We are delighted to report that on Monday night Rother District Council approved the report from their Treasurer about Rye's "special expenses" rate (see full story on page 4). George Shackleton went over prepared with a sheaf of arguments in support of Rye's case, and Terry Spencer was also present - but in the event no speeches were needed, and the report was accepted without any discussion. In a midnight report to the GAZETTE, Councillor Shackleton said that even if he is not re-elected to Rother Council next year, he feels he has, by prompting this report, achieved something permanent for Rye; we entirely agree and offer him our most sincere congratulations on a personal triumph.
Rye's bomb has been stolen - and not just the bomb and up to perhaps 250 in cash inside, but the trolley, padlock and chain, screwed very firmly to the wall outside the FE Centre, which is what really mystifies its keeper, Keith Boreham. The bomb was part of a batch which fell in and around the Old Brickyard one Sunday morning in August 1940. It failed to explode, and Tom Upton, who was assisting the Bomb Disposal Squad, asked if he could have it as a souvenir - "they reluctantly agreed", his account says - and in due course he chiselled and then burnt out the TNT, cut a slit in it and used it as a collecting box for the Spitfire Fund. After a period of service supporting a birdbath, it was repainted and moved into the town, collecting first for the Community Centre and then for Cancer Research. Keith Boreham took over responsibility for it on Mr. Upton's death; last year it raised £200, and this year the total was already over £230.
We feel that this may have been just a Saturday-night prank, but Mrs. Upton and Mr. Boreham are very sad about the loss, and we do hope that whoever took it will let one of them - or the GAZETTE - know where it is now, so that it can be restored to its place of honour and keep on with the good work.
The closing of Frank Golden's drapers' shop - Mr. C.L. Healey is retiring – sees the passing of yet another of Rye's old High Street businesses. The shop was established in the seventeenth century, and in the course of clearing the premises Mr. Healey collected together many relics of its past; these he has very kindly presented to Rye Museum. Probably the most eye-catching item is a set of men's hats from the past hundred years, and the many people who enquired about their fate when they were arranged recently in the otherwise empty window will be glad to know that they have gone to an appreciative home. Other relics of the business include a lithographic stone - so heavy that its removal presented a problem – to an advertising leaflet or poster issued by the firm in Edwardian days, and a collection of accounts and other business papers from the late nineteenth century.
As well as these shop items, Mr. Healey has given the Museum Mr. Frank Hall's large collection of medal ribbons. The earliest of these dates to before Trafalgar, and the group includes some which were awarded for long-forgotten "incidents" such as the first China War and the Kaffir War of 1834-53. There are also, rather oddly, dozens of rolls of medal ribbon, more than enough to support all the medals likely to be won in Rye for the next couple of centuries.
Since Rye Museum has a noteworthy collection of militaria as well as its local exhibits, both parts of Mr. Healey's generous gift have been most gratefully received by Curator Geoff Bagley, and they will be on display next season. Those who want a preliminary look should join the Museum Association, since the acquisitions will be on view to accompany its first 1983 talk on Friday 21 January (not the normal Monday).
2.
In May this year Nicola Courtney-Bennett, of Playden, was selected from a very large number of applicants put forward by the sixty or so Rotary Clubs in Kent and East Sussex to be one of the four members of a team of young professional businesswomen to take part in a Group Study Exchange visit to Idaho, USA. Nicola, 26, is an agricultural secretary, so this farming area was particularly interesting to her. The teams were hosted by Rotary Clubs in Idaho while they were given a concentrated six weeks of study tours of every aspect of Idaho's way of life.
Rye and Winchelsea Rotary Club has now hosted the return team from Idaho for four nights in their last week while they had study tours in the Battle, Hastings and Rye area. The team consisted of a personnel manager, a home economics adviser, a lawyer and an architect. In their first day visiting Rye they attended the magistrates' court to hear a case of illegal netting of salmon trout, visited the sheep market and the Rye Town Model; and Geoff Bagley opened up Rye Museum specially for them.
Although they were very tactful about other places, it was apparent that Rye was the highlight of their visit and they have returned with many souvenirs. Since the end of their official visit two of the visitors have returned to their hosts here to enjoy a little more of Rye before going back to Idaho.
The Americans spoke very highly of Nicola and the other members of her team and said what excellent ambassadors of goodwill they had all been. Rye Rotary Club (and their wives!) are equally enthusiastic about the American visitors.
A Group Study Exchange visit is normally arranged each year or so from the Kent and East Sussex District, but this was the first-ever women's team and the first time Rye has had a candidate selected.
Rye Lions will be holding their annual charity shop at the Red Cross Centre in Rye High Street on Thursday and Friday, 25 and 26 November. Anyone wishing to donate items for sale - and they can accommodate quite large pieces of furniture and have already been promised a selection of fridges and cookers - should ring Trevor Humphreys.
All proceeds from this sale will be used to help people in need in the area. The Lions' range includes Rye and its surrounding villages, and they recently gave £150 to Westfield Brownies towards the £600 cost of a radio hearing aid to enable one of the little girls, almost totally deaf, to attend the local school along with her friends. Other gifts made lately were a donation towards the cost of the stair lift at Badger Gate (a project suggested by the Lions and supported by Rotary, Round Table and the British Legion Club), and some picnic tables and seats for Hill House School's adventure playground. They took a coachload of local elderly people to a party at the Falaise Hall in June, organised by all the local Lions branches; and their Christmas party on 18 December will include transport particularly for disabled pensioners who cannot easily leave their homes.
The Lions are always glad to consider suggestions from both individuals and organisations whom they may be able to help.
In a rising gale on Sunday, twenty Thomas Peacocke staff set off on a 12-mile sponsored walk across the marsh to Pett Level and back. Senior staff members were well represented, with Mike Thomas of Lower School and Deputy Head George Hunt among them, and several Heads of Department: the female contingent included Lois Benton, Jo Kirkham and Vicky Sanders from Lower School Medical Room. The wind was full in their faces as they went out past Camber Castle; but coming back was much less daunting, with the gale behind them and Pat Baker's hot sausage rolls and coffee inside. Some enthusiasts jogged the whole way; the slowest group took about 3 1/2 hours, so the 9.30 start meant that everyone was back in time for a well-earned Sunday lunch.
3.
In 1926 the novelist Sheila Kaye-Smith published "Saints in Sussex", a collection of poems and plays with a religious theme, set in her beloved Sussex. Among them was "The Child Born at the Plough", a nativity play written round the Plough Inn at Udimore, which then had a barn to serve as the stable. It would be very interesting to know if anyone remembers the play being performed locally in the intervening fifty years?
Anyway, a group with the Brede Players as its nucleus is putting on the play this Christmas. Some 40 performers are taking part - actors, singers, children - in St. George's Church, Brede, which is as near as they can reasonably get to the now barn-less Plough at Udimore, (Udimore Church itself is too small). They are not selling tickets, though there will be a collection in aid of Brede Church; further details from Mrs. Gaddie (Brede 882216). Performances will take place on 10 and 11 December.
Brede is outside the GAZETTE's normal area, but this is such an unusual and interesting venture that we thought some of our readers might wish to have long notice of it, particularly as that week is already a busy one dramatically. On Thursday, 9th and Friday, 10th Thomas Peacocke have their Lower School production of "Cinderella" and Rye Players are putting on a show at Peppers (and doing it again for the Probus party on the 11th). Freda Gardham School has helpfully altered its original plans and is now putting on its Christmas entertainment on Friday, 10th and Monday, 13th. So a really dedicated playgoer can see the Lower School pantomime on the Thursday, Rye Players on the Friday, the Brede nativity on the Saturday, and after an early night on Sunday enjoy Freda Gardham's show on the Monday. (Also booked in for those four days are two AGMs and two lectures!)
People who found that their snapshots of the "Yellowbeard" filming turned out to be disappointing - as well as those who didn't even try - will be glad to see what Claude Auberson has produced. He has a total of 65 photographs, mostly black-and-white, on view in the Swiss Patisserie, and will take orders for copies at very moderate prices. Some of his shots, where the filmmakers' clutter has been excluded, could pass for records of Rye as it might have been (but probably wasn't) two hundred years ago; others are a fascinating mix of past and present. Do see them.
We recently mentioned in the GAZETTE that the WRVS were glad of paperbacks to send, via Lydd Camp, to our troops stationed in Northern Ireland. Since then they have poured in, and Mrs. Barton is extremely grateful to all the kind donors - people dealing with the debris of jumble sales have produced some very useful box-fulls. However, the WRVS are still asking for more, and they can also send magazines if they can be rolled into bundles. Compliments slip from Rye WRVS goes into each of our parcels.
Mrs. Barton has a grandson serving in Northern Ireland, and he recently wrote to her to say that the WRVS paperback parcels were the greatest joy to the men, and the arrival in barracks of a new batch was keenly looked forward to. So we really are helping our troops in this way.
Friends of Freda Gardham Primary School are holding a coffee morning in the school on Monday, 29 November, from 11.0, and all those interested in the school, whether or not they are parents, are cordially invited. The group is aiming to raise-funds for minor improvements to the school, and they are starting impressively with a plan to improve the main entrance arrangements. The original entrance was blocked when the new hall was built, and they feel that there should be something better than the present two separate single doorways. So do please come along, if only to see how things have changed since your day!
At the recent PTA AGM, Mr, John Luck of The Grove was elected Chairman, Mrs. Mary East of Udimore Road, Secretary; and Mrs, Jo Kirkham remains Treasurer.
4.
We mentioned last week that Rother District Council would be discussing on Monday evening a possible alteration to Rye's rating system. Since the GAZETTE is written on Monday, the result of the discussion will have to be a stop press item on the front page, but we are setting out here the gist of the problem.
When local government was reorganised in 1974 and Rye lost its Borough status, it became technically a parish within Rother District, on the same basis as most of the villages. Though we were able to keep our Town Council and Mayor, the town's administration was done from then on by Rother. Until 1974, Rye Borough had been responsible for maintaining various areas within the town - sports grounds, gardens, the cemetery, the churchyard, the allotments, the ancient monuments and of course the Town Hall. When the new system came into force, the Town Council was offered the choice of maintaining these places it-self on an increased parish rate or handing them over to Rother and having the cost added as "special expenses" to our Rother rate. The Council members, smarting slightly from their demotion, reckoned that it would be more economic to hand over the work to Rother, who would already have labour and equipment, rather than try to go it alone. They decided, however, to keep the Town Hall in Rye's care.
The arrangement then became that Rye, in common with all other parishes (including Bexhill), paid a standard rate to Rother (17p in the £ this year). In addition, it paid a further rate for "special expenses". Most parishes pay this, and for 1982/3 it ranges from nothing (East Guldeford) via 1.9p (Battle) and 2.04p (Bexhill) to an astonishing 7.4p for Rye. Of this, 2.8p is Rye's "parish" expenditure on the Town Hall, including the Town Clerk and Town Sergeant's salaries and very small Mayoral expenses (but not the recent redecoration, which was paid for out of Town Council savings and other funds). The rest goes to Rother for maintaining the public land, etc. This rate would be even higher but for a grant set against it by Rother - from a total of some £53,000 available for the whole district, Rye is credited with just over £19,000.
Bexhill has a different system. Instead of being charged for what the equivalent work (including the De La Warr Pavilion) costs, they pay a flat 2p rate each year. In addition, their Charter Trustees (a sort of equivalent to our Town Council, because they are too big to count as a parish) has the use of Rother's Bexhill Town Hall facilities for free, so their 'parish' expenses. are only 0.4p.
The new system worked quite well for the first couple of years, but then the Rye special expenses rate began to rise very sharply, from 2.7p in 1976/7 to the present 7.4p. Most Councillors seemed to accept this as inevitable, but when George Shackleton was elected as the Ratepayers Association candidate in 1979, he found-the regular increases very worrying, particularly as Bexhill continued with its flat 2p rate.
Mr. Shackleton put Rye's case at a Policy and Resources Committee meeting in February, and as a result of what was then said he had a long talk with Rother's Treasurer, Mr. P.J.V. Allen. Mr. Allen agreed that the system seemed unfair, cane over and talked with Rye Town Council, and eventually produced a report recommending that Rye should in future be charged a 2p rate for special expenses, on the same basis as Bexhill. (There would still be a parish rate for Town Hall expenses - but, as Mr. Shackleton points out, if our Council starts to throw our money about we can make our objections clear when election time comes round!)
The Treasurer's report was accepted by the Policy and Resources Committee at the end of October. It now goes before the full Council, where it will obviously be vulnerable to opposition from the villages, most of whom do their own playing-field maintenance and have no ancient monuments to worry about. However, Rye is the main tourist attraction in the Rother District (we do not propose to argue this point with Battle), and the whole district benefits from the fact that Rye is what it is and has been. It seems only fair that the burden of keeping in sparkling condition this jewel in Rother's crown should be spread more evenly throughout the Rother District.
5.
The Mayor reports with much pleasure that over £160 was raised from the Mayoress's coffee morning last week to provide a memorial seat to Miss Mary Warren. Despite the drizzle, more than 120 people came to the Town Hall, including some who are not seen about now as often as they used to be, and a very pleasant morning was spent thanks to tremendous efforts by the Mayoress's back-up team. It would have given Miss Warren particular pleasure to know that the first prize in the raffle was won by her old friend Miss Turner, Senior Mistress at the Grammar School before Miss Dann and a member of the literary society which Miss Warren founded in Rye in the nineteen-fifties.
We shall look forward to reporting in due course on the positioning of the seat, which will bear an inscribed plaque.
Rachel Sarieddine has had to cancel her annual supper-party in aid of charity, which had been booked this year for 16 December, because of pressure of other work. Instead, she and her helpers are holding a coffee morning on Saturday, 4 December, from 10.30 to 12.30 at St. Anthony's in Church Square, by kind permission of Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Gibson. Among other attractions will be a display of the beautiful patchwork quilts made by Mrs. Sarieddine's sewing group - the quilts will be for sale and tenders are invited. There will also be a dolls' house exhibition, and stalls selling preserves and Christmas decorations.
The event is in aid of Brother Jonathan's North Devon holiday home for deprived children, and the Additional Curates Society.
Chris Ashbee, of Military Road, spent Saturday night in the road outside Eastbourne Post Office. He wanted to be well up in the queue to get his application to run in the London Marathon date stamped when the Post Office opened specially at 7.0 a.m. on Sunday. There were only about 200 enthusiasts at Eastbourne, but Brighton had far more, and a total of 100 post offices all over the country took entries. Theoretically the first 18,000 can run; but Chris says that by the time places have been reserved for overseas runners, celebrities, and the top rank who have completed a marathon in 2 hours 35 minutes, he is hoping to be one of 10,000 or so ordinary runners. He will not know if he is in until the end of December.
Marathon running is not, it seems, just a summer sport. Chris recently ran a half-marathon at Barnes Green, near Horsham, coming 18th out of 780 runners, and he entered for a full course at Farnham Castle, near Guildford, on 21 November. February (February!) he hopes to take part in a cross-country event near Eastbourne, the Seven Sisters Marathon.
The admirable Guy who sat with his collecting box outside Cadborough Stores last week was not destined for the flames. The Cadborough Jubilee Social Club this year held its usual torchlight procession with the articulated Guy waving to his admirers in a very aristocratic manner, and the fireworks and subsequent food were as appreciated as ever; but it was decided not to have a bonfire this year, so Guy has gone into hibernation, to be resurrected in 1983.
The new Thomson Local Directory, delivered round the town last week, promises to be a handy addition to local advertising literature. It covers the area from Bexhill to Rye and inland as far as Northiam and Robertsbridge. The main part consists of a yellow-pages type of guide to local businesses, with an index to the classifications. In addition it lists the postcodes of all the streets in its area; there are maps of Hastings, Bexhill and Rye, travel and postal information, metric measures, and lists of useful addresses: councils and local services, "help lines" for those with all sorts of problems, and organisations of interest to sportsmen and women. It seems that there will be a new edition every year. The first impression is a bit-overwhelming, but ten minutes spent finding your way round it now might be well worth while later.
6.
Thursday, 11th Rye Scouts’ 75th birthday celebration, Community Centre, 7.30
Friday, 12th Natural History Society: "Flowers of the Mediterranean" by Mrs. A.G. Side, FEC, 7.30
Papa Joe's film: "Yanks", Pizzeria, 9.0
Saturday, 13th Craft Market, Community Centre, 10-4
Rye Festival Christmas Fair, Town Hall, 2.0
Jumble Sale, Friends of the Earth + CND, Methodist Hall, 2.30
Sunday, 14th Remembrance Sunday, St. Mary's, 11.0 (parade assembles for 10.40)
Tuesday, 16th Film and talk, Methodist Church, 6.45 (see below)
Wednesday, 17th Christmas Fair (Cancer Relief), FEC, 10.15
Handing-in day for Red Cross Thrift Shop, 10.30 - 12.30
• We regret to report the death of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, aged 76, formerly of Watchbell Lane, whose funeral took place on Friday in Hastings.
• Apologies to the Church of England Children's Society: Mr. James Bateman is continuing as Treasurer, not Mrs. Bateman as we said last week.
• Wally Cole, who was awarded the MBE in the Birthday Honours for services to the potter's craft, went to Buckingham Palace on Thursday to receive his award. It was a particularly interesting occasion, as the honours were presented by the Queen herself and among those at the Palace were many who had distinguished themselves in the Falklands campaign.
• Freda Gardham School is urgently looking for a lollipop-person to supervise the crossing at the foot of Hilder's Cliff, starting as soon as possible. Hours are 8.20 a.m. to 9.05, and 3.20 to 4.0, term-time only; pay is £14.24 a week. Application forms and further details available from the school.
• Congratulations to Mrs. Nelson-Barrett and her helpers, who raised over £400 (£114 from the raffle alone) for the blind at the coffee morning and sale of work at the FE Centre on Saturday.
• Planning permission for change of use for Frank Golden's now empty shop in the High Street is being sought by Mr. and Mrs. Conner, of the Fish Shop in The Mint. They would like to open it as a cafe, selling coffee, ice-cream and light refreshments only (not cooked meals).
• Rye Firemen took £17.50 at their mini-jumble sale on Saturday.
• Although Rye WRVS no longer have space to take in unwanted clothes for issue to people in need or sudden emergency, the Bexhill WRVS (Riley House, Amherst Road) is still glad to receive them on Monday and Friday mornings and Thursday afternoons. It is helpful if they can be folded and sorted into types of garment if possible, and not just bundled together in one large bag.
• Rye Community Centre Association hold their AGM at the Centre at 7.45 on Thursday evening, 18 November, and will welcome the general public as well as the representatives of the many organisations who use the Centre and support its work.
• A film "The Right to Believe" will be shown at Rye Methodist Church at the next Rye Council of Churches meeting on Tuesday, 16 November, at 6.45. The film is about religion behind the Iron Curtain and will be followed at 7.45 by a talk by Mr. Arvan Gordon of Keston College; literature will be on sale. Those who would like to come will be most welcome.
THE RYE GAZETTE is registered as a newspaper at the Post Office. It is published by Mrs. Mary Owen at 94 Udimore Road, Rye (Rye 2303) who is always glad to receive news items for inclusion. Normal deadline is Monday afternoon, though minor alterations can be made not later than 9.0 a.m. on Tuesday. The GAZETTE costs 20p a week and is normally delivered to subscribers on Wednesday.
Photocopied by Sussex Secretarial Services, 11 Claremont, Hastings (942 2633).