For a brand-new football club to enter two teams in the East Sussex Youth League, ranging as far as Eastbourne, is something of an act of faith. But an enthusiastic group of parents, footballers and friends in the Rye area have done just that with the Rye Harbour Boys F.C., which has some 30 boys aged 9 to 13. The Club is based on the Harbour because that is where they were offered the use of a pitch for free plus an enormous amount of help from Harbour people, who returfed the old school playing-field and provided timber for goalposts with a local fisherman making the nets. The Club at present has only ten boys who actually live in Rye Harbour; the rest are from Rye, with two keen lads from Wittersham. The Committee - Alf and Joan Ridgers, Terry Satchell, Ted Caister, Keith Gudgeon and Terry Brooks, plus trainers Michael Bowe and Vernon Peake (who is, Michael says, particularly strong on technique) - have not only started the boys playing, but also raised sufficient funds to provide two sets of kit and other equipment. (Just two match and two training balls cost more than £50!). £300 came from a sponsored walk undertaken in the summer by around 40 boys and parents, and there are other schemes afoot; there need to be, since although some of the parents have helped out with transport there is petrol money to be repaid, and the Club has hopes of its own minibus before long.
Last Sunday the U.11 side was thoroughly beaten at home by West Side Rangers from Eastbourne, but it was a real match and a serious start to the season. The U.13s were two players short at Sidley (Michael says that some parents will have to realise that football is played in wet weather as well as fine) and, not surprisingly, lost; but the referee said that they were well up to League standard, and with a full team would probably have won. Next Sunday the U.13s play at home (3 p.m.) v. Ore United, and the U.11s go to Hampden Park, Eastbourne, for a match against Winkney Farm.
The GAZETTE wishes the Club, its players, and above all its enterprising Committee the very best of luck, and looks forward to reporting future developments.
The GAZETTE hears rumours that a new film in the popular Monty Python series is to be set in Rye - we hope to have more details for you next week.
Another pleasing rumour can now be confirmed. Rye Town Council has agreed terms with ESCC for the purchase of 64 acres of surplus playing-field the far side of Freda Gardham School. As well as being a useful addition to the town's stock of playing-fields, the purchase will be greeted with enthusiasm by the residents on that side of New Road who were threatened some time ago by the possibility of a caravan park on the land. The ground borders the primary school's remaining playing-fields, but the town will have its own entrance at the far end of the houses. The scheme inded by Jo Kirkham as Mayor, and she stamped very firmly on the County Council's suggestion of a party fence: "The whole point" she says "is that the children can continue to use the ground when necessary." The transaction is likely to be completed before Christmas.
It is particularly good to be able to report that the whole cost of the land will come not from the rates but from the funds of Rye Town Lottery. Punters will be glad to know that the new "bingo-type" lottery tickets will very shortly be available from the usual sources, plus some new outlets, after an absence caused by problems with the printers. So, once again, we can support the Rye Town Lottery and benefit the town in general and perhaps ourselves as well. The GAZETTE will shortly be publishing a complete list of the grants made from the Lottery to local organisations who have applied to it for help; almost all those eligible have received donations.
Rye Red Cross's Thrift Shop, which reopened in May under the management of Mr. and Mrs. Stuart Thurston plus an invaluable team of "shop assistants", has already proved its value, both to buyers and sellers and to the Red Cross Centre whose funds have benefited by £1,000 during the first four months of opening.
People in the Landgate area have cause to be grateful to Mr. A.J. Bingham. Who? Well, Mr. Bingham is an Inspector for the Department of the Environment in Bristol, and it was on the strength of his recommendation that there is to be no amusement arcade in the former Landgate Stores. The letter refusing the appeal was addressed to Broxbourne Plant of St. Leonards, though the original application was from a firm called Eldest Builders; but whoever was in reality planning the project, the decision is the same. The Inspector considered that the building and its situation were unsuitable for such a development; that it was against the interests of people living in the neighbourhood; and that the access was inadequate in view of the very narrow pavement outside the building.
Anyone who tried to bank a bottle in the town over the recent Bank Holiday weekend will have discovered for themselves what a success the new bottle banks are turning out to be. Rother Councillor George Shackleton tells the GAZETTE that during their first full month the banks in the Rother area produced 35,000 kgs of glass. Emptied three times a week, they are proving useful to pubs and hotels as well as private householders - and children who enjoy the smash – and Councillor Shackleton is now pressing for a fourth bank in Rye to serve the Fishmarket Road/Kings Avenue/New Road area. The banks are the baby of the Environmental Health Committee, whose latest idea (still to go before the full Council) is to sell advertising space on Council vehicles. We already have decorated buses, and even decorated milk bottles; what may we expect to see on the dustcarts before the year is out?
Ellis Bros have recently carried out three major projects in Rye. Badger Gate is resplendent in new paint; the Post Office snuggles warmly under a new and properly insulated roof; and the Crown Inn, lately acquired by Shepherd Neame, has not only been repainted and the wall tiles rehung, but it has also had the roof renewed. Looked at from street level, there seems nothing particularly remarkable about the latter job; but seen from above, the Crown somehow manages to have more roof than its floor space could possibly justify, and Ellis Bros did the lot.
Mrs. Louise Allchin came to Rye in May to buy a stove and ended up with a shop! Homestyle, in Landgate, is packed with samples and pattern books enough to enable Dutch-born Mrs. Allchin to provide all the fabrics, floor- and wall-coverings a house could possibly need, let alone blinds and lampshades and curtain-rails; she has a team of workers to make up and install the orders, usually within three weeks. She has been in the business for many years, based on Battle where she and her husband live (they have three grown-up children), but she fell in love with the tiny shop and now welcomes old and new clients from a wide area of the south-east.
Next door to Homestyle, Bill Fairbrother has shifted the emphasis of his Motalink shop almost entirely to VHS video tapes. Bill, who lives on the Tilling Green Estate, is an ex-Farnborough Engineering man. His video club provides members with an evening's entertainment whenever they feel like it, and he also offers one-off hirings, with a wide range of films and a constant supply of new titles. With the Baked Potato on one side and the Chinese takeaway nearby, a quick trip to the Landgate can provide "an evening out" at home, since Bill is open till 6.0 on Thursdays and Fridays (closed all day Tuesdays) and offers special weekend arrangements.
On Thursday, Thomas Peacocke Lower School held its Harvest Festival service, which was taken by Canon Maundrell with James Gladstone in attendance. Around 65 carrier bags, particularly well-filled this year, were distributed by Lower School pupils to their elderly friends and relations.
St. Mary's Harvest Supper took place the following day, when Mrs. Betty Ellwood and her helpers fed over 90 people at the Community Centre. After an excellent meal, the party was entertained by Rye Folk Group, and everyone enjoyed their evening.
Rye Flower Club's recent show raised around £500, from which donations will be made to the RNLI and the Sussex Kidney Trust.
The GAZETTE is very grateful to Chief Inspector Dyson for permission to see the Press Book at Rye Police Station. Happily, not many of the recent entries relate to the town itself, but there were two thefts last week: a diamond and ruby ring was stolen from Troll Antiques in the High Street, and a T-registration white Austin Mini went missing from Weslakes. The Weslakes thief, however, must have been disappointed to find that the cash-box taken at the same time contained only £1 and a few second-class stamps.
Thanks to the expert joinery of Rye-born Alfred Booth, the fittings in The Apothecary's Shop are now finally back in their proper place. Backed by a grant from Rother Council the new owner of the property, James Kimber, took on the responsibility of restoring them, with John Underwood as honorary consultant architect to Rye Conservation Society keeping an eye on the work. Mr. Booth, who remembers the shop when as a boy he bought his mother's Christmas present there, says his heart sank when he first saw what looked like a pile of firewood in the middle of the empty shop. The work took him a week, and he and Mr. Underwood are agreed on the vandalistic way in which the fittings were wrenched from their settings, apparently with a crowbar. Fortunately Mr. Underwood was in a useful position to help with the restoration, as he had worked on the building for Le Fevre Wood and Royle in Mr. Judge's day. Apart from one or two spaces and a newly blocked doorway, the only need now is for some matching knobs to fill up gaps and replace various incongruous loops of string.
Bunny Collyer, this year's Chairman of the Rye Society of Artists, reports that the Summer Exhibition took almost £4,000 in sales. Although down on last year's bumper figure of over £5,000, this is a very satisfactory result for the Society. Remarkably, some 60% of sales were to visitors from Holland and Germany, and over 5,000 people visited the exhibition. A further chance to see members' work is at the Easton Rooms, where the "Potters Within and Without Rye" show continues.
The Rye Society of Artists is composed of professional and semi-professional artists. The Tuesday Painters Club, however, arose from the Tuesday further education art classes, and though some of its members now paint professionally most produce work simply for their own pleasure. None the less, the Club was extremely pleased with the sales figure for its ten-day summer exhibition at the F.E. Centre - £1,200, a record for the Club and a particularly creditable one in these hard times. The Easton Rooms are also happy with the response to their annual August exhibition of Graham Clark's work, sales being up to last year's level.
The Autumn Exhibition at the Rye Art Gallery in East Street falls into two parts, each with an architectural flavour. Downstairs, the Gallery marks the start of a new association between Rye and London's Royal Academy with a privileged first >showing of a loan exhibition of C18 British watercolours. At the party given by Dick and Phoebe Merricks to mark the opening of the exhibition, Victoria Burgess of the Academy staff was anxiously titivating the lighting so that it should not worry the pictures, whose almost pristine condition was due to long storage in darkness before being framed for the first time. John Ward, RA, spoke briefly about the Academy; it is hoped that this new link will lead to further loan exhibitions and other joint ventures, as well as offering concessionary subscriptions for Country Friends of the Academy. Upstairs, curator Margaret Casson has assembled an interesting loan exhibition of engravings by C18 Venetian artist and architect Giovanni Battista Piranesi, to whose work the catalogue provides a helpful introduction.
Rye and District Dog Training Club meets at the Community Centre every Monday at 7 p.m., when some 15 or 20 dogs of all ages and all sizes - from a St. Bernard to a little Tibetan terrior, and the one hasn't eaten the other yet! - are schooled in good behaviour and cured of anti-social habits with the co-operation of their owners and under instruction from Mrs. Doreen Clements, who is qualified as a dog trainer. Mrs. Clements can be contacted at The Decorator's Warehouse (Rye 3642) by anyone with an interest in improving the social graces of their own particular canine best friend.
Rye Bowls Club meeting, St. John's, 7.0
Meeting at Greyfriars, Winchelsea, to mobilise support for the Home's proposed League of Friends - 7.30
Papa Joe's film: "The Shining" - Pizzeria, 9.0
Craft Market, F.E. Centre, 10 - 1
Thomas Peacocke School Michaelmas Fair, The Grove, 2.0
Concert by "Special Offer", St. Mary's, 7.30
AGM, British Legion (Women's Section), Red Cross, 7.30 anyone interested is cordially invited
Rye Museum Association lecture (non-members welcome), FEC, 7.30
Barry Funnell on "The Military Canal", with slides.
Methodist Church Harvest Supper, Methodist Hall, 7.30.
• This weekend St. Michael's Church, Playden (one of the six Rye parishes), has a programme of events partly to help pay for £4,000-worth of work already completed on the south side of the roof - the north side, and a new damp course, are threatening. There will be flowers and crafts in the church from Saturday, with Harvest Festival services on Sunday. Monday evening sees a musical evening with Rye Folk Group and the Thomas Peacocke School wind band, beginning at 7.30. Hill House Hospital holds its Harvest Festival at 2.15 on Tuesday, and on Michaelmas Day morning the children of Playden School help to celebrate the Eucharist at 9.0.
• Harvest Supper is on Saturday, 2 October, and on Sunday, 3rd, the Patronal Festival will be observed, when Ryesingers sing Haydn and the Rector of Peasmarsh and Beckley preaches at the 10.30 Festival Eucharist.
• Ecclesiastical apology: it seems that Icklesham Flower Festival (GAZETTE no. 1) had as its theme not "All things bright and beautiful" as we thought - that will be Playden - but "Oh all ye works of the Lord" (the Benedicite). Obviously this is not the same thing, and we regret the confusion and apologise to Icklesham. Perhaps we had better stay within our own boundaries in future:
• The NSPCC is holding a house-to-house collection from 2 - 9 October, and Anne Wood (Icklesham 412) would welcome offers from potential helpers.
• Rye Conservative Association are almost £600 better off as a result of their Autumn Fair on Saturday, and are pleased to record that this is an improvement on last year's total.
• Last Saturday's jumble sale at Rye Fire Station made £150 for the fire service.
• The Tower Launderette will be closed all day Tuesdays (as well as Sundays) from 28 September for the winter.
• Finally, the GAZETTE would like to point out modestly that, as neither of our staff are Union members, we may be one of the very few newspapers publishing today - the rather inappropriately named "Day of Action".
THE RYE GAZETTE is published by Mrs. Mary Owen, 94 Udimore Road, Rye (Rye 2303) assisted by Mrs. Joan Parkes, 5 Bridge Place, Rye (Rye 2717). We are always glad to receive news items for inclusion in this weekly publication (deadline 10.0 p.m. on Monday - in emergency up - to 9.30 a.m. on Tuesday on Rye 2303 only).
Photocopied by Sussex Secretarial Services, 11 Claremont, Hastings (9422633).