By planning the route in advance, it was possible to visit all six of Saturday morning's events in the town; fortunately for all of us, it didn't rain until the afternoon!
Down in The Grove, the Scouts had plenty of Christmas presents for sale, plus all the usual apparatus of a Fair; there was a particularly good choice of toys, and some delicious cakes. For some weeks Scouts and Cubs had been selling tickets for their Grand Christmas Draw, and the winner of the top prize of £50 was Andrew Barclay, aged 9, of Love Lane. The event made £321 for Scout funds, including the money raised by the Draw.
St. John Nursing Cadets had planned their Christmas coffee morning long before the Gas Board's contractors decided to dig up Conduit Hill last week, and were horrified to find the entrance to their HQ completely blocked on Friday evening. There was in fact a clear route - just - from the High Street on Saturday, but despite the blandishments of the cadets the number of customers was very much down, and the takings dropped by £40 from last year's figure. £83 was raised by the sale of Christmas cards and decorations, presents and a raffle.
A very attractive and cheerful Christmas show opened in the Easton Rooms in the High Street, offering crafts and pictures at all price levels and sure to draw plenty of visitors before it closes at the end of December; all the exhibitors are artists well-known to the gallery's following. Particularly endearing are the swinging toys, and the antique-finish vehicles are always much admired; so why not let your child or grandchild bring you along to play with them, if you are feeling rich? There are also, of course, lovely presents for other age-groups in other price-ranges: a real something-for-everyone show.
Round the corner in East Street, the main gallery shows an interesting selection of paintings and other work from its ever-increasing permanent collection. This seems to widen in scope each year and is always a pleasure to study. It is sad that the Christmas card designs advertised for this season have not appeared; it was a lovely idea, but apparently impractical. Like the Easton Rooms show, this exhibition runs until 31 December.
The Craft Market in the FE Centre was taking place on its usual Saturday this month but will be open again on 10 December - and then, we understand, not until the spring. This is, of course, another source of unusual and often practical as well as attractive Christmas presents, many of them a convenient size for posting.
Finally to the George Hotel, where the Winchelsea Floral Group was holding its Christmas Show and Fair. There could be few prettier settings for such an event than the George ballroom, and the Group certainly did it full justice - not only with the competition entries, but also with the beautiful arrangements in many different styles which filled the rest of the room. It is not surprising that the organisers spent the whole of the previous afternoon and evening setting up such a super show. Christmas flower-arrangers are allowed to cheat a little with the use of baubles, sprayed flowers and foliage and even plastic bits and pieces, but this really does make the overall effect the stuff of fairyland. Indeed, fairy stories were featured in one of the three competition themes, "Once Upon a Time", the others being "Thoughts of Christmas" and "Christmas Wonderland" for the petite class.
This Saturday's events, we are glad to see, are better spaced out, with one Fair starting in the morning, one in the afternoon, and the Christmas lights event from 5 to 7.30 when the last shops shut.
2.
The WRVS lunch club had a slightly sad party on Monday. A party, because the ample and Christmassy meal served to a hundred people was free and accompanied by a glass of sherry and later a glass of cider; sad, because it was the last meal Mrs. Judy Brown will be running for the club. When, five years ago, the Community Centre offered the WRVS a free hiring once a month, it was Mrs. Brown who urged that the offer should be accepted: "Right", they said to her, "you do it!" - so she did.
Since October 1978 Mrs. Brown has costed, cooked, transported and arranged the serving of meals to a hall full of enthusiastic guests once a month - and somehow managed to make a profit so that a free meal could be provided at Christmas. Her helpers include her husband, Dr. Roger Brown, who has packed, stacked, loaded and unloaded and peeled the potatoes - "Behind every lucky woman" paraphrases Mrs. Brown, "there is a good husband!". She has also had the help of a bevy of friends, among them (in alphabetical order) Miss Apps, Mrs. Black, Mrs. Bolton, Mrs. Dolan, Mrs. Garratt, Mrs. Gillam, Mrs. Gordon, Mrs. Lloyd, Mrs. MacNiven, Mrs. Parkes, Mrs. Phillips, Mrs. Shearer, Mrs. Van Den Bosch and Mrs. Watson.
Needless to say, thanks and presentations were in order. Mrs. Brown had a gift token for each of her helpers, and for the Community Centre staff. In turn she received a sandwich-toaster from her lunch-guests - a really suitable present, we thought, after so much slogging over a hot stove on their behalf - and a pot-plant from her helpers. Joan Parkes composed verses for the occasion which were much appreciated.
It was feared that Monday's lunch would indeed be the final one for the Club; but we are glad to report that the lunches will start again in the spring under new management, with Mrs. Owen of Devonport House (and at one time of the Green Owl in Camber, so she is used to catering problems and knows what she is embarking on!) in charge. She will inherit a float of £50 from Mrs. Brown's administration, and even so there may be some surplus in the kitty after Monday's expenses are paid which will go towards the Community Centre's wheelchair loo appeal.
The final figure for money collected on Rye Bonfire Night is a record for the Society: £730. It will be distributed to charities after the January AGM.
We reported the main awards last week; individual best-dressed awards went to a Zulu/Inca/Aztec (no-one seems sure which) named Peter Wright; to Eileen Morley's flower-lady; to Lucy Hadfield's Pierrot; and to our own Bonfire Society's eighteenth-century group. Thomas Peacocke School VIth Form were delighted to win the Kirkham Youth Award, and the Betty Wilcox Shield went to Squirrels for its amusing window, with a special commendation to Skinners who produced their usual effective display.
Incidentally, the spectacular figure twirling a fire baton at the head of the Rye Majorettes contingent in the procession was Sharon Oliver, aged 15, of Cyprus Place. Sharon has been leader of the Majorettes for several years, but this was her first outing with the fire baton - real fire (no cheating!) powered by lighter fuel.
ABC Productions' puppet show at the Community Centre turned out to be a delightful Christmas entertainment for children, writes Joan Parkes (who is not easy to please where The Drama is concerned!). The two professional actors had a great aptitude for enchanting the young, and the lamb puppets, Bubble and Squeak, were secondary characters to the Magic Snowman - six foot high in a truly astounding costume - and the wicked wolf Mr. Bite. Audience participation was at its peak and for a few dreadful moments, as the plot thickened, it looked as though Christmas was going to be cancelled this year. However, the audience, wildly enthusiastic, helped to foil Mr. Bite's wicked plans and all ended well, with Father Christmas distributing small gifts to the children as they left.
3.
Readers may have noticed from a report in the News last week that Rother's Recreation and Tourism Committee voted 15-3 for the building of an indoor pool in Bexhill (we mentioned this in connection with the proposals for a sports hall in Rye some weeks ago). George Shackleton is the only Rye councillor on this committee, and he voted against the proposal. He tells us that most of the committee members are from Bexhill, and the voting might well be different when the plan comes before the full Council on 19 December.
We should perhaps remind readers of the position. There are already excellent (but nevertheless loss-making) indoor swimming pools in Hastings and Eastbourne, and an outdoor one in Bexhill. Rother Council is proposing to spend around £1m on building an indoor pool in Bexhill, and it is agreed that this will also make a loss, at least £55,000 a year. The position is complicated by the fact that Rother Council badly needs new offices - even Mr. Shackleton, who as we all know hates to see ratepayers' money spent unnecessarily, agrees here! And there is still the question of a Rother grant which, added to County Council spending at Thomas Peacocke School, would give Rye a community sports hall instead of just a second gymnasium for school use. Indeed, Mr. Shackleton points out that Rother could contribute handsomely to sports halls for Rye and Battle and Bexhill, thus spreading its favours fairly and still having change from the £1m it is so blithely proposing to spend on the pool - duplicating in Bexhill a facility already available a few miles away in each direction! And it is not just Rye that has reason to object; people in the north of the district would not benefit either, since for them the Tunbridge Wells pool is much nearer than anything in Bexhill.
It seems possible that Rye councillors could find the casting of their votes crucial to the result on the 19th. Perhaps we should not make any assumptions as to how they will cast their votes; but presumably it would be helpful to them to know the views of their electorate. So, if you feel that the pool is an unnecessary extravagance on Rother's part - or, of course, if you feel that the money would be well spent in this way - you might like to state your views to one of your Rother councillors before the meeting: Mr. Shackleton at 43 Udimore Road (223081), Mrs. Tomich at The Walled Garden, New England Lane (222803), or Mr. Cawdron at 43 Fair Meadow (223683).
The tickets for this event are, we hear, selling very fast; if you don't meet one of the organisers in the street, Mr. Edwin Gibson at St. Anthony's in Church Square will gladly sell you one for £4 (not £5 as originally announced). The price includes a hot meal (yes, really!) and a seat in the stalls - or pews - to watch Rye's intellectuals battling it out in the traditional chair, under the traditional spotlight, and confronted by the impartial eye of Sir Brian Batsford as question-master.
The six brave contestants are Kate Davson, whose special subject is porcelain; Alan Crick, specialising in Wellington the soldier; Barbara Fearon, 13th and 14th century Italian painting; James Menhinick, the American Civil War; Jo Kirkham, Rye ancient and modern; and Jane Rowley, St. John's Gospel. All the contestants will also be answering general knowledge questions. A cup goes to the eventual winner, plus a lot of honour and glory, since we gather that questions are being set at a very high level.
The Mastermind contest is on Thursday, 8 December, and clashes only with the first night of the Lower School play; but the Friday evening has the second performance of the play, the Natural History Society meeting, Vidlers' special evening sale and the draw for the £1000 Town Lottery prize - it is not too late to buy tickets for this, as not all the eligible tickets have yet been sold and it offers a very remarkable return on an outlay of 25p for some lucky person. So roll up, ladies and gentlemen: support your town, and gamble on the chance of a very happy Christmas!
4.
In the GAZETTE's first bypass article on 9 November we said, having misunderstood one of our councillors, that Rother Council was hoping to arrange a public meeting in Rye to clear the air. This is not so; as the Planning Officer points out, such a meeting could only ask questions and not give answers, since Rother cannot read the mind of the D o T. We all know that under present arrangements the D o T staff are not due to arrange public consultations about the Rye bypass for perhaps eighteen months, when an exercise similar to the recent one at Winchelsea would be mounted. But in the meantime, property owners round the bottom of the town are worried; and no-one can explain how, if the Winchelsea bypass does disgorge at Strand Quay, Rye will still have the option of a route running south of the town across the marsh, or north behind Leasam. If they merely mean - as we all now suspect - that our choice would simply be between a route running north of the railway and a route running south of it, they should come clean and say so.
It is also universally agreed in the town that the D o T have made a dreadful mess of the Rye public relations side of their Winchelsea exercise. Admittedly they were not to know that the Post Office would have such a leisurely approach to the distribution of the leaflets (our enquiries left us with the impression that to the Post Office a leaflet is just a leaflet, whether it relates to a bypass, bingo or a bonanza in biscuits - and West Undercliff people still hadn't had theirs by the weekend of the exhibition!). But it would surely have been possible to make sure that our Town and Rother Councillors, let alone our County Councillors, had their copies in advance of the general public? Presumably the D o T had not realised how Rye would interpret the Winchelsea proposals; at least, this is the charitable explanation. But whatever the reason, they are now faced by a town bristling with alarm and affront. What they could usefully do in the New Year is to arrange a public meeting in Rye at an informal level, explain the planning procedures, set out what our options could still be (and if not, why not) if Winchelsea chooses the railway route, and try, even at this late stage, to sweeten the atmosphere and possibly allay some of the suspicion they have created.
The Citizens Advice Bureau (now, of course, based at the Cinque Ports Street Council offices) tell us that they have all the leaflets which we mentioned last week as available at the bypass exhibition. They also point out that the Town and Country Planning Association's Planning Aid Unit offers help to residents' groups, etc., over planning problems such as we face; this service is free, and staffed by volunteers working for the Association, and the address to write to in the first place in 17 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AS (01 930 8903).
Two further points. First, the GAZETTE has not been talking to people in New Winchelsea Road about the bypass, because it didn't seem fair; of course, they would prefer a route which takes the traffic off their doorsteps, and no-one would expect them to want anything else. But if any New Winchelsea Road residents do want to express their views, the GAZETTE would be glad to hear from them.
Secondly, several people have pointed out that in some towns trade has suffered with the advent of a bypass; even the diversion of the A259 round the back of Winchelsea meant, we are told, a big loss of custom to their shops. We asked the Chamber of Trade about this, and we understand that the Chairman and a group of committee members went to look at the exhibition from the point of view of Rye's business community; they are meeting early next month to discuss the position and compose a letter to the D o T from the Chamber. We shall report further.
And finally - a study of the current Electoral Register reveals that well over half the town's population would be cut off from the town centre by a trunk road alongside the railway. The figures do not, of course, include children; but 965 voters live on the Estate, 589 in or just off Udimore Road and the section of Ferry Road north of the railway line, 257 in Mill Road, Fair Meadow and the Rye Hill area generally, and 226 along Military Road (including North Salts).
Total 2037. Just 1492 voters live on the town side of the railway!
5 - THE RYE GAZETTE, 30.11.83
Planning matters
Most people in Rye will doubtless already know that Rother's planning committee on Thursday turned down flat the Town Council's application to plant caravans in the field at the back of New Road; we hear that there was no need for discussion, it was simply rejected on the same grounds as last time.
The question of hard-standing at the back of the Farnborough buildings went to full Council, with a recommendation that it should be approved subject to various controlling conditions about turning-space, tree planting, embanking, etc.
The revised plans for the Freeman Hardy Willis shop in the High Street were deferred for a site inspection.
The tidying-up operation in the corner of the Bedford car park will go ahead.
Other applications were approved either outright or subject to there being no objections within the time-limit: an extension in Marley Road, a change of use for a Cinque Ports Street shop, and the Community Centre's wheelchair toilet. The Gatehouse Restaurant can have its canopy blinds subject to the Planning Officer being satisfied over details.
Enforcement action was authorised in connection with a building on the Castle Water Estate, erected as part of the sailing school but now in use for a quite different purpose and with building work not in keeping with the original planning application.
This week's planning list includes a single-storey rear extension in New Road, and a request from Castle Joinery for an extension to their machine shop in Rye Harbour Road. We shall have next week the story behind Iden Pottery's application to convert their warehouse on Strand Quay from a pottery into four shops on the ground floor and five maisonettes above.
Not planning, strictly speaking, but it is always a pleasure to see fresh paint in the town, and we would like to record the Cinque Ports Hotel's smart new livery of cream and dark brown, and also the Tower Launderette's crisp black-and-white paintwork and tiles restored to their natural colour.
Mary Lestocq had her first Box Brownie camera when she was eight; it cost 5/-, and was a very handsome present. Its successor just after the war was a rather more elaborate German model (second-hand, and she suspects probably looted!) - which was fine until one of the film loaders was lost and couldn't be replaced. That was followed by a succession of Kodak Bantams - until they discontinued the film; but by then she was hooked. For many years now she and Humphrey have combined their holidays with photography; Mary started taking pictures specifically for the postcard trade more than two years ago, but it wasn't until the end of 1982 that she saw the work of a portrait photographer at a London exhibition and started to study the art herself from this very different angle.
What all this has led to is the opening a couple of weeks ago, of Mary Lestocq Photography, at the Studio in Market Road (formerly, as all Rye readers will know, Mary and I). with her husband's support on the technical side, her Mary and I staff Barbara and Anne sharing the receptionist's job, and Dave Caister helping with props and outside locations, Mrs. Lestocq has already made a vigorous start on the portrait market, getting well under way even before the reception area was finished! Portraits are mostly of people, naturally, but they can be of pets as well; and she poses her passport pictures just as carefully as the more expensive shots, even though they can be ready in under ten minutes (and in colour, too). After Christmas, when she supposes that the portrait trade will quieten down, Mary has all sorts of interesting plans for other developments - so if you see a gorgeous girl going up Market Road, she may be a professional model with a date at the Studio!
We wish the Lestocqs every success with their attractive new venture.
6.
(1) Rye Movie Society members Jeffery Waters and Joan Gamier gave a great deal of pleasure to some of Rye's multiple sclerosis sufferers and their friends on Thursday evening, when they showed some of the Society's archive material at a small party. The programme began with the Bonfire Night film for 1969 - and some people looked much the same then as they do now! - followed by a trip to the Dutch bulb fields and an idyllic visit to an Iden apple orchard featuring Mark Bullock, then a chuckling toddler, now a Falklands veteran. "Chicken and Chips" was a waiting-in-the-church fable from 1967, with some very funny moments, and this was followed by one of the rare showings of the Society's record of the Queen's 1966 visit to Rye. Finally, Joan Camier showed her own film of a visit to Strand Quay by Alcor W, a Dutch ship which regularly brought consignments of timber into the heart of the town; its visits were a source of enchantment to her own son as a small boy in 1962, but the film is now a nostalgic period piece which we feel sure would astonish the staff at Alsford's Wharf down the Harbour!
(2) Writing recently about the Tower, we said it had housed an ack-ack gun during WW2. Wrong, quite wrong; it was two Browning machine-guns. And if this seems improbable, it is a reminder of how low the German planes flew over the town, even strafing the children as they ran for the shelters in the Ferry Road playground. Mr. Peter Batcheler was a child in one of the houses in West Street whose garden adjoined the foot of the tower; his mother used to make cocoa for the soldiers stationed on the top (with just a wooden railing between them and a five-storey drop!). Mr. Batcheler also tells us that towards the end of the war there was an Observer Corps post at the Harbour; when they saw a doodlebug on its way over the coast, they sent up a maroon. This must have been intended as a warning to sound the air-raid siren, but posted on the roof of the Ferry Road school air-raid shelters were relays of 'big' boys whose job it was to blow a whistle the moment the maroon went. The whistle sent the children into the shelters and, says Mr. Batcheler, the system worked so well that they were very often safely inside before the siren had gone off at all!
(3) We recently looked through a collection of dance programmes, lovingly preserved by someone who moved in Rye society in the early Twenties. Dances were dances in those days - no splitting your ear-drums in a flashing darkness, but Hunt Balls in January, various summer occasions, and regular dances at the Monastery and at the Rother Meads Tennis and Games Club. Each little programme, with its tiny pencil at the end of a silk cord, lists waltz, foxtrot and one-step, with an occasional Sir Roger de Coverley or Galop at the end. Against each dance is a space for the name of the girl's prospective partner; happy she whose card was full when the evening had only just begun! The grander programmes give the names of the actual dance numbers to be played, and we thought our older readers might care to amuse themselves seeing how many they could still remember.
Between 1920 and 1924 Rye danced to the strains of the following:
"I'd love to fall asleep" "The Love Nest"
"Ain't we got fun!" "Happy"
"The Naughty Waltz" "Dream Kiss"
"And her mother came too" "Teddy Bear Blues"
"The Circulation Waltz" "Choo-choo Blues"
"Carolina in the morning" "Lady of the Rose"
"Where the bamboo babies grow" "Wild About Harry"
"Swanee River Moon" "Chicago"
"Crooning" "Ta ta!"
"Lils Liza Jane" "When the leaves come tumbling down”
"Peggy O'Neill" "Evergreen Eve
"There you are then" "Limehouse Blues"
"Venus on earth" "Dancing honeymoon"
- and lots more. Some have become "golden oldies", but we fear that "Where the bamboo babies grow" is probably lost for ever!
7.
We hear that at Thomas Peacocke Lower School "there is at present a curious upheaval going on down by the riverbank, while strange creatures perform weird evolutions to the sound of terrible war songs emanating from the Wild Wood". But don't worry; it is, of course, all part of the magical world of "Toad of Toad Hall" which is to be performed by a very large and enthusiastic cast of actors, singers and dancers, at the Upper School Hall at 7.50 on Thursday and Friday, 8 and 9 December; tickets can be obtained from the school or at the door.
Both Upper and Lower School will be having their traditional Carol Concerts this year, Lower School's in their own hall on Tuesday, 13 December and Upper School's in The Grogve on Thursday, 15 December.
Mrs. Ruth Lawson-Tait, Chairman of Rye Memorial Hospital League of Friends, promises "an Aladdin's cave of Christmas cheer, toys, presents, antiques" for the League's auction sale at the Town Hall today week (7 December). The £1.50 tickets include a reception with refreshments at 7 before the start of the actual auction at 8. Regulars at this annual event are being sent invitations this year (last year no invitations at all were sent); but please don't think that because you haven't been specifically asked you are not extremely welcome! This event is always a very enjoyable social occasion, as well as - the Committee hopes - raising lots of money for the hospital via the Friends. So do go if you can; Leslie Stutely is the auctioneer, and although he doesn't guarantee to produce a hitherto uncatalogued Rembrandt, you never know your luck!
On Thursday, 8 December, Woolworths is once again staying open late for the convenience of elderly and disabled people who would like to do their Christmas shopping in comfort - wheelchairs are welcome. Homes for the elderly in the area have already been contacted, but of course individuals are welcome too, and by the kindness of Rye Lions transport can be arranged if a message is left at Woolworths. Despite a real downpour last year, the outing was much enjoyed by those who risked a drenching; let us all hope that the weather is kinder this time.
On sale at 5p each in aid of Playden Church funds are Christmas cards designed and printed by Ginny Fox - yes, the same Ginny Fox who was demonstrating the blacksmith's craft at the South of England Show at Ardingly last summer! (And the same Ginny Fox who was part of the Rye Players entertainment at The George in October.) It is a pity that they are not available in the town itself, but they can be obtained from St. Michael's Vicarage in North Salts, or from Playden
Cottage in Military Road. Virginia's grandmother Mrs. McCaughey asks us to remind readers that the Playden Church cookbook is still available, and the price of £2.50 includes a suitably stamped envelope for posting this very unusual Christmas present - also, of course, sold in aid of the church.
Another cookery book sold for a good cause is Kath Elworthy's recipe collection, "Auntie Kath's Fifty Favourites", sold in aid of the Multiple Sclerosis Society and available from Kath at 22 Ferry Road, and from Mrs. Elizabeth Goldsworthy at Houghton Green. This would also make a good quickie present - price £1.60.
The GAZETTE's issue of 14 December will include a list of all events booked into the Town Diary for the first three months of 1984. Secretaries of organisations might like to ring Rye 222303 (6 to 7 pm is a good time) to check that their coming events will appear. The Diary is of course glad to note bookings for later in the year as well and is always available for consultation by those planning events.
8.
Thursday, 1st Christian Lunch Club: John Dodd, MBE, of Langley House Trust, ex- Japanese p o w, on "I was in Prison", CC, 12 for 12.30
Rye Festival Council AGM, TH, 8
Friday, 2nd Vidler & Co's monthly auction sale, 10
Museum Association Christmas party (members and guests), TH, 7,30
Organ recital by Nigel Spooner, TP Upper School, The Grove, 7.30
Saturday, 3rd Women's British Legion Christmas Fair, Red Cross, 10 to 4
Playgroup Christmas Fair, FEC, 2
Town lights switch-on, from 5 (Railway Station)
National Trust Christmas party (members and guests), CC, 7.30
Sunday, 4th Songs of Praise, hymn-singing at Tilling Green School, 4.30 to 5, a new monthly event to which everyone is welcomed.
Tuesday, 6th Freda Gardham School Christmas play, New Road (also Wednesday) 7.30
FRAG talk, "Sussex Seaside Architecture", Ralph Wood, TH,-7.45
Wednesday, 7th NSPCC Christmas coffee morning, FEC, 10 to 12
Hospital League of Friends party and auction, TH, 7 (see p.7)
• The ploughman's Lunch held by the Arthritis and Rheumatism Council on 22 November at the Community Centre realised £158.
• Rye Majorettes have given £100 to the Community Centre's wheelchair toilet appeal.
• Congratulations to Rye Camera Club, who came 2nd out of 16 Sussex clubs at the recent Colour Convention at Burgess Hill.
• Congratulations, too, to patients at Hill House Hospital on the attractive carvings which are at present adorning the window of the Anglia Building Society.
• The Muscular Dystrophy Group reports that £400 has gone to HQ, since the first meeting of the local branch in April 1984 their AGM will be on 18 January.
• Rye Library will be closed for Christmas from 24 to 29 December inclusive, open again on the Friday and Saturday, and closed on the following Monday and Tuesday (2 and 3 January).
• Draft electoral lists are now available at Rother Council offices and at the Library; check now that you are on it, or you can't vote later.
• The Union Inn in East Street hopes to reopen on Friday evening - story next week.
• Weight-Watchers will be meeting at the Clinic in Ferry Road from 6 December, instead of upstairs at the Community Centre. Several now sylph-like ladies in Rye testify enthusiastically to the success of the system, and there is room for more members - Tuesdays, 7.30.
• The former Penny Royal shop in The Mint now bears a "Sold" sign - we hope to hear before too long what it is going to be used for.
• Admirers of Geoffrey Bagley's Book of Rye will be glad to know that subscribers are now invited for another in the same series: Ivan Green on The Cinque Ports. Those who subscribe in advance pay £8.50 for one of a limited and numbered edition - copies bought after publication will cost £2 more. Reservations can be made at the Library now.
THE RYE GAZETTE is registered as a newspaper with the Post Office, and published by Mrs. Mary Owen, 94 Udimore Road, Rye (Rye 222303). News items for inclusion are always welcome - deadline Monday afternoon, Tuesday 9 am for emergencies. The GAZETTE costs 25p weekly, and is delivered to subscribers and pick-up points on Wednesday; extra copies and back numbers can be ordered from 94 Udimore Road, while a few spares are available at Squirrels, 9-13 Cinque Forts Street, Rye.
(Copyright Mary Owen 1983)