Admittedly the weathermen had been warning of trouble ahead - and there was a taster of snow on Sunday to confirm it. But the glittering six-inch-thick carpet which greeted Rye eyes on Monday morning was rather more than we had expected! Barry Yates measured the temperature out on the Nature Reserve as minus 12C (and described the Reserve's various ducks sitting miserable on the frozen pools, unable to feed until the ice melts; feeding them would, he says, be prohibitively expensive, and the fit ones can normally manage for up to ten days and still survive).
All three schools were closed on Monday and Tuesday (and, it seems likely, on Wednesday too), to the delight of pupils released to go toboganning. Skiers were out on Leasam Hill, too. Many of the TPS pupils couldn't have got here anyway, because the early buses had problems; and Tilling Green had to close, though most of its pupils live on the doorstep, because its dinners come from the TPS kitchens - and when you are five, what is school without a dinner! The trains ran, after a late star on Monday, and so did the buses, to judge from the diesel cloud in the station yard as they kept their engines warm. By mid-day on Monday the police here had encountered no real problems - cars which got stuck managed to get unstuck with a bit of help from their friends, and a check-up on Tuesday morning revealed no nasty accidents during the night though Rye police were advising motorists if possible not to use the road through Udimore because of conditions along the ridge.
The postmen managed to get round, though papers were late and not all of them reached Rye at all. For the firemen, Monday was a quiet day - which it needed to be, since many of them are also postmen or milkmen whose rounds must have been long and exhausting (Michael Bourn, delivering milk in Udimore,didn't get back until 1.30). The forecast early on Monday didn't stop the Williams boys from taking their big new freezer-van up to market as usual, though the family were glad enough to see them safely back not long before mid-day. The dustmen, too, were out as usual; one cart broke down, but it was nothing to do with the weather.
Most of the shops were open on Monday (though, looking out of the window as we write, it seems likely that some will have not bothered just for Tuesday morning). Bread was in short supply, as people stocked their freezers; the agricultural salt for clearing paths also ran out, and doubtless ordinary table salt, usable in emergency for the same purpose, will have disappeared by the time you read this.
Anne Swaine looked at the weather and decided to cancel the Adult Education classes for the whole of this week; the time will be made up later. Doubtless other events will also be cancelled if the bad weather continues; people coming any distance might be wise to check with the organisers before starting out and Radio Sussex's Snowline is a useful source of information, with bulletins every half-hour.
The weather's most famous casualty was the President's Putter, the Oxford & Cambridge Golfing Society's annual competition always held at Rye the second weekend in January. Sunday's snowfall meant that the final rounds will not be played until 14 March (wasn't it fortunate that they didn't all hang around hopefully for better weather next day!); this is the second time in three years that the weather has defeated the intrepid University golfers. A front runner in the early rounds was Peter Bathurst, whose marriage to Vivian Mathews (nee Townsend) took place in September, but he sustained an honourable defeat in the last eight and put paid to local hopes that the Putter's historian might also, this year, be its oldest winner.
2.
Miss Alma Oakes, formerly of Hylands Yard, died in a Hastings nursing home on 8 January at the age of 97. The funeral is at St. Mary's on Friday at 11.
Mrs. Betty Blackhall, of Greyfriars, died in St. Helen's on 3 January; she was 70, and leaves a son, Hugh. Mrs. Blackhall used to live in King's Avenue.
Geoffrey Bateman has again this year provided us with an extremely detailed analysis of the St. Mary's visitors book for 1986, which we can't possibly reproduce in full. West Germans topped the list of visitors from abroad (1,523); there were 955 Americans, 877 French, 632 Italians, 519 Australians, 492 Canadians, 481 Dutch, 271 Spaniards and 224 Swedes. Belgians, New Zealanders, Swiss, Austrians and Irish each had between one and two hundred representatives, and there were 77 Japanese, 19 Brazilians, Greeks and Poles, 16 Russians, and a long tail-end of perhaps 40 other countries, including two signatories who said they came from Outer Mongolia! Geoffrey's total figure is 21,132 and includes British visitors. The equivalent figure for 1985 was 19,646, and doubtless both years there were plenty more callers at the church who didn't bother to sign their names.
Greenpeace supporters spent a chilly Saturday recently to the seaward of Rye Harbour, collecting 36 bags of rubbish from the foreshore and part of the Nature Reserve. They were disgusted by some of the things that had been dumped there (not just washed up by the tide) - disposable nappies were not the only intimate garments. (This bears out what the Editor found, doing an ESCC clear-up in the Goods Yard car park earlier this year.) Greenpeace are having another go at the problem on Saturday, 14 March, and will be glad of all available help - we will run a reminder nearer the time. Incidentally, the group raised £86 for funds, carol-singing just before Christmas.
A new and attractive shop has appeared in The Mint. Mike Hodgson's Country Pine Warehouse recently moved up from the Grist Mill to the shop still referred to,as "the old Penny Royal", and indeed still remembered by some people as Clarks the bakers, just beside Needles Passage. Most of the furniture on show is in fact modern, made in the workshop transferred from the Drill Hall to Hoop Yard (part of the Jempson Slade's Yard area) where four full-time sta_ start from sawn timber to produce a wide range of tables, chairs, chests, shelves, dressers... The sealed-in finish, however, is modern and foolproof, but gives the effect of period furniture to match the traditional designs. For reasons of space, the firm don't have a great many pieces in stock, apart from what is on show in the shop; but delivery is remarkably quick, 21 days for a custom-made piece, and is free within a ten-mile radius of Rye, with a £10 charge for the weekly London run. All the pieces can be made to the exact requirements of the customer, and the firm also designs fitted kitchen furniture to match (and will visit to advise and measure up).
Despite the hangover of the long Christmas and New Year break, some good prices were reached at Vidler's auction sale on 2 January. Star performer was a small Edwardian mahogany sofa table, which mopped up £1,200 of someone's Christmas money! An early Victorian rosewood davenport went for £500, the large and very decorative Edwardian mahogany wardrobe for £280 (and a smaller one of the same period for £164). Oak coffers sold well, for £280, £250 and (not carved, this one) £140. A Victorian mahogany drop-leaf dining table went for £400, and a set of 4 Regency mahogany dining chairs for £340. One of the oil paintings cost someone £220, and the great big iron Newtonian reflector telescope fetched £210. Other prices over £100 included an assorted lot of brass (£180), two suites, and a miniature Edwardian cradle (£180).
3 THE RYE GAZETTE, 14 January 1987
Phone directories cost £2.50 each (or did when the current one was issued). To supply Rye Post Office with all four Central London volumes plus our five neighbouring areas would therefore cost just £22.50 (they already have binders). But, sad to say, this is more money than Hastings can afford to spend for the benefit of its customers in Rye.
Intending to check a London address before posting a letter last week, we were surprised to find that there are no longer any directories in the rack at Rye Post Office. Since the counter staff were not expecting them back, we took the matter to Hastings, where someone in Customer Relations told us that since the divorce between British Telecom and the Post Office, the latter no longer got its directories free - "and they come expensive to buy" he added. (This was before we had checked on the price; we wonder if he knew what it was?)
There is a more-or-less complete set of phone directories in the reading room at the Library, now the only place to look up an address. But it is a bit of a trudge up to the top of the town just for an address (and anyway the Library is shut all day Tuesday), so the alternative for many people will be to post the letter inadequately addressed and pass the problem on to the sorter (they are very efficient, and doubtless our letter got to its destination eventually). But wouldn't it be very much better if Hastings wrung out £22.50 from the Post Office's quite considerable national profits and restored the set of directories to Cinque Ports Street? It is not as if we were talking about very distant addresses: Appledore is in the Canterbury book, and so is Lydd, and the Brighton book begins well this side of Eastbourne!
55km from Addis Ababa, in Ethiopia, there is a village called Addis Alam; and in that village is an orphanage run by the Anglican Church for some 150 children whose parents died in the famine. They are aged between 3 and 18, boys and girls. When the time comes to leave, they stand a better chance of making a decent life for themselves if they have a basic skill of some kind; and the ability to use a sewing-machine can make a big difference to their future.
Mrs. Broadhurst of Church Square will be going out to Ethiopia in mid-February to join her husband who works there, and she would be very glad to take out with her one (or perhaps two) sewing-machines, manual or electric, for the use of the orphanage children. She is also arranging to have sent out any useful clothing which people can spare (particularly, she says, trousers, but anything with plenty of wear left in it will be welcome). This doesn't actually go with her in the plane, but is consigned to her personally (to avoid the 20% duty imposed by the Ethiopian Government on all imports, even second-hand clothing for its poor) - and she personally will be taking the clothes to the orphanage, to make sure they get there!
She hopes to talk to pupils at local schools about her quest for clothing she has already had an enthusiastic response from Lower School; but if anyone can help with sewing-machines, please ring. (A knitting-machine, a nice simple model, could well be very useful too.)
The annual dinner given by the Mayor of Rye to the other Cinque Ports Mayors is always a special occasion. This year the guest-list was depleted by illness, and the number was less than in some years. But even so the guests at the Mermaid included the Mayors of Deal, Faversham, Folkestone, Hastings, Lydd, New Romney (this year's Speaker of the Cinque Ports), Winchelsea and Bexhill, all with their Mayoresses; our own Mayor, Mrs. Oliver, was accompanied by her Mayoress and by her husband. Other distinguished guests were the High Sheriff, the Chairman of Rother, and the Chief Constable of Sussex. Rye Town Councillors were also stricken by illness, but ten of them were there, as was the Town Clerk. During dinner, music was provided by the Thomas Peacocke School orchestra, whose high standard so impressed one Mayor that he rang Mrs. Oliver up at 8am next morning to say so!
4.
David Townsend, son of Dennis and Maureen of the Iden Pottery on Strand Quay, is probably one of the most immediately ambitious of Rye's young men (we wrote about two others, also just turned 20 or so, last week). David is in fact 21, and at present works in the pottery; like his elder brother James, he was at Thomas Peacocke School.
David has been interested in racing driving for several years, and in 1983 went to the Brands Hatch racing school and twice drove a Formula Renault on a French course. In 1984 he drove his own Formula Ford 1600 to gain track experience at Brands Hatch, and by September of last year had joined a professional racing "stable", Racefax International Services of Sevenoaks, taking part in 8 races at Brands Hatch, Snetterton and Oulton Park. There are usually over 50 entrants for these races, and only the fastest 26 qualify at all, so David is justly proud of a 3rd, 4th and 7th place as his best results.
This year he has very exciting plans. Still with Racefax, he hopes to drive in the RAC and Townsend Thoresen British Championships, plus a few rounds in the Esso Championship; this will mean travelling to circuits all over the country, and possible TV coverage. His brochure shows a picture of the car, a Van Dieman RF87, with a Formula Ford 1600 engine prepared for racing by the experts at Scholar. David has a list of 26 races in which he could take part - and these are for senior championships, though he will not be racing against the sport's top names xt:t (but watch out, Grand Prix, Rye's on its way!).
The problem with all this is the money. Each race, with the preliminary tests and the essential insurance, costs around £1,400, and what David would really welcome is sponsorship on this scale; any business sponsoring him for a race gets, as part of the package, the appropriate name/logo/colour/whatever on the car - plus the trackside publicity and just possibly television coverage. David realises that local sponsorship at this level will not come easily; but his first race is on 8 March, and as he needs to put down a hefty deposit before then, he does hope very much for encouragement in a tangible form. He will, of course, be delighted to go into more detail about his plans - ring him at Rye 223413 (Iden Pottery, The Strand, Rye) during the day, or at Iden 251 in the evening.
Thomas Peacocke School's music department has several feathers in its cap at the start of this term. Catherine Collison, who with Rebekah Smith was invited to join the National Youth Choir last year, has now been offered an unconditional place on the four-year Professional Performer's course at the Guildhall School of Music in London. Needless to say, she has accepted it, and will be specialising in singing when she starts in September. In the meantime, she and Rebekah have been joined in the National Youth Choir by yet another TPS pupil, Beth Hall.
Last October, eight pupils and three staff from TPS auditioned for a new chamber choir formed by the County Music Adviser for staff and senior pupils of schools in East Sussex. All were accepted, and with two other local teachers the Rye contingent makes up a third of this select choir of just 36 singers! Their first public performance was "Messiah" in Brighton, accompanied by a chamber orchestra; Lois Benton says that there is a chance the next concert could be in Rye at Easter - please support them, she adds.
The Upper School carol concert just before Christmas was thought to be one of the best ever. The 80 pupils taking part included a choir of 53, and the programme included a wide range of instrumental items, woodwind to handbells - the latter a new group which has only been learning since September. The evening saw the first appearance of the newly-formed staff choir, who sang three carols and were enthusiastically applauded. The finale of the concert was a resounding performance of the Hallelujah Chorus, accompanied by timpani and the Wurlitzer organ.
5.
Catherine Collison (see page 4) is at the start of her life as a sinter. A long way further up the professional ladder is someone who has many friends in Rye, where his mother Mrs. Dorothy Wood lives, but who keeps rather quiet about his career - William Kendall, tenor, who has a house in Winchester but spends a good deal of time here. We recently saw the brochure put out by Ibbs & Tillett, this year celebrating its 80th birthday season - and in company with Dame Janet Baker and Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau we encountered William Kendall, with an exceedingly impressive list of Festivals here and abroad where he has sung, orchestras and conductors with whom he has appeared, and labels under which he records. William was singing at Canterbury Cathedral just before Christmas, but he is not often heard round here - more often in London or, as in 1985, on a major European tour. But perhaps, just perhaps, we may one day have the opportunity to hear him sing at Rye Festival?
Barry Fuller of the TPS PE Department has left Rye, indeed left teaching - to run a pub! Gil Wright, who left at the end of the summer term when his lawyer wife Fay was offered a good job in the west of England, plus Barry and ex-Leasam assistant housemaster Mike White, are to be the landlords of the quaintly-named Stumble Inn at Chard in Somerset. There is work to be done on it before the pub actually reopens, but the three ex-TPS staff members will be very glad to see local faces there next summer. Barry Fuller has been on the school staff for a dozen years or so - the PE Department can never be quite the same without him; his arrival in Chard should be a welcome addition to local sporting life.
A long end-of-term newsletter to parents from Mr. Fooks conveys a feeling of optimism about the school. ESCC has provided L14,000 for books and equipment for the new GCSE course, external redecoration is being done, and the plans for a major capital project at the school, proposed more than a year ago, are well under way - starting, possibly during this academic year, with the replacement of the huts by a new Craft and Art block.
Staff illness has caused problems, but it is good news that Paul Bishop has completely recovered from his cycling accident and is now covering his full timetable. Mr. Fooks emphasises the increasing problem in finding staff - "We have been lucky so far" he says, "but it is by no means certain that people will be coming forward to join the teaching profession in the future".
For many years, because of the transport situation, Thomas Peacocke pupils have worked a longer day than any:others in East Sussex; the school was reluctant to release children who were not able to get home. Now that so many of the school buses are contract rather than public-service, things are different, and it seems likely that from 26 January school will end at 3.30 pm. Teaching periods will be of 35 (or 70) minutes, and there will be more pastoral time as required by the GCSE system; the lunch-hour will in fact last 50 minutes. Mr. Fooks says the bus companies have been very co-operative; one problem is still not solved, but in general no child will have to wait more than 15 minutes for its transport home. (What will happen when the train times alter in May - and BR are not yet saying how they will alter - is anyone's guess!) Before the change of time is put into effect, all parents will have received a letter confirming the new arrangements.
Meryon House has come top in the Games Shield Competition for 1985/6, well ahead of the other three houses. More sporting congratulations go to Brett Looker of Beckley, in the third year at the school, who has won a place in the Sussex U.14 football team and has already had several games with them.
The newsletter refers to a large number of extra-curricular activities both in Upper and Lower School, from House Quizzes to foreign travel, and there is at present a road safety campaign going on with support from the police, aimed primarily at pupils in their middle teens.
The school play - a rock musical, we are told - will be on 2, 3 and 4 April.
6.
The Trustees of Rye Art Gallery announce that as from 1 January 1987 they have taken responsibility for the management of the Easton Rooms gallery through a joint committee with the Friends of Rye Art Gallery. This will enable the Trust's two galleries to be run as one enterprise under a full-time manager, and the part-time post of Administrator of the Stormont Studio will cease to exist at the end of March 1987; an advertisement for the new post of Manager is to appear shortly. A programme of exhibitions in the two galleries will be issued in February, and the distribution of three thousand copies throughout Sussex, Kent and Surrey will draw attention to one of Rye's attractions.
• Shopkeepers in Rye, and indeed throughout Rother District, are reminded that the ballot forms about Rother's Sunday trading proposals must be returned to the Town Hall at Bexhill by the end of this month. An outline of the proposals appeared in GAZETTE no. 203. The point is that unless Rother gets a "yes" vote from two-thirds of all the shopkeepers in the District, it cannot act to tidy up the present unfair and sometimes unbelievable tangle of bylaws. Not nearly enough replies have come in so far, and some of these have been "no" votes. So even if you don't feel strongly on your own behalf, but think that a "yes" vote would benefit the area's trade generally, please do make sure yc return the form; if you have lost it, there are more copies at the Council Offices here.
• Once every four years Rother awards a plaque to a development scheme which makes "an outstanding visual contribution to the District". This can be a new building, a restoration scheme or some other improvement, and entries can be sent in by owners, designers or other interested parties. "Particular emphasis will be placed on those schemes situated in visually sensitive locations which, though new structures, relate well to their surroundings" says the leaflet.The entry form is on the back, and must be returned to the Planning Officer by 2 March; the award will be announced on 26 March.
• Each year David Cranston at the Rye office makes a list of all the clubs and societies and other groups in the town, together with a contact for each. He is sending a copy of the 1986 list to everyone listed, asking them to update it if necessary; but he wonders if there are other groups not already on the list, which should be added? If you are not sure about yours, call at the Council Offices and ask to see the list. (The problem with lists like this is that, whatever time of year they are made, it is always exactly ten days before at least one of the organisations has its statutory AGM and changes all the officers!)
• Readers will be glad to know that the various concessions, holiday camps, etc., in the Rye Bay area bring Rother in a small but useful profit. Figures before its Recreation & Tourism Committee last night showed that expenses of just over £8,000 are set off against an income of nearly £17,000. Last year the actual profit was £8,017; this year it is expected to be £8,620, and next year as much as £10,400.
• Another section of the same document shows the financial estimates for running the Sports Centre. For the year beginning in April, outgoings are likely to be some £48,500, with income from fees and charges, sales of refreshments, and a school-share contribution of £12,850 from ESCC amounting to C40,450 in all. This means a loss of about £8,000, but to this has to be added £15,330 as the cost of management aLd administration (quite separate, apparently, from the £30,000 set aside for salaries, and indeed bumping that figure up by 50%). As well as this, we have £1,820 for "cost of democracy" which is the projects share of the cost of the democratic process generally (Council meeting expenses, elections, etc.). The total 1987/8 running cost (expected loss) shown in the estimates is therefore over £25,000!
We hope to be interviewing Timothy Lees, the new manager of the Sports Centre, when he arrives to start work in Rye next week; for his first fortnight, he has been finding his way round the Rother system generally.
7.
• Congratulations to Arthur Sewett and his wife Mary, of Battle, who (as reported in the Sussex Express) celebrated their golden wedding with a party in Northiam for a hundred guests. Mr. Sewett was born in Rope Walk and went to the Mermaid Street school; his father was Charlie Sewett of Neeves, the Mint butchers, and Arthur followed the family tradition, working for a Battle butcher. When he started work in the 1930s, he told the Express, there were six butchers in Battle, and now there is only one. (We do still have three, of course, plus the Freezer Centre's butchery department.)
• St. Michael's Hospice Appeal has benefited by £250 from an Inner Wheel Club event held at the Community Centre on 10 January to mark their World Friendship Day. Members, husbands and friends enjoyed wine and cheese, a silent auction, a bird quiz, and (very popular with husbands) rolling 10p for a bottle of whisky.
• Not included in last week's total of money raised for good causes during 1986 - because the figure has only just been announced - is the £1,478 profit from the St. Mary's Flower Festival in August (including the coffee-morning proceeds, which helped with the cost of flowers). £500 has gone to the Hospice Appeal from the PCC.
• A new adult education class on "General Christianity for Cambridge O-level" - ie. an academic approach to the subject - is being held at the FE Centre for an, hour every Wednesday afternoon; the first class was last week, and it seems possible in view of the weather that this week's will be cancelled, since the tutor is Deaconess Veness, who is coming over to Rye specially every week from Guildford. The course lasts until 18 March, and a very small charge will be made to cover the hire of the room. Students are asked to bring their own New Testament or Bible. For further information ring Mrs. Veness.
• A regular bus user complains that the bus timetable information displayed in Station Approach is inadequate and confusing; it only gives Hastings and Thanet timings, she says, and even the drivers in the (H & T) rest-room deny all knowledge of the other operators. Certainly we could see no indication in the bus yard that any companies other than H & T use it, though Fuggles and Autopoint also leave from there.
The only local person we know who really understands the bus timetables is Clifford Foster of Adams, who has to make sense of them for Fixtures - though even his lists don't say who operates which service, so strangers can't tell what sort of bus they should be looking for. (Incidentally, the Tenterden timetable does appear in Fixtures, but after the trains - along with a Thursday-only service from Brenchley.)
• Two local organists have recently produced recordings. River Books has copies of the tape made by Charles Proctor on the St. Mary's organ, on which he plays some of his own compositions and which runs for at hour (E5). Available from Nigel Spooner at Thomas Peacocke Upper School, in tape or record form at £5.95, 5.s a performance of popular organ music, recorded by Nigel on the organ of the Hastings church whose organist he is in his spare time.
• John Houslander offers an interesting explanation of the black kettle syndrome. Old-fashioned kettles, he points out, were always lined with white "fur", salts deposited as the water boiled, and boiled, and boiled... The modern kettles switch off once they have boiled, so the white fur cover is not there and the regular black deposits are more obvious. Sounds a nice simple solution!
• Finally, a plea to readers to keep an eye on their elderly neighbours in the bad weather. Help with shopping, and perhaps a few phone calls, can mean that older people need not leave the warmth and safety of the house for treacherous pavements until the worst is over. Milk bottles not taken in, curtains left drawn, are a bad sign needing investigation at once. (Having said this, the Editor was nonetheless a little peeved to be phoned by a worried daughter in Shropshire, enquiring whether she was all right on her own!)
TPS Parents Evening, Vlth Form
Ken Warren, MP, holds a surgery in the Council Offices in the afternoon (appointments, Hastings 423110)
Nat.Tr.talk, "The Austrian Tyrol" (Derek Ellwood), CC, 2.30
Town Council Planning Committee (last Monday's meetings were postponed because of the snow)
Camera Club, "Hastings Country Park" (Ian Rumley-Dawson), FEC, 7.30
Thrift Shop, handing-in only, Red Cross, 10 to 12
Arthritis & Rheumatism Council coffee morning, George, 10.30 Landgate WI, Barry Yates on the RH Nature Reserve, CC, 10.30 Community Lunch Group, Glenis Bentley on the. new epilepsy support service in Rye, Clinic, 1
• January is children's month at the Hospice Shop in Wish Street - clothes and books, toys, games and puzzles from babyhood upwards. Sorry we didn't know about this before, with January half gone; but Bob Hodgson has promised tr give us good notice of other specialist months to come.
• The TPS carol-singers in the High Street raised 57 in the two days, for Action Aid for Third World self-help schemes.
• Friends of Professor Lyall Powers of Michigan, who was in Rye in 1985 researching into the writings of Henry James, will be glad to know that the first book on which he was working here is on the point of publication and his grand-daughter, who was baptised at St. Mary's when the whole family were here, now has a baby brother, Nicholas.
• New Year tidy-uppers will like to know that there are two jumble sales on Saturday week, 24 January: the Labour Party at the Community Centre at 10, and Greenpeace at the FE Centre at 2. Also at the FEC at 2, but the following Saturday, is the NSPCC jumble sale.
• The coffee morning held by Rye Conservative Association at the George Hotel, at which Mr. Warren and his wife were present and Mr. Warren spoke, made a profit of £109 for party funds. The Association's AGM is on 6 March, when Mr. Warren will again be present.
• Maintenance work on Sevenoaks Tunnel will mean train diversions on Saturday and Sunday for travellers using Ashford, and buses will replace stopping trains on that line. There is nothing to say that our line will be different but it still might be worth checking if you have a connection to make.
• Thomas the Tank Engine raised E22 for Mencap - with most of the tinfuls in silver - by his tireless circuits of the snow-scene railway in the Swiss Patisserie window over Christmas!
• Planning: very quiet at the moment, with no Rye or Rye Harbour applications in either of the two most recent weekly lists.
• Crime: also very quiet, but there is a sad story in the press book. Because someone stole the control unit from an electric fence on a Beckley farm, an enterprising ram, finding the fence less of a deterrent than usual, tried to push his way through, got stuck, fell down - and drowned! So the farmer has lost both the control unit and a £200 ram. These units are very vulnerable to theft, and the police don't know why as they can't be used for any other purpose, apparently.
THE RYE GAZETTE is registered as a newspaper with the Post Office, published by Mrs. Mary Owen, 2 Cyprus Place, Rye, East Sussex, TN31 7DR (0797 222303), and printed by Cinque Ports Stationers of Rye. Deadline, Monday afternoon for Wednesday's delivery to subscribers/pick-up points; the paper costs 30p, and spare copies may be available from Cyprus Place. (Copyright Mary Owen 1987)