Most readers will know by now that George Shackleton topped the 46% poll on Thursday with 1287 votes, a lead of 600 over the next candidate: obviously a big thank-you from the town for his work so far, and a vote of confidence in what he will be doing for us for the next four years. There were about 100 votes between each of the other five candidates: those elected were John Cawdron (687) and Pauline Tomich (562) - runners-up were Frank Cheese (493), Ann Hamilton (394) and Sheila Ungar (289). After the count, Mr. Shackleton spoke for all the candidates in thanking the Deputy Returning Officer, Mr. Lee, and his staff for a job well done. It was perhaps fortunate for the Rother staff that there was no election for Rye Town Council, since they did have the odd problem anyway over the twelve counts which took place at Thomas Peacocke on Friday morning!
Mr. Shackleton (43 Udimore Road, Rye 223081) stands as an Independent Ratepayer, one of four Ratepayer members of the new Council. Mr. Cawdron (43 Fair Meadow, Rye 223683) and Mrs. Tomich (The Walled Garden, New England Lane, Rye 222803) are among the 25 Conservatives, and had Ken Warren canvassing for them in the High Street last week. There are also 9 Independents, 3 Labour members, and 4 Liberals.
Towards the end of the month the new Councillors meet unofficially to decide who will be on what Committees; we shall report again after that.
Another big thank-you went to Jimper Sutton from the Winchelsea and Icklesham voters, with 782 votes against his opponent's 226. Ron Miles is back in for Guestling/Pett, and Michael Bishop won Beckley/Peasmarsh. Eric Brooker and Roy Pulford were returned unopposed for Brede/Udimore and Playden/Iden/East Guldeford/Camber respectively.
The actual count was an interesting exercise, if not quite like what we see on telly. 19 ballot boxes were arranged along the school hall platform, and some three dozen staff sat facing outwards round the other three sides of a square, so that those watching could see that there was no fiddling. First the voting forms were counted to make sure they tallied with the number issued at each polling station. Where there was only one seat to be filled, they were then sorted and counted in the usual way. However, Rye with its six candidates for three seats presented more of a problem, dealt with by Rother in a simple but effective way: long sheets of yellow “wallpaper" had double-sided sticky tape running down them, so that the ballot papers could be stuck down overlapping with just the actual crosses showing. It was then easy to count the votes in each of the six rows, total them on each sheet, and transfer these totals to a master-sheet which got more and more interesting as the piles of ballot papers diminished and the mound of yellow sheets grew. There were very few spoilt votes, and those that were only technically incorrect were shown to all six candidates at the end for agreement on what the voter had intended; two (in one case three) crosses against the same name counted as only one vote, but the few blank papers and those with more than three names marked had to be discarded.
All the Rye candidates, supported by their friends, were there to watch the count and hear the result, and some of the new Town Council were also present in various capacities; it was a particular pleasure to see Mr. Buchan, now on the way to recovery from his recent illness. The Ratepayers Councillors were there to support their candidate, Frank Palmer was among those counting, the Mayor cast a benign eye over the proceedings - and Osma Jones (who, with her own seat secure, had been canvassing for the Rother Labour candidates) got sympathetic looks from innocent strangers when she quite truthfully announced that nobody had voted for her at all!
The Rye Mayor-making takes place on Monday, 23 May, at 5.30, with the hot pennies thrown from the Town Hall window at about 6.30 after the service in St. Mary's.
(The General Election is of course to be on 9 June. For details of the candidates for our vote then, see GAZETTE no.26, the 9 March issue:
David Amies (Liberal), Nigel Knowles (Labour), Kenneth Warren (Conservative).
Any more we wonder?)
2.
Mrs. Daisy Annie Filcher, of 14a Wish Street, died in hospital on 4 May. Mrs. Filcher was 81. The funeral took place on Tuesday.
Mrs. Florence Mary Mathews, who died on 2 May aged 72, was the wife of Mr. Jack Mathews of Leasam Farm; their golden wedding anniversary came shortly before her death. She leaves six children, and all were able to be present at the funeral service in Playden Church on Friday before a private cremation at Hastings. She also leaves 11 grandchildren, and a great many friends both in the farming community and in the Rye area generally.
Fortunately there were no fire bells, just church bells for two Rye belles on Saturday.
Half the town seemed to be at St. Mary's to see Helen Paige, of Udimore Road, married to David Giles, of Rope Walk. Helen's bridesmaids were Lynn Rich, Victoria Whiddett and David's very small niece Katy Barham; best man was Kevin Dunster of Peasmarsh. The couple left the church beneath the raised hatchets of a guard of honour of firemen - both the bridegroom and the bride's father are retained firemen at Rye - and departed in a flower-decked fire engine for the reception at the Saltings Hotel. After a honeymoon in Guernsey, Helen and David will live in Ferry Road.
More Rye firemen were at Udimore Church, where Janice Crafer of Tilling Green was married to Alan Boorman of Udimore. Janice had her three nieces as her bridesmaids, dressed in pink - Helen Knight, Dawn Crafer and Caroline Dadswell. The reception was at the Flackley Ash Hotel, and the couple will be returning to their new home in Camber from a Cotswolds honeymoon.
The previous week, Colin Lawrence of Three Oaks and Lesley Broad of Iden (who works at Serendipity) were married at Iden, with a reception at Northiam. They will be living at Doleham, conveniently near Colin's morning train to Hastings and Lesley's to Rye.
Congratulations to all three couples; and every good wish for the future.
Start work at a printer's nowadays, and you don't know what you may find yourself doing! Virginia Fox, 20, of Military Road, whose drawings for the Playden Church cookbook were much admired last year, has been working for the past six months in the layout and photography side of Lithoweb in Rye Harbour Road. COSIRA, a government organisation concerned with small rural industries, came along in connection with some new gates for the yard; we are not absolutely clear how Ginny found herself enrolled on a training course in welding - "I wanted to", she says - but she is now one of only twelve trainees from the South of England chosen to appear at the Ardingly Show in June. All twelve (spaced out through the three days of the Show) are taking part in a competition to produce an article of their own design, working in front of spectators - we hope to give advance notice of when Ginny will be there - and though the prize itself is nothing sensational, the publicity both for COSIRA and for the employers is of course welcome. Ginny says she thinks she has been chosen because it is a thing not many girls do (understatement of the year?); whether or not this is so, we do congratulate her, and wish her success at the Show.
Sincere commiserations to Alexander Wear, whose parents live at Point Hill. Alexander, who lives in the Elephant and Castle area of London, was walking through an underpass at 11.30 in the morning when he was set upon by a gang of four coloured youths, knocked down, robbed (uselessly, as he had no money on him) and kicked about the head. There was no-one to help him, and he made his own way to Guy's Hospital, where he ended up in intensive care for 24 hours after an operation to wire up a broken jaw. He is now back in his flat, with the Wear family's liquidiser working overtime to puree all his meals, since he can't open his mouth and has to slurp all his food and speak through literally clenched teeth. Somehow, we feel sure, he will be able to absorb champagne at his 21st birthday party at the end of this month!
THE RYE GAZETTE, 11.5.85 page 3
Many of this year's summer visitors will, we suspect, come primarily to see the Nelson exhibition at the Rye Art Gallery in East Street. Opened with great charm on Friday evening by the present Earl, who kindly signed catalogues at the private view, the exhibition amply fulfils the promise of its title: 'Admiral Lord Nelson his life and times".
We thought the best way was to start upstairs, where a series of screens displays photographs of pictures and other items from various collections, arranged in chronological order with notes dealing primarily with Nelson's career. This includes a touching letter written left-handed just after he had lost his arm in 1797, suggesting that he should resign from the Navy since there could not be much future for an admiral with one arm and one eye. It was as well that the suggestion was not taken seriously, since the Battle of the Nile, the Battle of Copenhagen and of course the Battle of Trafalgar were all fought in the eight years which followed. This display is on loan from the National Portrait Gallery.
Downstairs we find the main exhibition, assembled with great care and knowledge by Margaret Casson, who has also written the very helpful catalogue. The foreword to this comes from Mrs. Lily McCarthy, to whom the Trustees of the Gallery are much indebted for a large number of items lent from her own collection of Nelson memorabilia. Other paintings, engravings and caricatures are lent by the Royal Naval Museum at Portsmouth, the Hove Museum of Art, the Towner Art Gallery and local collectors - particularly attractive is the model of HMS Victory in the foyer. Nelson, was a popular subject with portrait painters of the period, often presented as a romantic figure with battle-scene backgrounds, and Emma Hamilton, his mistress, also had a romantic if rather different appeal. We see less of his wife Frances, who left him, with reason, in 1801; she out-lived her husband, his mistress, and her own son by her first marriage, leaving three grand-daughters when she died 30 years later.
The Trustees of the Gallery and Miss Casson have every reason to be very proud of this exhibition, which runs until 3 July (not Mondays). The Gallery now makes a nominal admission charge of 20p for those who are not Friends; the catalogue costs 60p.
Rye is not very often honoured by a visit from a lecturer at the very top of his profession, let alone when that profession is journalism. David Chipp is the Editor-in-Chief of the Press Association, the agency which supplies national news primarily to the large provincial daily papers who are its owners, and to other national and provincial papers who subscribe to it. Mr. Chipp was speaking to a smallish audience of the Friends of the Rye Art Gallery, plus the GAZETTE Editor who was listening as if to a revelation, at the Town Hall last Tuesday. It was comforting to be told that the hall-mark-of a reporter was nosiness - "a passion to find out what is going on" - and that presenting a balanced story was a difficulty even at Press Association level. We liked William Randolph Hearst's quip that "news is what someone somewhere does not want you to print; all the rest is advertising"; and somebody's view of journalists in general as being “not the sort of people one would want to ask to one's home for the weekend''.
Mr. Chipp spoke with feeling about the difficulty of covering every story of importance with only a limited number of reporters, and how he had been accused of conspiracy when his real trouble was a staff shortage. He spoke of the delicate relationship with the police, particularly over kidnappings; of the difficult relationship with the Forces, especially the Navy, in the Falklands; of cheque-book journalism; and of the right to privacy which in his view anyone in public life must be prepared to surrender to some extent. He defined the difference between commercial news agencies and PR/Government organisations: ask who pays, the people who print the news or the people who send it out? And finally, he gave us an election tip which turned out to be perfectly correct: it would, he said, have to be before 20 June, since thereafter all the ladies who normally address the envelopes would be watching Wimbledon!
THE RYE GAZETTE, 11.3.83 - page 4
After last week's front-page report on the new Sunday trading proposals, we talked to Mr. Clarke, Rother's Technical and Environmental Services Officer. He assured us that, contrary to popular belief, the whole issue had not simply blown up as a result of somebody complaining. He himself instigated the report which led to Rother's letter to all traders. The matter had been under consideration for a couple of years but was waiting for what most people thought would be the success of a Private Member's Bill which would have revolutionised the Sunday trading position; however, the Bill failed, and so matters remain as they were after the 1950 Shops Act. Also, at the end of last year, traders in another (non-holiday) area took their local Council to court because it had not been enforcing the Sunday trading laws. This led Mr. Clarke to think that Rother's position ought to be regularised.
We asked about Rye's existing Order. He wondered at first if this had been extinguished by the 1950 Act, but when we pointed out that it was in view of that Order that the Sunday Market opened last year, he agreed that it must still be in force.
The Order which Rother proposes to bring in for the whole District is, as we said last week, almost identical with our 1939 one except that it includes food. Mr. Clarke has no idea what to expect in response to his questionnaire; as to how the two-thirds majority would be calculated, he will present several interpretations of the results in his report to his Committee on 1 June, and the Committee will choose which one to accept.
We asked why some traders had not received the letter. His office was, he said, now running a computer check on this, but he would like to hear from anyone still without their copy (Watch Oak, Battle - 04246 3371). Replies are asked for by 20 May, so that he can prepare his report for the 1 June meeting.
This conversation took place last week, and it appears that the computer check did its job - by Monday, most people had received their letter. But the questionnaire is far from simple: one trader, selling "permitted" goods and wishing to open on a Sunday, showed us her copy, and we were neither of us sure whether she had in fact filled it in correctly. One or two people, we hear, have simply despaired and chucked it in the bin.
If the Order goes through - or even if it doesn't, when Rye will still be trading under its old one - there will be some points of interpretation which present even greater problems than the questionnaire. For instance, our art galleries: they can sell pottery, glass, carvings, etc. ("fancy goods"); prints and engravings ("reproductions"); but not, apparently, original one-off paintings - and what about lithographs and other such prints which don't actually have originals to be reproductions of? Books are legal; clothes are not (except, of course, those worn for fishing or bathing!). The real nitty-gritty arises over antique shops. However fancy and however good it may be, a Victorian sideboard (for instance) can hardly count as "fancy goods", but Mr. Clarke thought that the phrase might be held to cover non-new bric-a-brac. "Bona fide markets" can open on Sundays; does the word "market" in the title of a conglomerate of antiques stalls give it this privilege automatically? If so, some of our antique shops might think about changing their names...
Two points of interest were raised by Rye people. One shopkeeper said that if all the local shops voted against the Order, so that it failed, then Rother would have no justification for taking on extra staff to enforce it and things could go on as before. And there is a view that Rother should really take into account the views of private citizens as well as shopkeepers, since it represents everyone in the District; this would in effect mean a referendum - perhaps, conveniently, held on 9 June?
All this, however, is just a quibble in view of the real problem which will surface if Rother once starts enforcing things at all. Both the old and the new Orders refer to a total of 18 Sundays (Easter Day plus 17 from the first Sunday in June). What about the remaining 34? In fairness to Rother, it has no legal jurisdiction whatever over these; it is a national and not a local choice. But many of us would not wish Rother to recover the sight of its blind eye, for so long turned in the direction of our town. Perhaps Mr. Clarke might find inspiration in this respect if he were to visit the Nelson exhibition in East Street?
5.
• Rother Council workmen seen recently crawling about on the bowling green were not engaged in a hunt for buried treasure. During the winter it was necessary to level up the surface with soil, and although soil is normally sifted before such an operation, this year the weather was so wet that this could not be done. It was not noticed until too late that it contained small pieces of gravel, disaster to carefully polished woods. Mr. Hudson, who has done so much to set up the green, is very sorry about this, and tells us that his staff have now, he hopes, removed all the stones either by careful raking or hand-picking. Playing safe, the Bowls Club cancelled all their May fixtures, but we hope that in fact the green is now playable.
• The Southern Water Authority announced some time ago that it was going to rebuild Scots Float, and it became clear that work was beginning when last week two enormous cranes on low-loaders were routed round Banister's Corner. The second journey, on Friday, was uneventful; but on Wednesday traffic was held up for some time while the extra-wide load was tried first one side and then the other of the island, making very expensive noises as a flood of hydraulic fluid spattered the front of the Wool Shop, damaging the paint and the carpet and creating a slippery hazard on the pavement outside. Eventually the bollards were removed, and the lorry drove over the island and negotiated the bend without damage to either the Pipemakers or the long-suffering cottage on the opposite corner.
George Roberts of the SWA assures us that the "works" going on beside the Rother on the Rye side of Houghton Green Lane are also connected with the rebuilding. The contractor is using the land as a storage depot and making a track to the site; but when the job is done (and it will take a considerable time), everything will be cleared away and the lane made good.
• The Community Centre Committee is anxious to hear from anyone who would be interested in organising a regular day-time activity (say, once a week?) at the Centre; they would like the building to be used sometimes for the benefit of residents and visitors who would just like to pass a pleasant hour or so, and they would welcome any suggestions and would give the Committee's full backing to a suitable scheme. Contact Brian Chapman at 106 Udimore Road or c/o the Community Centre.
• Twelve members of the Inner Wheel of Rye and Winchelsea went over to Canterbury last Wednesday to celebrate their District's Golden Jubilee with a service in the Cathedral - followed by a sit-down hot lunch for 500 people. Two Rye members were singing in the choir - Mrs. Daisy Rengert of Winchelsea, and Mr. Sally Osborne of Love Lane, next year's President. It was Sally who, with Lesley Brownbill, set up the basic Ryesingers choir when she happened to mention that she was going to a reunion of the old Methodist Choir and Lesley wondered if there might be a few people interested in forming a small group - hence, ten years later, the array of trophies now in Terry's DIY window.
• Rye Sea Cadets' first contact with HMS Illustrious (see back page last week) was very successful. The lunch guests included, as well as Rye's CO - Mr. John Whiteman from Peasmarsh - the Dover CO and six Cinque Ports officials. The helicopter flight was much enjoyed, and the Liaison Officer on board was particularly interested to hear about the Sea Cadets' action in the speedboat accident recently.
• A fortnight ago we complained about the condition of the old Sussex Express office and sent copies of that issue to the Editor at Lewes and to Rye Post Office. Peter Austin of the Express tells us that the lease reverted to the Post Office in March; so it is presumably the Post Office who have now whitened the windows and painted out the Sussex Express name. It certainly looks a lot better; what we all want to know now is what they intend to use it for. Anyway, thank you very much, Mr. Hammond, for passing on the GAZETTE's comments to whoever ordered the whitewash.
• The train journey from Rye to Hastings is like something out of a fairy story at the moment: hardly a road to be seen, hardly a house, just wide marsh fields full of lambs and swans and herons, hedges still snowy with blackthorn, and the spinneys beside the climbing line full of primroses and bluebells and wood anemones, wild cherry and the young leaves of birch and hazel. It must be one of the prettiest railways in England - and the return journey takes just an hour and costs £1.50.
Saturday, 14th Rye Society of Artists jumble sale, FEC, 2.0
ATC jumble sale, Thomas Peacocke Upper School, 2.15
Ryesingers Spring Concert, St. Mary's, 7.45 (tickets are bookable at Terry's DIY, or available at the door)
Monday, 16th Monday Club, Clinic, 2.0
Wednesday, 18th Red Cross Thrift Shop, handing-in, 10.30 to 12.30, High Street
(What a quiet week!)
• Last year Rye firemen raised £400 on a sponsored walk, pushing their model of the old Rye fire engine from Eastbourne to Rye. On 21 May they are doing it again, but with a change of route, leaving Folkestone at 7.30 am and being met by the Rye Majorettes as they enter the town about 4 pm. Sponsor forms for the 30-mile trek are available in shops around the town, and they hope to top last year's result for the Firemen's Benevolent Fund.
• New proprietors of the Strand Snack Bar are Graham and Eva Cole. Mr. Cole, who is one of the Rye firemen, tells us that they do not intend to alter the snack bar's image - "It's a working men's cafe" he says "and the cheapest in Rye".
• Stolen on the night of 29/30 April, a brown and yellow 49cc Yamaha moped (MLU 916 P) from Pottingfield Road - happily, now recovered by Rye Police.
• Jobs for the young: business is so brisk at "The Kettle of Fish" that the Tarrant family can't cope alone, and will be taking on at least one and probably two school-leavers. And Simon Bowler of Fair Meadow has got himself fixed up with a job at Boots until he starts at college in Hastings in September.
• An organ concert with Brian Hazelby will be held at the Community Centre on Thursday, 26 May, at 8 - sounds a pleasant evening, with bar, raffles, etc.
• Readers will remember how a new Brede class lifeboat (to be named "Merchant Navy") left Lochin Marine for the Birmingham Boat Show back in February. Now the RNLI magazine reports that crowds queued to see her, and they estimate that ten thousand people boarded her; £8,500 was raised at the Show for RNLI funds.
• We are proud to report that young Joanna Pyke and her friends raised the splendid sum of £88 for the Save The Children Fund at their sale on Saturday; congratulations, particularly since there were three other fund-raising events that day. The Scouts took £54 at their jumble sale, and we have not yet, had the other results. (This week jumble queuers will have to choose between The Grove and the FE Centre or make a gasping dash from one-end of the town to the other!)
• Rye Movie Society members welcomed back at their last meeting a member who went out to Australia in the 1960s. Bill Schofield, of the High Street grocer's and now living in St. Leonards, showed a film made in the Conduit Hill pottery with the help of the late Bert Longmore, with commentary by Raymond Everett. Other Rye films completed an enjoyable "vintage" evening, with another to come.
We had intended to include in this-issue something about the planning set-up in the middle of the town, highlighted by the affair of Mr. Apps's paint. However, Sir Brian Batsford tells us that the Conservation Society has had the same idea, and his Chairman's Report to the AGM on 10 June will go into the matter in some detail, so we shall hope to "borrow" this part of the report for publication next month.
• Local artist Robert Greenhalf is sharing an exhibition with David Hobbs at Hastings Museum and Art Gallery until 29 May.
THE RYE GAZETTE is registered as a newspaper with the Post Office. It is published by Mrs. Nary Owen at 94 Udimore Road, Rye (222303), who is always glad of news items for inclusion - deadline Monday afternoon, 9 am on Tuesday for real emergencies. The GAZETTE costs 25p weekly, and is delivered to subscribers and pick-up points on Wednesday morning.
Photocopied by Sussex Secretarial Services, 10 Cambridge Road, Hasting6 (0424 422633).