery charge, and the Market members at the far end do the rest. This does of course take time, but it is a lovely way to mark an anniversary ¬-Tye Market, for instance, annually provides a birthday cake for a local resident s a gift from a distant friend.
Mrs. Wall and Mrs. Stapley were elected as new Committee members; the officers remain the same as last year. Mr. Smith and Mr. Banister were, as usual, the tellers for the election.
After the business of the meeting, members enjoyed a talk on pot plants with particular emphasis on growing them for sale. The speaker was Mrs. Metianu - who was, as Margaret Bull of Peasmarsh, a Rye Grammar School pupil, as was her husband from Winchelsea.
The WI Market reopens on Friday, 15 March, at 10 in the Community Centre, when the helpers will be resplendent in new overalls purchased out of last year's profits.
Fourteen members of the Thomas Peacocke School Guide Company sang at the Albert Hall last Saturday (16th) as part of the Movement's 75th birthday celebrations. The choir was invited to take part as a result of its success in a Guide music competition last summer. With their captain Miss Lois Benton, they were put up in luxury at a Kensington hotel, three to a room but with colour television and en-suite plumbing; a rehearsal on Friday evening at BP (Baden Powell, not British petroleum) House on Friday evening was followed by another on Saturday morning at the Albert Hall, and then by afternoon and evening performances, each lasting 2i hours - so 14 rather tired girls came down by train to Hastings very late that night. But it was well worth it. The entertainment was a pageant telling the story of the Guide Movement over the past 75 years, and among those taking part was one of the original Guides from the 1910 group whose demands led to girls being allowed in. The cast included 200 dancers and actresses, plus singers and instrumentalists, and there were visitors from 38 countries. How Lady Maud Warrender, who gave her name to one of the Rye Guide companies, would have enjoyed it!
Thomas Peacocke School singers are back at the Albert Hall on Monday, 11 March, when the school choir joins those of thirty other secondary schools from East Sussex in a performance of Carl Orff's "Carmine Burana" - a setting of a group of mediaeval Latin and German texts. There will be 1200 Sussex voices raised, accompanied by the County Youth Orchestra and the Hastings Youth Orchestra - and James Cruttenden and Jane Bowler from Thomas Peacocke play in both - and the concert is directed by the new County Music Adviser, Roger Durston, who has come to Sussex from Berkshire full of exciting ideas, Miss Benton tells us. The Hastings area schools and orchestra are giving a taste of the full performance at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill at 7.30 pm this Saturday - open to the public, not only to parents, and seats cost between Z1 and Z3 from the booking office.
4 .
Last week's report on the District Health Authority's Strategic Plan for the next ten years has already produced some very constructive comment - plus, of course, grief that we may ultimately lose our hospital in its present form.
It seems to be generally accepted - and indeed has been rumoured around for years unofficially - that Hill House Hospital must be closed. What is needed round here, the Mencap group points out, is a day training centre for mentally handicapped young adults - standing in relation to Hill House School much as Hastings College does to Thomas Peacocke. The existing centre at Hastings is apparently bursting at theeeams, and one here would relieve the pressure on it from this end of the area. But that is for the future.
The idea of one health clinic to combine what goes on in Ferry Road with what goes on for outpatients at Rye Hospital is agreed to be a good one - but NOT at the top of the hill! It has been suggested that the planners should come over and study the clientele arriving at Ferry Road, and then ponder whether those people could in fact walk (in most cases) up to the Hill House site. We are told by those who know mere about it than we do that the present Clinic building is under-used; there is certainly quite a lot of unused ground round it, and it is single-storey.
There is also the old Civil Defence hut occupied by the playgroup. If the new building were put on the Ferry Road site, with a room for the playgroup to use during the the day plus some accommodation on the first floor, then the idea would be a lot more popular…
The question must also arise whether a new Ferry Road clinic might incorporate a room and other facilities for the Day Centre. The propohal so far has been that Rother's sheltered housing development to replace the Council offices should have a room at the back to house the Day Centre; but Day Centre workers have been expressing fears that this site would be too small to allow adequate development for the increasingly popular Centre. It rather looks as if Pother and ESCC ought to get together to study the Ferry Road site as a whole, before Rother's detailed sheltered housing plans take too firm a shape?
Anyway, a new Clinic in Ferry Road would mean that the Health Authority would have an even more valuable site to sell at Hill House - which leads us to Hill House School. The Governors (under the County Council Education Department) have not yet been approached about the Health Authority's plans, hut we understand that both the site and the building belong to the Health Authority, who built the school before ESCC took it over in 1971. The building is, apparently, sectional and could be moved (leaving yet more saleable land on the Hill House site).
The admirable suggestion made to us was that if the Health Authority would he prepared to give ESCC the building in exchange for the return of the site ("You can have it if you'll take it away..."), then ESCC coul,j buy back the contentious Freda Gardham field from Rye Town Council and put the school building on it. This would mean considerable savings in administrative costs, since maintenance, supplies, etc., could be combined with the arrangements for Freda Gardham - where some of the Hill House School children are taught anyway a couple of days a week. It would be good for both sets of children, in view of the modern policy of integrating mentally handicapped people into the community. And it might one day be possible to build a training centre for mentally-handicapped school-leavers on the same site.
As for Rye Memorial Hospital itself, we can only repeat what Mrs. Yates told us last month (GAZETTE no. 116). It will not, she assured us then, be pulled down, and she mentioned a suggestion that it might be run as a nursing-home (rather than as an "acute" hospital) under local management. Someone else suggested it would make a marvellous hospice. It would be interesting to know the legal position about the fabric (built, as we reported at length in GAZETTE no. 107, by public subscription as a WW1 memorial on land given by a local benefactress). Anyway, a public hospital cannot be closed without a great deal of prior local consultation, so this is not something which can be sprung on us in seven years' time without warning.
Peter Smith did his best to break it gently - but as he was speaking to the Local History Group on Thursday, it became increasingly clear that their proposed task of compiling an index to Holloway's History of Rye was not going to be easy. One difficulty is technical: the book is rare (only half-a-dozen people in this specialist group owned a copy) and therefore valuable, so that the marking usually employed on printer's page-proofs by an indexer would not be practicable. There was a suggestion that it might be possible to make a photocopy and work from that; but here again the rarity of the book would make possible damage to the spine
during photocopying very undesirable. And, said Mr. Smith, an index is really
best done by one person; the group's idea of each member doing one chapter could lead to confusion.
They are therefore asking for help. First of all, has anyone got a photocopy of Holloway which they could lend the group so that another copy could be made? Failing this,•has. anyone got a copy.in real disrepair - which could.be used to photocopy from and then rebound at the group's expense? And thirdly - and this is a very long shot, but just worth asking - has anyone any knowledge of any indexing work already done on Holloway? It would be maddening to go to all the trouble of making a new index if someone's grandfather had already done it!
Of course, the ideal arrangement would be for one person to undertake the whole -ndex as a labour of love and a gift to posterity (there is no question of the group being able to pay a professional). Mr. Smith said that the equipment was simple enough - the book itself, plus a large number of slips of paper and a box or boxes to sort them into. The literary has a book on the art of indexing. Is there perhaps anyone confined to their home, or even to their bed, who would consider taking on this valuable but time-consuming job in the interests of historical research?
The Local History Group's next meeting will be on 21 March, when Christopher Whittock will talk about the County Records Office; on 18 April, Victoria Williams of Hastings Museum and Bryan Purdey of the Library Service will show and discuss George 'v:ood's photographs of Rye as it •was.
Rye Library's local history collection has been given a copy of a quite recent document entitled "Rye, its history, function and development". The original, in typescript, bears no author's name or date, but internal evidence suggests that it was written about 15 years ago, perhaps as a thesis for a degree? There are references to maps and photographs, but the copy the Library has does not include these. It was lent to the Local History Group by someone who has forgotten where he got it from! Obviously the Library is anxious to identify one author. If anyone remembers a student doing research of this kind in the late 1960s, please let Mrs. Greenhalf at the Library know, so that further enquiries can be made.
We wrote recently about the quilt which is being raffled to raise money for a new project at the Rye Harbour Nature Reserve. Tickets for this are now on sale at Rye Wholefoods in Landgate; and from 9 to 30 April the quilt will be on display in the Anglia Building Society's High Street window, with tickets on sale inside and also details of the project.
This new Wader Pool is expected to develop into an attractive feature of that part of the reserve nearest the village, providing a feeding habitat for freshwater wading birds particularly during the summer and autumn; it will have controlled water levels, embankments and eventually a hide, accessible for wheelchairs with a wide door and wooden approach ramp from the concrete road. Warden Barry Yates tells us that the need is for a shallow pool with the water-level kept consistent, and they are hoping that the SWA can be persuaded to dump there the mud which is due to be dredged from Strand Quay later this year. Raffle ticket sales and the recent coffee evening have already raised 560 towards the project, but the cost will be up in the thousands before the work is eventually finished in several years' time.
6 .
Magdala House in Ferry Road - the former Council offices - is now being demolished. It was never one of Rye's architectural gems, but a bit of the history of the town dies with it.
The house was built in about 1870, probably by James Coleman Vidler who certainly lived there in 1874 - and allowed his garden to be used for the local flower shows. He was the father of Dr. Albert Vidler of Mint House, and the grandfather of the late Mrs. Evelyn Bull; Mayor of Rye in 1881 and 1886, he died in 1898.
The house was then sold to the Bowen family, whose father had owned the Eagle Brewery (and whose garden, now Eagle Road, was the venue for a fund-raising event in 1902 - GAZETTE no. 118); Councillor John Bowen died in 1900, but his family lived in Magdala House for another fifty years.
Raymond Balcomb, now of Oxford, remembers it in the period just after WW1. In a letter to the GAZETTE, prompted by a reference to the little fountain which is now in safe keeping with Rather, he recalls the fine Tront door, and the brick wall which enclosed the garden along the Ferry Road side, overhung by two magnificent walnut trees. There was also a vine which produced huge bunches of large black grapes which the Bowens generously distributed to their friends and neighbours.
In the far corner were cricket nets, with a small pavilion, where the Bowen brothers coached the local boys - a rack held bats of all sizes to suit each lac. (The late Archie Ellis also spoke to us about his memories of this coaching.) Tea was served on the lawn by the fountain, which was in the centre of a circular pool with a low rail overgrown with the most beautifully scented roses, the water providing a gentle plashing accompaniment as the boys enjoyed sandwiches and cakes brought out by the maid. Mr. Balcomb still remembers the rather flat sensation of returning home to the weekend's "prep" after such a golden afternoon.
The family were devout Anglicans, and both the brothers (and Mr. Balcomb senior) sang in the St. Mary's choir. They were very kind to the choirboys, and outings to the county cricket grounds were much appreciated. "Canterbury was very special. re caught a train to Ashford about 7 am and arrived in Canterbury to hear matins sung in the Cathedral. This was followed by coffee, and then on to the cricket ground for the rest of the day, with a restaurant meal before catching the train home. We were very lucky boys!" adds Mr. Balcomb.
The house had been built on land originally inned from the Marsh and owned by the town, and in due course the lease fell in and it reverted to Rye Borough Council as ground landlord. However, the Bowen family continued to live there, paying rent, until the last member of the family died not long after WW2. This conveniently coincided with the expiry of the lease on the Borough Surveyor's office at 10 High Street, so he moved down to Ferry Road at once, to be followed before long by the Treasurer's staff when the lease on their office above 2 High Street also ran out. (John Smith points out that this, and not the rooms above the ironmongers as we said recently, was where the pre-war Custems'Office had been based before it moved along the road to its present home.)
The rates office at the side of Magdala House was added when the Treasurer's staff moved in in 1955, and the flat-roofed extension on the first floor at the back dated from the same period. The Clinic now stands where James Coleman Vidler kept his carriage and stabled his horses; the pretty little greenhouse with its coloured glass survived until quite recently. We wondered if the garden had once included the land on which the telephone exchange is built, but Mr. Smith told us that this has always been part of the Drill Hall land (also the property of the Borough Council) and had never gone with Magdala House.
Rother Council has instructed the demolition contractors to salvage the iron railings which edged the window-sills, so perhaps we may hope to see them incorporated in the new building in due course. But the Council has not bespoken the handsome arched front door, and if anyone has their eye on it the contractors' men on the site are the people to approach. (The lead from the roof, however, is not available; it was stolen over the Christmas holiday period!)
7.
It was a quite unexpected pleasure to find that Saturday evening's talk arranged by the Sussex Trust for Nature Conservation at the Community Centre - "In Badger's Wood" - was of local interest in every sense. The wood lies between Winchelsea and Guestling; and the speaker was Colin Page of Udimore Road, chairman of Rye Camera Club. We are sorry we had no information about this in advance, and can only implore readers to look out for another opportunity to hear Mr. Page and see his slides, taken over the past three years or so and clearly the result of a very intimate knowledge of the woodland. He led his listeners through the year, sometimes with wide shots of carpeting bluebells and wood anemones, sometimes with detailed inspections of individual flowers or colourful fungi. The badgers, of course, were there - though there was a sad side-track into the stars of a destroyed sett; so were lizards and frogs and butterflies. For those who, as children, played in woods like this it was a very nostalgic evening; for all the audience, many of the slides could be enjoyed as works of art in their own right - we think particularly of a shot of drifting mushroom spores which would not have been out of place in a gallery. Welcome to the local lecture circuit, Mr. Page!
• It was a pity that attendance was not better-at the Neighbourhood Watch meeting east Wednesday, though it was rather short notice; but the community co-ordinators had been told a week in advance, and only three of them turned up! Anyway, PC John Wootton was most interesting on preventive medicine for burglary, and those who were there came away very mach the wiser.
• The Rye & District Mencap Society is looking for a playscheme leader, three mor¬nings a week during school holidays only, for approximately eight mentally handicapped children of varying ages. Experience would be an advantage but is notessential; a small salary is offered. For further information please ring Mrs. Vickie Piper, Rye.
• Mrs. Joan Yates tells us that the proposed removal of eye in-patients from Hastings to Eastbourne is being reviewed by the Health Authority for financial reasons ¬though the news will give hope to those campaigning on social grounds against the change. No firm decision, Mrs. Yates says, will be taken for some time.
• A casualty of the recent Weather was the FRAG lecture on China by Cherry Barnett, which was cancelled; we mention this in retrospect for the benefit of those who may have assumed that they missed it. Davida Turpin, FRAG Secretary, tells us that the January talk on Butterflies will certainly be in next year's programme, and they also hone to find another date when the very busy Cherry Barnett can come.
• The Social Services office in Rye is contemplating setting up a grey - for local single parents with young children. It is felt that parents in this position might like the opportunity to meet others in the same situation, to have experiences and think of ways of offering mutual help and support. The Cinque Ports Street office has a suitable meeting room where under-5s would be welcome. There is a preliminary discussion meeting there on Monday, 11 March, at 10 am - or ring Ann Dunlop or Jill Rance if you are interested but can't come. It would he kind if readers would mention this to single parents among their friends and relations.
• Robert Carter of Guestling, who ran in the Seven Sisters Marathon en behalf of the Rye Mencap group, finished the course (though it took him 6.i hours); he hopes to have raised some Z500 when all the sponsorship money is in.
• A final PS to the closine of Millers: the spice jars we mentioned have moved down to Rye Wholefoods in Landgate, who carry a full range of herbs and spices and have also taken over some of Millers' "soft" dairy products including the Greek natural yoghurt. They also have live natural yoghurt made from goat's milk - and Welsh mountain goatecheese; Pat's handout says "Be adventurous", but whether this an instruction to the goats or the customers we are not sure!
Friday, 1st Vidler & Cc's monthly auction sale, 10
Women's World Day of Prayer, Baptist Church, 2.30 (GAZETTE no.119) Organ concert (Nigel Spooner), Upper School, 7.30 (see below) Nat.Tr. "Baroque Churches in the Alps" (Anthony Dummett), CC, 7.30 Movie Society (RX Trophy), FEC, 7.30
Rye WI Party, FEC, 7 (see below)
Tuesday, 5th Friends of Rye Art Gallery AGM, Town Hall, 8
Wednesday, 6th BRCS Hearing Circle, Red Cross Centre, 10.15 to 12
• Congratulations to Michael and Rosanna Moore on the birth on 2 February of their son Matthew - a first grandchild for Mrs. Eine Moore of The Old Vicarage, Playden.#
• Winchelsea Floral Group members are reminded that the March meeting will take place at the George Hotel on Monday, llth, at 7 (demonstrator, Mrs. B. Waite); this is the group's first 1985 meeting, since the weather led to cancellation of-those in January and February.
• Some Rye WI members also missed the first two meetings of the year (January's" was cancelled), and we are asked to remind them that the WI Party is on Frida (see details above). Partygoers should arrive with a knife and fork and a pudding plate as well as the 50p admission money.
• Cadborough Jubilee Social Club raised a gratifying £160 from their jumble sale at the Community Centre on Saturday. Looking ahead in the Diary, Winchelsea Floral Group has a jumble sale at the FEC on 9 March in the morning; Hill House League of Friends at the FEC at 2 on 16 March; the Catholic Church at the FEC at 2 on 3C March; and th-e Scouts and Cubs at the Scout Hut at 1.30 on 13 April.
• On Friday evening Nigel Spooner gives another of his much-enjoyed concerts of popular music on the Thomas Peacocke School Wurlitzer - at Upper School, of course, because that's where the organ is. Admission is £1 (50p for children and OAPs) which goes towards the organ restoration fund.
• Vidlers' auction sale (also on Fridays but not, thank goodness, in the evening when too much is haur.:ening already) seems to cater particularly for those with musical tastes: the catalogue includes a piano, a pianola and a harmonium!
• BR warns that on both Saturday and Sunday there will be buses between Rye and Ashford because of engineering work at Ashford; delays, they say, may be up to an hour. But last time Waterloo said this, our Saturday trains were in fact perfectly normal; anyway, check up before travelling, as times may alter.
• The current planning list includes an application for a two-storey extension to a house on Rye Hill; for the conversion of 105 Winchelsea Road into three flats; for a greenhouse in a Church Square garden; and for an extension to Rolvendene Farmhouse.
• “Strand Hill", about which we asked recently, turns out to be an old name for Mermaid Street. Longer Street was the High Street; Middle Street, as we understand, was variously used for both at different times!
• We didn't let on at the time, because it didn't seem fair; but credit where credit is due, and Rye Station staff pointed out proudly at the height of the recent Weather that their Ladies (GAZETTE no. 118) was functioning when all the rest of the town's public loos were frozen solid!
THE RYE GAZETTE is registered as a newspaper with the Post Office, and published by Mrs. Mary Owen, 2 Cyprus Place, Rye (Rye 222303). News items for inclusion are always welcome - deadline Monday afternoon, Tuesday 9 am for emergencies. The GAZETTE costs 25p weekly, and is delivered to subscribers and pick-up points on Wednesday; some spare copies are available from Squirrels, 9-13 Cinque Ports Street, and back numbers from Cyprus Place. (Copyright Mary Owen 1985)