The closure of Rye police station at night (GAZETTE no. 125) has now been postponed until September, because British Telecom were unable to instal the promised outside through line to Hastings police station until well into May - by which time it was hardly worth closing Rye since it is to remain open all night anyway in June, July and August. In this context it is interesting to consider figures given by Chief Superintendent Alan Skinner at a press conference last week. The winter population of Camber, the regular residents, total some 750 people - but some time ago the police did a rough survey, taking into account Pontins, the two caravan sites, he spaces in the Rother car parks and in the other less official parking places in and around the village, and came up with an informed guess of ten thousand people down there on a fine day at the height of summer - many of whom, if it is fine enough, decide to sleep on the beach rather than go home again! (And there are other incalculables beside the weather. One day last summer Radio Medway broadcast a record request for a particular girl with the message - harmless enough, one would think - "See you at the barbecue at Camber tonight". That evening hundreds and hundreds of teenagers from all over the place descended without warning on the village - all asking "Where's the party?".)
Chief Superintendent Skinner made it quite clear that the new through line to Hastings will be for enquiries rather than emergencies - "How do I get to my hotel?" rather than "How do I deal with this burglar?". If you need a police presence, then dialling 999 is always the best way to get it. Next winter we shall have two policemen patrolling in the town on foot at night, which means one extra to put in an appearance at likely trouble-spots (and we all have our own ideas about these!). As far as the rural areas are concerned, the arrangements will be exactly the same as they are now.
A week early
Probably most people will know by now that the first of the TVS "A Portrait of Rye" arts programmes, scheduled for tomorrow, in fact went out last Thursday with the second part tomorrow. (The programme due to be put out last Thursday was thought to have too strong a political content for it to appear so close to the County Council elections.) TVS gave the change as much prominence as possible during the evening, and Rye's phone lines were busy; but there will undoubtedly be people grieving at having missed it. If you are one of them, let the Editor know and we'll see what can be done.
Part I opened with an introduction to Rye by Jill Cochrane, delightful both visually and verbally. Artists featured were the Cole family and staff at Rye Pottery and Rye Tiles; Kitty French in Hucksteps Row; and Ernest Collyer at Winchelsea Station. The Ellen Terry Museum at Smallhythe was also visited. Next week will see calls on other studios around Rye, returning to the town to talk to Louis Turpin in Udimore Road.
The programme was made last summer, so we can update it. Wally Cole and Kitty French, with Keith Purser, are sharing an exhibition at the Easton Rooms which begins on 11 May. Louis Turpin recently took his work to half-a-dozen galleries in the south of England, all of which were anxious to show it; in fact he had to turn down two, but will have pictures on view in Bath, Henley and East Anglia and, best of all, at the Odette Gilbert Gallery in Cork Street, Mayfair, who will have three of Louis' paintings in a mixed show, the first time he has exhibited in this prestigious street.
Miss Constance Smith, of Badger Gate, died in hospital in Hastings on 24 April. She had celebrated her 91st birthday on Easter Monday. Miss Smith came to Rye as a girl of 13, one of the three daughters of Joseph Smith who opened a hairdressing salon at 95 High Street (now Rose-Anne) in 1907. She went to school at what is now the FE Centre, and remembered her mother passing hot cocoa to the girls through a hole in the party wall between the school yard and the family's garden.
The Smiths also had one son, killed in 1916. When she left school, Constance helped her father in the salon until he sold it in 1931, when the family moved away, living for a time in St. Leonards where they had a confectionery business.
In 1940 she went with her father to Aylesbury, where she worked as a telegraphist most of her workmates were a great deal younger than she was, and she much enjoyed the chatter about boyfriends and babies! In 1953 she and her father returned to Rye; he died soon afterwards, but she continued to live in the Landgate until making the move to Badger Gate a few years ago.
Miss Smith was a keen WI member, and had been Treasurer and later President of the Rye branch; she was also, more recently,a member of the Monday Club, and was a regular worshipper at St. Mary's. In her youth she took part in the concerts and operettas put on by the local amateur society - a feature of Rye social life in the 1920s. Miss Smith's delightful personality and active and lively interest in the affairs of the town made her much loved, both as an aunt and great-aunt-and by a wide circle of friends. The funeral takes place today (Wednesday) at 2.30 at St. Mary's, and instead of flowers donations may be sent to the Constance Smith Memorial Fund, c/o Lloyds Bank, Rye, which will be used to provide amenities for Badger Gate. There will be much sympathy for Miss Smith's younger sister, Mrs. Doris Masters of Udimore, who was bereaved only a few weeks ago by the loss of her other sister, Gladys.
The death on 22 April of Mrs. Yve Imm of Hilder's Cliff, after a short illness, has brought sorrow to a great many people in the town. Although a comparative newcomer by Rye standards, Mrs. Imm (who was in her fifties) had won a host of friends who valued her dearly. Speakers at Monday's funeral at St. Mary's, held according to the custom of the Society of Friends, referred repeatedly to her "gift of love". Her friendship was freely given, her sense of humour was a joy, and as a deeply religious woman she had faced her last challenge with inspiring courage and confidence. Until just a month before her death, she had been the secretary at Le Fevre Wood & Royle's Rye office, where her interest and enthusiasm are very greatly missed by those who used to work with her. She was for several years. Secretary of the local Council of Churches; and also a witty and accomplished reetiet. A widow, Mrs. Imm leaves her artist daughter Jane, and her son David with whom she shared her home in Rye.
Last week saw the arrival of a new firm of solicitors in the town, at 6 Cinque Ports Street - a third office for Messrs. Rootes & Alliott, who already do business in Folkestone and Hythe and are now moving westwards by natural progression. The Rye office will be offering all the usual legal services, and Christopher Bushnell, who represents the firm here, will of course be able to draw when necessary on the exeerience of other members of the staff in Kent.
Mr. Bushnell is very sorry about the inconvenience caused over the past weeks by the scaffolding, etc., on this narrow stretch of road, but it really couldn't be helped - all the tiles on the walls as well as the roof had to be rehung, and there was of course normal decorating to be done as well. It certainly does all look very nice now.
Michael Alford tells us that it looks as if when the Government instructed the SWA to put up water charges, the department concerned did not realise that the Authority controlled a harbour! Mr. Alford represents Rye Harbour on Icklesham Parish Council, and Ken Warren has promised them that he will investigate the issue; the Royal Yachting Association has also taken the matter up. Keep hoping…
3.
Bank Holiday or not, BR engineers are working hard over the coming weekend and train times all over our area seem to be precarious. New signalling equipment being installed at Orpington on Saturday means a restricted service there, with some trains running earlier. On Sunday a ballast-cleaning machine works round the clock between Headcorn and Staplehurst with diversions, trains from Ashford leaving earlier, buses, and delays of up to 40 minutes. (Going to London via Hastings on Sunday is just as bad, with buses between Wadhurst and Tunbridge Wells, and similar delays.) On our own line, says the BR handout, the problem will be on Saturday when work is taking place on the short Mount Pleasant tunnel between Ore and Hastings; there will be buses between the two stations and back, and delays of up to 15 minutes. (But as we reported last week, the Sunday trains become hourly along the line, as does the Sunday service operating on Monday.) Anyway, if you are travelling on either Saturday or Sunday, particularly with a connection to make or with heavy luggage, ring Hastings 429325 for revised train times.
We have had lots of feedback about train services via Rye which did not mean changing at Ashford or Hastings, and hope to include it in next week's paper.
• Because not enough people use it, the 5 pm bus to Udimore, etc., from Rye is to be withdrawn after the Spring Bank Holiday weekend at the end of May; and the morning bus on the same route (40) into Rye which arrives at 8.50 will then run on schooldays only (ie not school holidays or weekends). On the 48 route, the bus arriving in Rye at 7.50 am will start from Peasmarsh rather than Northiam; and the two evening buses leaving Rye at 16.50 and 17.50 will combine to leave Rye at 17.15. The 42 Rye-Hawkhurst route, with connections for Tunbridge Wells and Maidstone, which at present runs there and back once a day on two different routes, will abandon Broad Oak and go both ways via Northiam and Peasmarsh, enabling shoppers to get home again after their day out.
• In GAZETTE no. 124 we reported on the early stages of plans to start up the Escort (East Sussex Co-ordinated Rural Transport) Scheme in our area. Now Katharine Clark has arranged the first of the consultative meetings, at Rye Town Hall at 7.30 on Tuesday, 14 May. She is sorry about the rather short notice, and hopes to get out personal letters to all the organisations likely to be interested; but if your group does not receive one, or if you as a private person would like to know what is planned, she stresses that you will be most welcome to come along.
It is definitely an open meeting, and she needs feedback. The Rye meeting is intended for people from Rye, Icklesham, Iden, Playden, Camber and East Guldeford. There will be a similar opportunity for people from Beckley, Peasmarsh and Rye Foreign at Peasmarsh on 21 May; for Rorthiam, Brede, Westfield and Udimore at Northiam on 22 May; and for Pett, Guestling and Fairlight at Pett on 30 May.
Local people who have been working hard to get financial support for the Sports Centre are disappointed at the RDA response so far. Rye has been offered £5,000 towards the improvement of the Harbour Road junction, about which we wrote in GAZETTE no. 121 just after the visit of one of the Development Commissioners to the Area. There is also a grant for workshops at Udimore, but as far as the Sports Centre is concerned all we are told is that the RDA people are "examining the scope for assisting the Sports Centre project in conjunction with the Sports Council" - which has already made a fairly firm offer of £25,000 anyway.
We went, grieving, to Mrs. Joan Yates, who has been in the forefront of the project and attended an RDA seminar in London in December; and she said "Don't lose hope!". She feels that stronger local efforts towards fund-raising would carry conviction that the community really does want a sports centre, and this could help both the RDA and the Sports Council to dip deeper into their pockets. Now that the Eye Laser appeal is over, and the Lifeboat House one nearing its end, is the Sports Centre the logical destination for, so to speak, a new drive?
4.
Not many of Rye and District's Ratepayers or even Residents turned up at the Town Hall on Friday for the Association's AGM, and indeed there was not a great deal for us to report, since most of the matters dealt with at the meeting had already been covered in the GAZETTE. Much of the tine was taken up with an airing of conflicting views on the question of parking in the citadel area; but, as chairman Mrs. Hilda Nelson-Barrett pointed out, no action can be taken on this until the Town Council has completed its enquiries from various other towns with similar problems, so the discussion was largely a matter of the two sides entrenching their positions for the struggle to come.
Albert Willis, Rother District Council Treasurer, came equipped with screen, overhead projector and coloured diagrams to support his explanation of cue aspect of the rating system - revenue expenditure from the General Rate Fund (as opeoeed to capital expenditure, or with any aspect of the other main account, the Housing Revenue Fund). He went into the mysteries of rate-capping, and_ of previous.tovern- ment attempts to make the rating system fairer - one of the main unfairnesses being that a household of one person pays the same rates as a family of several wage- earners in the identical house next door. (A solution to this problem is for the one-person household to move into a one-person house, as the Editor has recently found; but of course this is not always possible.) There are other ways of collecting tax on a local basis, and Mr. Willis dealt with then too, pointing out both advantages and disadvantages. Some of his audience may have been a little bemused at the end, but his presentation was part of a loneer one preeeeeed for Rother Council members who have to be more au fait with these things. It is certainly a comfort, as Mrs. Nelson-Barrett said afterwards, to know that our Treasurer has such a competent grasp of the system, both as it works nationally and as it affects us here.
Mr. Samuel, Headmaster of Hill House School, queries our references in the GAZETTE about the possibility of a now site for his school on the Freda Gardham Field. He says that any speculation about the school's future is premature at this stage, and so far as he knows it will definitely be remaining on its present site next door to Hill House Hospital. He adds that we were mistaken in thinking that it is a oortable building; only two of the classrooms are sectional, the main structure is firmly anchored and could not be transported elsewhere.
At Rother's planning meeting on Thursday, the following local applications were deferred: the shed for a machine saw at Alsfords Wharf was delegated to the Planning Officer for further discussion about siting; a riding school at Houghton Green, new windows at 31 High Street, and a conversion from house to flats in Winchelsea Road are all due for site inspections. Davie's Garage has a further three years' permission for parking cars on land beside Winchelsea Road. The cattle shed on the first field along Harbour Road was allowed, but the moorings proposal on the same land was refused. Bob Press has permission to open a restaurant on the first floor of the Oasis building, moving the Granary Club up to the top floor. A kitchen extension in Church Square, and shop-front alterations for 28 High Street, were delegated to the Planning Officer to approve subject to no objections within the time-limit.
The proprietors of the Old Vicarage in East Street have appealed against Bother's enforcement order requiring them to remove their unauthorised window canopies. There is also an appeal against Rother's refusal to allow two bungalows on land north of Saltcote Place.
In the current list, ESCC is proposing to put up a footbridge over the Brede, adjoining the Harbour Road sluice on the upstream side - part of the improvements to the road junction to which the RDA and Hatleys are contributing; a householder in Church Square seeks to cut down two sycamore trees where the end of her garden meets the top of the cliff; and a replacement is planned for the Civil Aviation Authority'z radio mast in Rye Foreign.
5.
Mr. Reginald Baker, writing to his sister Mrs. Hill of Wish Street, recalls the excellence of the Bowen brothers' cricket pitch at Magdala House (GAZETTE no. 120). "During my schooldays I don't believe it was ever used to coach the Rye Grammar School team, for in those days Percy used to come along to the playing field almost every evening in the summer and do his coaching in the nets there. He would carry his own bag all the way, clad himself in full wicket-keeper's gear and stand behind the stumps giving instructions to batsmen and bowlers alike, and woe betide any bowler who persisted in bowling to a poor length. We were given ten minutes only each with the bat, and Percy argued that it was wasting the batsmen's time to put down rotten balls. Indubitably he was right. His brother Graf too was a very good player both with bat and ball, although greatly overshadowed by Percy, who (it was rumoured) could have played for Sussex." Mr. Baker only played at Magdala House once, when he was home on leave from Germany; there were no refreshments on the lawn then, because rationing was still on, and all the players that evening were adults - Arthur Adams was one of them.
Now, some seventy years later, we have news from Mike Thomas of current events at Rye Cricket Club. The Bryan Grasshopper Sports firm continues to sponsor the Club by the award of vouchers. At the recent dinner at Flackley Ash the awards were presented by Mrs. Pat Bryan to Roger Tagg, Neil Cloute, Nigel Hacking and con Bourn. The Fullerton Trophy for the most promising young cricketer went to Nigel Hacking, the William Ellis Cup for service to the club to Ron Powell, and the "Six Hit" trophy to Peter Mathews. The Club had a very good start to the season with a home win against Folkestone on Sunday (Ian Harris 61, Peter Mathews 91); they play Battle at home on Saturday. Net practice will be on Thursday and Friday evenings from 6. Any new playing members, scorers or umpire please be in touch with Mike Thomas.
One of Rye's vets appeared on a recent TVS news report in dramatic circumstances last week. Nick Mills was officiating at the practice's surgery in Hawkhurst, which they took over at the end of last year, when someone rushed in - "Phone for an ambulance quick, there's a man shooting people outside the bank!" Hardly believing his ears, Mr. Mills grabbed his emergency bag; the villains had already gone, but a security guard lay bleeding with a shattered arm and a stomach wound from a "slug" more commonly used for shooting deer but this time fired from a sawn-off shotgun. Vets don't normally expect to start treatment by cutting away their patients' clothing, but Mr. Mills exposed the wounds and dressed them, and then made an emergency splint for the arm with a long ruler from the bank.
The ambulance team with a doctor arrived within five minutes, and were thankful to find the immediate first-aid done for them. The victim happens to be a client of the practice, so Mr. Mills has been able to follow his progress and tells us that his patient is now doing well.
... though there is nothing to stop our menfolk brightening up their wardrobes at the new boutique in Market Road, Concoctions. Morag Paterson came to live in Pett two months ago with plenty of fashion know-how behind her; for nearly a year she has been selling her designs in London, but decided she would like a shop of her own and with her partner Helen Parker, who specialises in elegant second-hand garments, opened the tiny Rye shop on Thursday.
A rainbow overflows through the open door from shelves stacked with cotton-knit shorts, vests and long-johns in vivid colours - dyed very professionally by Morag herself; and to go with them are the popular plastic shoes and sandals in a wider range than usual, jewellery in modern materials, bright braces, and a rail of the fashionable "big shirts" (large ladies on behalf of whom we were complaining recently, please note!). Sore of the designs carry Morag's own label - any of them would add gaiety to the towascape this summer and the young who like to be in the forefront of fashion should hasten to Market Road as soon as possible. They will also like Helen's rail of interesting clothes in nearly-new condition but many dating back to the 1950s and some much earlier.
• With spring officially well under way, Vidlers' sale on Friday has lots of lawnmowers and garden furniture, and at least two slimming machines! The energetic might like to bid for the bricklaying and carpenters' tools - and perhaps also for the telephone answering machine, to avoid having to stop work when the phone goes? There are also, needless to say, the sale's usual antique, modern and domestic goods of every kind. (There is now no entrance from the Goods Yard.)
• Roger Breeds enters upon his second term as Mayor on Monday morning at 11; the formal meeting of the Council is followed by a short service in St. Mary's, and then a return to the Town Hall when the hot pennies will be thrown, around noon.
• On the Bank Holiday afternoon, Leasam House has a fete from 2 to 5. The theme is "Circus" - though Julia Thomas assures us that there are absolutely no Kings of the Jungle or performing elephants. Performing dogs will of course be welcome but so will dogs of all kinds, to register at 1.30 for the Exemption Dog Show to take place during the afternoon. There will be the usual stalls and sideshows, and cream teas will be served elegantly on the lawn with its superb view of the town. Dog Show and other details from Julia.
• Another entertainment for Bank Holiday Monday is offered by sheepdog trials at Rye Marsh, on the A259 between Rye and Winchelsea, starting at 9.30 am. Adults pay Ea entry, children pay nothing, parking is free and there will be refreshment and a raffle.
• SSAFA (Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen's Familicm Association) celebrates its centenary this year. t exists to serve the families and dependants of men and women who have served, or are still serving, in the armed forces or reserves. Help given may be financial (and each branch has its own funds for immediate assistance if necessary, without prior reference to EQ), or practical, or just friendship and advice. The Hon. Sec. for the Rye and District Division is Mr. A.S. Boyce of icklesham. He tells us that although SSAFA was among the organisations which failed to get a flag-day in Rye this year, it has been allocated a house-to-house collection week (20 to 25 May) and he would be very glad to hear from anyone in Rye or the villages willing to help with this. The Association has a coffee morning in Rye on Thursday of next week, 9 May, at the Community Centre from 10 to 12; there will be a bring-and-buy stall and cakes.
• Also denied a flag-day this year was the Red Cross, and the Rye branch is trying to raise £200 to replace the money they would have collected. On Thursday week, 9 May, there is to be a Plant and Pantry Sale at the Red Cross Centre in the High Street from 10 to" 3, followed by cream teas from 3 to 4.30. Mr. and Mrs. Thursfen ask for gifts of plants, flowers, produce, savouries, biscuits, oak 1 preserves, confectionery, etc. (home-made or otherwise), which will be welcome at Dolphin House the previous afternoon or by arrangement. They also, of course, want plenty of customers on the 9th. May we suggest coffee with SSAFA and cream tea with the Red Cross, with the day's two main meals furnished from the Pantry Sale - and virtually no washing-up at all?
• The Ryesingers Spring Concert at St. Mary's on Saturday drew a big audience. Lesley Brownbill tells us that the Young Ryesingers performed extremely well - and we don't need anyone to tell us that Ryesingers themselves did too! A young pupil of Lesley's, Lucy Mayor from Sutton Valence, collapsed during her solo in the first part of the programme and had to be helped out of the church, but we are glad to report that she was much better by Monday - her doctor suspects some kind of virus infection.
Ryesingers' next musical event (they have a jumble sale on Saturday) is a weekend workshop on 15 and 16 June under a visiting conductor from the BBC Northern Singers; he will be working with Ryesingers on the Saturday and with Madrigalia on the Sunday, and the two choirs will combine for an informal concert in the Methodist Church on the Sunday evening, performing the work they have been rehearsing.
Just room for long notice of the Miss Rye contest, later than usual this year on 18 May, at the Oasis; start persuading those pretty girls now!
People, coming coming and going
• Congratulations to Dr. Ben Chishick of the Postern Gate surgery and his wife Jenny, whose second son was born on 24 April.
• Also to Rosemary (nee Parkes) and John Parmenter, of St. Leonards, on the birth of their daughter Jayne - very like her grandfather Trevor, we are told - also on 24 April.
• Yet another 24 April baby is Ian James, son of Debbie and Steve Derbyshire of Yeovil and a first grandchild for Janet and Ray Wood of Cooper Road. Mrs. Wood tells us that the employers of both parents have come up trumps; Debbie has been treated like royalty in the maternity ward of the hospital where she used to work, and the Fleet Air Arm has given Steve - due for a new posting - every consideration including a fortnight's compassionate leave, so that he can get his family settled before he goes.
• Welcome home, though very briefly, to Daniel Owen - ex-Udimore Road, ox-Thomas Peaceeke School, and due to take up a place at Brasenose College, Omford, to read Zoology in October. Daniel's passionate interest in birds stems from his discovery of the Rye Harbour Nature Reserve when he was ten; after a birdwatching trip under canvas in the Shetland Islands six years' later, he chose to set his sights further afield during his "year off" and got himself out to Bluff Cove in the Falklands last October as a farm labourer. While there, he heard of a vacancy for a deckhand on the British Antarctic Survey ship "John Biscoe" and joined her at Port Stanley after Christmas. Crammed with scientists, she spent three months cruising round the South Shetland Islands on an offshore biological programme, calling at shore stations of several different nationalities, a not-very-extinct volcano, and several places familiar from Falklands war reports. At Rio they shed the scientists, and brought the ship back to Grimsby where she goes into dry-dock until her next summer voyage in October. Daniel's friends here will not be seeing much of him, though; he plans to leave very scan for a journey to Iceland via the Faroes if possible, perhaps going on to Greenland and if the money he earned on the "John Biscoe" lasts out, he may then range over the European railway system for a month with a concessionary student card. (Asking to look at his slides could lead to a very long evening - he reckons he took over 700 photographs in the course of the South Atlantic summer!)
• Au revoir, though we hope not goodbye, to a Rye family which emigrated last week to a very unusual destination - Moscow. Bruce Hamilton studied Russian and law at university, taking part of his course in Russia, and then was librarian (in Britain) for the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR; through this job, he went to Moscow in the early 1970s. Later he spent time in Paris before returning to Rye, where he has been living with his family in the High Street. Bruce is now taking up a job as a translator with a Soviet publishing house. Of course he speaks fluent Russian, and his wife Kathryn, for whom it was a subsidiary subject at university, also has a working knowledge of it. Alexander is not yet three, but he will soon pick up the language at kindergarten, and Sarah, aged six months, will never have to learn it formally at all, lucky girl!
There is a flat waiting for the Hamiltons, and they have already sent out there some of their favourite pieces of furniture.Kathryn has been interviewed for a job with the Anglo-American School in Moscow, and Bruce told us that he felt she had a good chance of getting it. The family will be missed in Rye, where Bruce taught part-time at Thomas Peacocke School, and was a keen member of the local Labour Party (and baby Sarah's enchanting and generously-bestowed smile was a special pleasure to many people).
The Editor would like to inform her friends that building work on 2 Cyprus Place has finally finished. She is most grateful to Messrs. Andrews and Payne for their expertise and patience, and also to her neighbours in Cyprus Place and especially the dustmen for their forbearance over the various inconveniences inflicted on them during the past nine months or so!
County Council elections, 8 am to 9 pm
Vidler & Co's monthly auction sale, 10 (view Thursday, 1 to 5) Bin for old newspapers at Thomas Peacock UpperSchool, until Monday (GAZETTE no. 124) - newspaper only, please
Movie Society (Fred's evening), FEC, 7.30.
Bowls Club coffee morning and bring-and-buy, Salts pavilion, 10.30. to 12.30 (all welcome, particularly new players)
Sea Cadets jumble sale, FEC, 11
Ryesingers jumble sale, CC, 2
Friends of Rye Harbour Nature Reserve AGM, Winchelsea Beach VH, 7.30 (and draw for the quilt, GAZETTE no. 126)
VE Day Commemoration Dance, Upper School, 7.30 (GAZETTE no. 126)
Rye Methodist Choir's evening of music, Methodist Church, 7.30 (GAZETTE no. 127).
FRHNR guided walk with emphasis on plants, RH car park, 10
Bank Holiday
Mayoring, 11; hot pennies, around 12 noon outside the Town Hall Leasam House fete and exemption dog show, Leasam House, Z to 5 Sheep-dog trials, A259 between Rye and Winchelsea, from 9.30
Arthritis and Rheumatism Council, Ploughman's Lunch, CC, 12 to 2 FRAG talk, "Charleston: Duncan Grant and the Bloomsbury Group's decorative arts" (Peter Miall, National Trust), TH, 8
Rye WI: resolutions for the AGM, FEC, 7
VE Day Commemoration Service (closely following the form of service used in Westminster Abbey), St. Mary's, 7.15 for 7.30
• Congratulations to Laurence Yates and Gill Freeth, who were married at Hemel Hempstead at Easter. Laurence, who works for British Aerospace, is the son of Mr. and Mrs. William Yates of New Winchelsea Road, and the brother of our Mayoress. (Other congratulations appear on page 7.)
• Results: Rye Majorettes Caledonian Market on Saturday made £126 clear; it was organised by Mr. and Mrs. Jenner of Cripps Corner, with Malcolm Harris as the auctioneer. We hear unofficially that the Rye Ambulance Social Club's sale the same afternoon raised well over £150. And the Freda Gardham School Spring Fair, on a very chilly Saturday, resulted in the princely sum of £485 for school funds! Freda Gardham's A team won the football tournament and little Winchelsea the netball, held at the same time as the Fair.
• Apologies to George Cumming, whom we were unable to contact personally over last week's report of his London Marathon achievement; in fact his time was, he tells us, 3 hours 56 minutes, and it was in the Worthing and not the London Marathon that he ran in 1984.
• Rye's St. John Ambulance Nursing Cadets recently came third in a County (East and West Sussex) practical home nursing contest - but they brought home with them a certificate for the most smartly-turned-out group.
• Visitors to the Huguenot exhibition at the Museum of London will have the chance to see the Meryon Flagon which has been lent by St. Mary's; this is not normally on view in the church, though it is shown by special request.
• A Saudi Arabian banknote was among some £20 in cash stolen from Freda Gardham School over the weekend of 19/22 April.
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; a few spare copies are available from Squirrels, 9-13 Cinque Ports Street, and back numbers from Cyprus Place. (Copyright Mary Owen 1985)