Once again, owing to pressure on our space, some material has had to be held over; we are sorry about this and hope to catch up in August (normally a slack time for news) though we shall be printing only fortnightly during that month, on the 14th and 28th.
The next few weeks will see big changes in the parking arrangements on British Rail's land at the railway station. At present they operate two parks there: a small one immediately in front of the station, supervised by a member of the station staff, and the big Goods Yard park with its nay-kiosk beside the access to Ferry Road. A fence separates the two, with pedestrian passage only.
The new plan is to remove the fence and install three Pay-and-display machines at various points on the entire complex. This is expected to be done within the next three weeks, and the car park will be "policed" at intervals by station staff :0 make sure that everyone has paid. Coaches will continue to use the park as before - it is the only one in the town they can use - and the parking rates will be unchanged for the moment. The whole arrangement, as BR points out, is only temporary in view of the approaching supermarket.
But temporary or not, there is a sting in the tail. It is difficult to see the reason for a further proposal, when the main work is completed in less than a month's time, to close off the Ferry Road vehicle access entirely so that everything using the Goods Yard park (said to hold 200 cars, let alone the coaches) will have to enter and leave via the Station Approach. If this does happen - and BR has written to all three Councils concerned and to the police, so there may be protests - your reporter will not fail to be there on the first Thursday market-day thereafter, to tell you what happens...
The new Team Vicar to replace James Gladstone in the Rye Group of Parishes is the Rev. Michael Havell. Mr. Havell, 47, comes to Rye from St. John's, Hollington, where he has been curate; he was ordained in 1968 after training for the ministry at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, and was earlier at Durham University.
Mr. Havell, his wife Ann and his daughters Wendy (15) and Sarah (10) expect to move into the Vicarage at Camber in September, to coincide with the new school term. Living in Hollington, the family already know and like Camber, and are as much looking forward to coming as Rye is to welcoming them here.
Congratulations to the small local branch of the Blind Association, which raised an impressive £987 from its recent house-to-house collection in Rye, Winchelsea and Erode and its flag-day in Rye on 29 June - well up on the 1984 figure of £903 which was itself a record!
We are also delighted to report that the Rye Memorial Hospital's League of Friends raised approximately £700 at its Fete at the FE Centre last Saturday morning. This includes the money from the draw, with tickets sold in advance as well as at the fete, but is still an astonishing total.
At a coffee morning on Thursday in a private house and garden in the town, £366
was raised for the funds of the Church of England Children's Society. Some people were already buying Christmas cards from the wide selection on sale, all recycled from old ones given to the branch last January. Mr. James Batemen, treasurer of the local branch, tells us that the Society has also benefited by the sum of E873 given in memory of Mrs. Barbara Maundrell.
2.
Rye Community Centre is in sore straits: it very badly needs a secretary-cum-warden, and it needs him or her now. Mrs. Irene Cuthbert has had to give up the job at short notice in order to help her husband Roger with a now business venture (see below); she had hoped to combine the two things, but circumstances have made this impossible. So there is a part-time paid job going on Conduit Hill: 12 hours a week, on Tuesday mornings, Wednesday evenings and much of Friday at present, but doubtless alterations could be made if necessary. If you are interested in the job, please ring either Mrs. Cuthbert at the Centre in its office hours as above (222850), or Noel Varley at Sea Cruisers during the day, or Peter Chillingworth in the evening for further details.
If you should happen to be in George Street in Hastings Old Town, look around you for a bookshop called "My Word". Mrs. and Mrs. Cuthbert have started the business themselves, and will be selling new and remaindered books, with all the latest novels, etc.; they also aim to do a good and speedy ordering service, sometimes even within a couple of days. Until the shop phone is connected, ring them at home in the evening or leave a day-time message with Mrs. Cuthbert senior.
Rye Ramblers have made a most admirable contribution to Rye's leisure possibilities. Some years ago the Conservation Society produced a book of local walks, but this has long been out of print, and it is with the blessing of the Society that the Ramblers produced, last week, the first two of a series of eight leaflets, each giving carefully-researched details, with a map and sketches, of one walk.
The Ramblers are of course very well acquainted with all the local byways, so the initial ideas were there already. The "script" for each walk was produced by one of the members. The walk was then undertaken by the Rev. Brian Soper, who is responsible for the co-ordination and the final text, and Vic James who has done the delightful maps and drawings. They then produced a leaflet in draft form, and gave it to someone who had never tried that particular walk before: First Guinea-Pig. If First Guinea-Pig got lost, or found any snags at all, a report went back and the draft was altered accordingly; it then went to Second Guinea- Pig for final checking. So the Ramblers are sure that, anyway at the time of writing, the instructions are accurate as well as clear. Each walk is also way-marked, whenever the route changes, by means of a small yellow arrow nailed to a suitable gate or whatever. The walks do call for stout shoes, Me. Soper says, but not wellingtons. Timing allows for a leisurely 30 minutes a mile.
The first leaflet eases walkers in gradually with a 2½ -mile saunter round the northerly outskirts of Rye, taking in Leasam Hill and Playden Church. The detail is considerable, even incorporating the donkeys! Walk no. 2 is for the more energetic - "not for a windy day" says the leaflet It covers six miles via Camber Castle and Winchelsea, but the sluggard can cut it short by getting the bus home from the New Inn. (This one goes past Camber Castle, but there is nothing to be seen from the outside to indicate the marvels within, and it is still firmly closed to the public.)
The third and fourth leaflets, to be published in September, cover a five-mile circuit of Rye Harbour and the Nature Reserve, and a six-mile route round by Peasmarsh Church and Cadborough Cliff, across the Tillingham Valley.
The very attractive leaflets, bearing the Rye Ramblers' new logo, are printed by Adams of Rye. Price 20p each, the first two are now on sale at the Rye bookshops, the Mermaiden and Thunders, and also at St. Mary's bookstall, the Library and the Tourist Office in Cinque Ports Street - where the idea originated, since David Cranston was getting increasingly grieved at having to tell footloose visitors that they would have to make do with the ordnance survey map.
We will let readers know when the next two leaflets are available.
3 THE RYE GAZETTE, 10 July 1985
Married at St. Mary's on Saturday were Julie Slack, of Marley Road, and Adrian Kardamash whose family comes from Peasmarsh. Julie wore a crinoline dress of lace, with fresh roses in her hair, and her bridesmaids - her sister Tracy, Litisha Whited and Adrian's sister Vonda - wore blue. Best man was Graham Neilsen of Camber. The reception was held at the George Hotel, and the two-week honeymoon is being spent in Majorca. Julie and Adrian will be living permanently in Rye, since she works in Boots and he at Harbour Body Panels in Winchelsea Road.
Most local people are by now aware of the major works going on at 92 High Street. For a long time Anglia's builders appeared to be trying to dig down to sea-level, but now the floor has gone back and the interior looks considerably less bombed than it did. The skip permanently parked outside seemed at one time to have magic properties: the workmen would fill it during the day, and provident Ryers would largely clear it by the next morning!
George Gray of the Cinque Ports Pottery was one of the people who took advantage of this bounty - but for a rather special reason. When the excavations had reached (almost literally) rock-bottom, he noticed that what was coming out was good potting ay. He salvaged a couple of bagsful from the skip, took them back to Conduit .111, and started work. The finished product is a type of stoneware, different from his normal product, and there was only enough clay for a handful of pieces. One will be going to the Museum, Anglia are very naturally interested in acquiring another - if you want one, you will be well advised to see Mr. Gray at the Monastery hastily before they are all spoken for.
In GAZETTE no. 132 we reported on a new Education Authority economy likely to weigh heavily on parents of present and future sixth-formers living in the villages round Rye: from September they will have to buy their children's season tickets and claim the money back from ESCC, and even then will have to find the first Z4 a week themselves anyway. This was mentioned at the public meeting at the school when Ken Warren was present, and the PTA wrote to Charles Wardle of the Bexhill constituency about it since his villages are also affected.
In due course a circular went out to all parents, and there was enough support to justify a meeting to be held at the Upper School on Wednesday, 17 July, at 7.30 to discuss the matter. The PTA are inviting three representatives from the ESCC education Committee, one from each of the political parties. It could well be interesting...
The new exhibition at the Rye Art Gallery in Ockman's Lane (until 15 September) is a selection, from the National Loan Collection Trust, from the pictures assembled by Sidney Claridge Turner. Mr. Turner, born in 1867, was perhaps an unlikely collector; general manager of an insurance company in East Anglia, it was not until he married after his retirement in 1927 and went to live in Bournemouth that he started to build up a very interesting collection of English watercolours and drawings. Many of the big names of the period are there: Landseer (two difficult-to-believe views of Old Hastings), Leighton, Millais, Gilpin - but the Henry Moore represented by a study of the surface of the sea, unusual for his period, is quite a different Henry Moore from the one you first thought of! This exhibition is surely a must for students of English watercolour painting, and very pleasant for everyone.
Last Tuesday morning a Rye Foreign householder left the front door open because it was such a lovely day. Her handbag was on a table inside... Police are now seeking two people in connection with the theft of a wallet, chequebook and cash: a woman aged 28, 5'5" tall, of medium build with short dark curly hair and a scar over her right eye, and a man aged 25, 5'10" and thin, with fair hair and wearing jeans. Anyone with information should ring Rye 222112.
4.
Saturday was a lovely day. The new lifeboat house stood proudly beside the Rye Harbour slipway, painted down to the waterline in the deep blue of the midsummer sky with the RNLI insignia emblazoned in can't-miss-it sized lettering on the landward side, and the seaward entrance decked with bunting, flowers and the vital ribbon. The Salvation Army band from Ore (minister, Captain Forsyth; bandmaster, Stanley Bassett) played "Onward Christian soldiers" to a vast crowd of RNLI supporters and curious visitors; the ladies of the Harbour WI got ready to pour five hundred plastic beakers of tea or squash, by kind permission of the Sailing Club who had cancelled a race planned for the day so as to allow the RNLI branch the sole use of the club-house; and one Rye Town Councillor arrived paddling his own canoe.
Arriving by more conventional means were the Chairman of Rather District Council and the Mayors of Rye, Winchelsea and Bexhill (plus Les Paine, acting as Mayor's Sergeant); a number of RNLI notables both at local and national level; representatives of the fifty or so companies and organisations which had contributed in cash or kind to the project (the programme gave the list, too long to reproduce here); and Mr. and Mrs. Stokes representing the executors of the late Mrs. Violet Burnham, of Felpham, Middlesex, whose legacy had contributed so largely to the building costs (Mr. Stokes told us that Mrs. Burnham had no personal linka, with the RNLI, but had simply left the money to the Institution as being such a very good cause).
The one person who was not there, except in the minds of many people, was the Rye Harbour Lifeboat Secretary from 1969 until his death eighteen months ago - Humphrey Lestocq. Tributes were paid to his memory by all the speakers, and it was fitting that his widow Mary, who has herself been so involved with the lifeboat's affairs over the years, should have been asked to perform the opening ceremony.
The platform proceedings began when branch chairman Commander Colin Marsh, on behalf of all the donors, handed over the Lifeboat House to the RNLI; Dr. Geoffrey Hale, on behalf of the Institution's Committee of Management, accepted it and then returned it to the safe keeping of the Rye Harbour Lifeboat Station, whose Honorary Secretary John Barnard took it over gratefully. (We need hardly say that these were all, so to speak, verbal transactions only!) The Rev. Edwin Wilkinson, now of Westfield but once the Vicar of Rye Harbour, gave the blessing, and then came the moment when Mary Lestocq, looking radiant, cut the ribbon and unveiled the plaque.
After the final vote of thanks, the crew had their brief moment of glory. Three of them zoomed the boat, until then moored out of the way beside the jetty, up and down the river, throwing up sunlit spray as they turned to rescue a fourth man drowning in mid-stream. They hauled him aboard - and then, seen from shore, he appeared to vanish entirely until the boat returned to the slipway and he was produced again, zipped into a survival-bag/stretcher with oars forming the handles (and his boots sticking out of the bottom!) and carried to safety by crewmen and launchers. We are glad to report that he survived the ordeal…
Inside, the new lifeboat house is certainly spacious. Two small rooms provide crew quarters, and there is an office for the SWA (allocated in return for laying the foundations). The roof ties provide lots of extra storage space for use when needed, but what really caught the eye was the rail of slightly spooky rubber suits apparently tailored for enormously tall thin men - vivid orange jackets attached to huge waders, and enough of them for several relays of crewmen on a really bad day. On the wall are boards and plaques recording the history of the Rye Harbour station since it reopened in 1967: 98 people rescued in the 17 years which followed Certificate of Thanks from the RNLI hangs there, as do the Certificates of Service earned by Dave Caister (18 years with the lifeboat), Keith Downey (17 years), Ted Caister (151 years) and Terry Broocks (12 years). There is a letter of thanks to Keith Downey who was helmsman on the rough day in October 1981 when three people were taken off the "Midley Belle" in Rye Bay. And, most poignant, there are the
(continued...)
5.
photographs of the 17 crew members of the "Mary Stanford" who were drowned in the 1928 tragedy. Elsewhere, small plaques record thanks to various people and organisations who have helped with the costs of the Station over the year6 by means of legacies and outright gifts.
The builders of the Lifeboat House were Eldridge & Cruttenden, of Hastings. The architects, who gave all their services free, were Le Fevre, Wood & Boyle, of Rye and Hastings; and since John Boyle had been dissuaded from attaching the firm's board to the building, he hung it instead from the rigging of his gaily-flagged yacht tied up alongside the jetty.
Colin Marsh tells us that the splendid sign on the end of the building was paid for from the Mayor's Charity Fund. It was painted by Kelvin Care, who was given the original design by the RNLI but of course had to scale it up before he could start. He did the job over two days, working from a scaffold resting on sleepers laid in the mud; the main problems were achieving a smooth-looking finish, he said, and getting the proportions right when he couldn't step back more than three feet from the work without risking a ducking!
Two groups in the RNLI's South London region have raised their glasses and come up trumps, so to speak, for the Lifeboat House Appeal. The regulars at the orse and Groom at Streatham had raised £1,000 for the RNLI some time ago; and recently the landlord announced that there was now another £1,500 in the bank and they would like it to go for a specific project. The Regional Organiser contacted Colin Marsh, who went up and received the cheque with heartfelt thanks. And as if this wasn't enough from such a land-locked area, on Saturday afternoon branch secretary Joan Parkes was given a cheque for £800, the proceeds of a 24-hour sponsored marathon held in the middle of June by the Bridge Section of the Racal Decca Social Club based at Tolworth, near Surbiton - they actually played for 25j hours, and reckoned to complete 168 hands. The group's chairman Mrs. Cherry Emery had been rescued some 15 years ago after an accident in Rye Bay, and she was anxious for the sponsor money to come to this area; so the Rye appeal was its obvious destination. That £2,300 made an enormous difference to the Lifeboat House's finances; thank you very much, South London Region.
As for the money side in general, Colin Marsh tells us that if the RNLI house-to-house collection and flag day this week can raise £4,000, the building will be paid for. If not, he will still be looking around thoughtfully with his cap in his hand. And he wishes to express publicly his appreciation of the work done by his branch secretary, Joan Parkes; he is quite amazed at the amount she does and the efficiency with which she does it - she is a real treasure to any treasurer, he says. (And now she will probably never speak to us again!)
For the benefit of anyone would like to contribute to the equipment of the new lifeboat house, we asked the Hon. Admin. Officer, Denis Morren-Wilkins, what was still needed. He made the good point that the actual purchasing was best done through RNLI and other trade channels, to make best use of the money, so they would like to be given the cash rather than a specific item; but he divided the list into four categories for us. Sums under £10 will buy such small necessities as spoons, towels, tea-towels, acup-rack for the galley and a pillow with a waterproof cover; from £10 to £25 will buy heaters, tidy-bins, a portable bilge-pump, a re-chargeable torch; for under £50 they can get tools, a filing cabinet or a vinyl-covered mattress for the bench seat; and a gift of over £50 could well be spent on a typewriter, or sweaters for the crew. Something from everyone, in fact!
After tea on Saturday, as people started to drift home, sone very valuable citizens put to sea. Bother Chairman Councillor Price had expressed a wish to see Rye from the river, so Colin Marsh took him and the Mayors on a quick trip. Standing in the bows of the Harbour launch, "Rather III", Roger Breeds efficiently cast off - still wearing his elegant suit and the gold Rye Mayoral chain!
6.
In GAZETTE no. 135 we said that the firm likely to be opening in the new super.-market premises when they are eventually built did not want its name mentioned until everything was formally tied up. However, since the Sussex Express last week made it very clear that Jempsons of Peasmarsh were indeed the front runners, we have Jempsons' permission to repeat this report for what it's worth, for the benefit of the few readers who will not have "known" for weeks. "They know more than we do, then!" said the Jempsons director - and his assurance that there was still nothing firm was confirmed by Andrew Beggs of Butler & Hatch Waterman, acting for the developers.
The new planning list includes an application for a single-storey activity centre at Castle Water, to provide overnight accommodation and facilities for young people in training; the applicants are the Sussex Sea Cadets from St. Leonards who had, it will be remembered, earlier problems with a building erected down there without planning permission. There is also an application for a front porch in North Salts; Swan Cottage would like to incorporate a board advertising accommodation in its existing fascia; and there is a change-of-use application for the former Bistro premises at la High Street to be used for shopping and storage as part of the present Ironmongers Extraordinary above.
Following last week's mention of the Sheffield Place planning application, Mr. Tim Booth of Gassons told us that the cottages were being used as a store when his grandfather bought the Lion Street Galleries in 1927. Indeed, he added, the Galleries too were once part of the ironmongers in the High Street. We looked in the 1922 Almanac, and sure enough W. Stocks, ironmonger, appears as the occupier of 96 High Street, 1 and 2 Sheffield Place, and the Lion Street premises. Unlike Milsoms further along the High Street, however, Stocks did not have the whole corner since Vennalls and the George Hotel were well-established on the intervening High Street frontage.
The builders moved in last week at the Post Office (GAZETTE no. 122 summarised the plans). The old Sussex Express office has now disappeared, shuttering hides its site, and presumably the former phone boxes will be the next to go. The finished building will look very different from the present one, with a pavement-level entrance to the main hall, but work on the public part is not expected to until after the tourist season is over and the office will never close entirely even then.
A correspondent takes us to task for last week's remarks (which were not, incidentally, prompted by the Chamber of Trade) about advertising in the tourist areas the town by shops on its perimeter. "Traders in the so-called prestigious area should help their fellow traders less well-situated than themselves so that the tourist trade can be shared by everyone - not just 'the few" she said. We asked Chamber of Trade chairman Roy Barnes about this. He referred us to the Chamber's piece in last week's News, but this in fact only deals with advertising in a very general way: "Businesses need to advertise their wares in what is becoming an even more competitive industry, yet we are always extolling the old world charm of Rye and claiming it is unique, so perhaps some circumspection in signs may, in the long term, be an advantage to us all." What many people would like to see is some circumspection in the short term too; but we haven't room to go into that again this week.
What does it cost for a business to apply for planning permission to put up a moderate advertising sign, either on its own premises or elsewhere - the position being complicated in Rye by Conservation Area restrictions? Rother tells us that the fee (payable, of course, whether permission is actually granted or not) is normally £12. If the proposed sign would not need planning permission at all were it not in the Conservation Area, there is no charge made and any fee paid is refunded. The Planning Department at Bexhill Town Hall (Hastings 216321) can always advise on this sort of problem, as of course they do on many planning proposals before the actual application is drawn up; it is perhaps hardly necessary to mention that would-be erectors of illuminated signs in the High Street are,-however, simply wasting everyone's time as well as their own £12:
7.
As the results of University Finals are made public, we are very pleased to congratulate three local girls who have all gained second-class Honours: Lesley rooks of Rye Hill (History of Art and Modern History at St. Andrews); Susan Jones of Leasam Lane (Pharmacy at Bradford); and Nicola Thompson of Icklesham (Chemistry at Loughborough). Susan and Nicola were at Thomas Peacocke School. It is perhaps worth remarking on the coincidence which sent both TPS Head Ray Fooks and Deputy Head Stan Jones off last week to attend the graduation ceremonies of their respective daughters!
Two groups of young musicians are visiting Rye in the coming week, both with very high musical standards. On Saturday (and at morning service on Sunday) the Stowmarket Schools Concert Band performs outside the Town Hall at 3.30 and in St. Mary's at 7.30, the latter including the traditional music from the top of the tower. The Band could not come last year, so it is a particular pleasure to welcome their "Brass in Concert" now. Today week (Wednesday, 17th) sees a concert also at St. Mary's by the Quickborn Kantorei choir from West Germany. This is also a schools group, which exchanges with its equivalent in Hastings every few years; they have sung in Rye before, and this year will be performing work by Bach, Palestrina, and of course Handel.
On Monday, 11 July, at Thomas Peacocke Upper School (7.30), an evening of drama, dance and music reflects work done throughout the school during the year.
All visitors are welcome, and admission is free (silver collection). Lower School contributes musical items and a display of break-dancing by the boys; one of the plays entered in the third-year John Corbett Memorial Competition will be performed, as will the winning play from School House in the Inter-House Drama Competition (some of the Upper-sixth leavers are coming back specially). There is a Lower Sixth play produced during the summer term, and two plays from third and fourth-year pupils. People will be reading their own poems and performing their own compositions; the plays, too, were written by school pupils. (Staff members are also involved in this after-hours event.) Please don't have this tempting evening on a Monday next year!
Coffee mornings at the FE Centre on the next two Saturdays are both arranged to support amenity projects in Rye rather than outright charities, but they could both do with really good public support just the same.
On this coming Saturday, 13th, the Friends of Rye Art Gallery will be selling cakes and produce, plants and cut flowers - and of course coffee - in aid of the gallery funds; there will also be a white elephant stall and a raffle (FEC, 10.30).
The following week, 20th, the Rye Sports Centre Steering Committee is holding a similar event, partly to collect money for equipment for the Centre and partly to demonstrate the strength of local support for the venture. If you want a sports centre, they need to see you there; there will be stalls, a raffle, etc. as well as coffee.
When this smart new minibus arrived, given to the Mencap branch and Hill House School by the Variety Club of Great Britain, the lettering on the side referred to the David Pratt Trust; we asked the Variety Club's London office for details of this, but heard nothing more. Now Mrs. Clark of Pottingfield Road tells us that David Pratt was her cousin. She was evacuated to his home near Guildford (and recalls that even as a very small boy he was fascinated by the cinema), but when her family returned to Rye after the war they lost touch with the Guildford household. When he died very suddenly a few years ago, at the age of 46, David Pratt had reached a high position in the Cannon-Classic chain which owns the Hastings cinema (which was why the presentation took place there, by the way), and the David Pratt Trust was set up in his memory. Mrs. Clark is now once again in touch with her aunt - whose husband, sadly, had also died young - and she tells us that her cousin had been very keen on work for young people and would have been pleased that the Mencap/Hill House School group should benefit.
Thomas Peacocke School CLOSED (in-service training)
Civil Service Retirement Fellowship (Mr. W.O. Craies speaking on botanical subjects and photography), FEC, 3 to 4.30
Friends of Rye Art Gallery coffee morning, FEC, 10.30 (page 7) Cadborough Jubilee Social Club summer fair, CC, 2
Stowmarket Schools Band "Brass in Concert", TH 3.30, St. Mary's 7.30 (page 7)
Sussex Ornithological Society meeting, RH Nature Reserve (new members welcome, bring packed lunch), RH car park, 10
Evening of drama, dance and music, Upper School, 7.30 (page 7)
Thrift Shop, handing-in only, Red Cross, 10.30 to 12.30 Concert, quickborn Kantorei Choir (West Germany), St. Mary's, 7.30 (page 7)
Meeting over VIth-form bus fares, Upper School, 7.30 (page 3)
• Rye Police Station has a vacancy for a full-time shorthand-typist/clerk. The job is a permanent one, and further details are available from the Executive Assistant at the police station.
• We would like to have given longer notice of what sounds like an interesting exhibition at the Camber Church Hall: photographs of "Past Days in Camber and Romney Marsh". It is open until 5 today and from 10.30 to 7 tomorrow and Friday, and part of the proceeds go to Camber Church.
• More success for Rye Bowls Club, who won Saturday's home game against Ham Street 8357; on Sunday they went to Dartford to play Stonehouse, and only lost by 8 shots. So it was a very satisfactory weekend.
• The Annual General Meeting of the Rye and District Council for Voluntary Service will take place at the Town Hall on Thursday week, 18 July, at 7.30. Apart from the normal AGM business, there will be speakers on the Day Centre (Barbara Wild), the Community Programme (Bob Hodgson of the YMCA in Hastings), and Rye Memorial Hospital (Ruth Lawson-Tait). Secretary Pat Ciccone hopes for plenty of representatives from the various local organisations invited.
• The wheelchair ramp at the top of the Landgate newly obstructed by a road sign (GAZETTE no. 137) was, we are told, moved to a more suitable position before the end of last week; theme you, Ralph Olesen of ESCC.
• On Sunday Rye Ramblers took to the train - from Wittersham to Tenterden, under steam; they then rambled back again to Wittersham where they rejoined their own transport, having very much enjoyed the outing.
• Each morning, Monday to Friday, at 7.25 and 8.23 on its medium wavelength Radio Sussex puts out a diary programme for the eastern end of the county. Listeners to this can find out in advance the contents of the new Lunchdate 258 magazine programmes, also special to our end of the county, which goes out at 1.10. In each case, the tuning is to 258m/1161kHz (depending on your radio markings) on medium wave.
• The Hill House Fete, which was booked into the Town Diary (and perhaps others as well) for 14 July, will not after all take place this year.
• It seems that a chain letter is going round in Sussex. These things are of
course no more than a sick joke, but they do sometimes worry people. If any reader gets one and wonders about passing it on, they are very welcome to send it to the Editor - who would enjoy dissecting it in print before passing it on again, to the dustbin!
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 is Monday afternoon, or Tuesday 9 am in emergency. 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)