This is National WRVS Week, and our very small local branch is celebrating it in a very small local way. This afternoon (Wednesday) they will be At Home to friends and prospective new members at the FE Centre canteen from 3 to 4, offering tea and biscuits and talking about the work of the WRVS in the town. If you can't come but are thinking you might join, either call at the office off the FEC canteen any morning between 10 and 12, or phone Mrs. Sheila Barton.
This morning there is an Autumn Fair for Cancer Relief, also at the FE Centre, from 10 to 12. Sorry we didn't know about this last week; do please go if you read this in time.
The local branch of the NSPCC reports gratefully that the recent house-to-house collection in Rye and some of the surrounding villages came to £1,245. Last year's figure was £1,060.
Congratulations to Derek Padgham, youngest son of Mrs. Dorothy Padgham of Fish-market Road, who at 41 has recently been appointed a Chief Inspector at Horsham Police Station. When he left Rye Grammar School, Mr. Padgham worked for a time as a compositor at Adams before joining Sussex Police; he has served at Hailsham and Chichester, and his last posting was to the security team at Gatwick. He and his wife have two children; Mrs. Padgham will be known to many Iden people as Brenda Say, whose parents had the village Post Office for some years.
The Education Authority Careers Office has recently moved its Rye base to be nearer the customers. Their Mr. Morgan is now to be found in Room 44 of the ROSLA block at Thomas Peacocke Upper School every Wednesday from 9 to 12 and from 1.30 to 4. He is often at the school at other times too, and appointments can be made during normal office hours. The careers service is available to all young people, not only those who have been through the State school system, and Mr. Morgan tells us that he is always pleased to advise ex-pupils for a couple of years after they have left school if they need his help. He is, of course, very willing to talk to parents as well as children, as is his colleague Mrs. Taylor.
Andrew Heather of East Guldeford has unusual plans for his "year off" between leaving Thomas Peacocke School and going - he hopes - to Exeter University next autumn to read geography and geology. He is waiting for final confirmation that he has been accepted by the Baptist Missionary Society to spend six months in Zaire as general dogsbody around an up-country mission station, helping with the unskilled jobs to release the trained missionaries for their proper work. Andrew, who is 18, was fired with enthusiasm after hearing a talk at school from a girl who had done a similar stint in India before going to polytechnic. He is now ticking off an equipment list which includes 14 yards of mosquito netting and a hot-water-bottle (it gets very cold at night); but he still has one problem - the air fare. He is applying hopefully for grants from various sources, and hopes he will be able to get together the £800 before he is due to leave in January.
2.
Mr. Gerry Blattman of Rye Harbour, whose death on 21 October we reported briefly last week, was born in 1911, and early in his life developed a real love for the sea which never left him. At the outbreak of war he joined the Merchant Navy and was awarded both the Atlantic and the Pacific Star, and was bombed by the Japanese in the last convoy out of Singapore. He had known the family home at Rye Harbour long before it came to him in 1964 on the death of his father; when he, his wife Marie and their three children moved back here he worked as a marine engineer for a local firm until his retirement. A founder member of the Rye Harbour Sailing Club, he was made an Honorary Life Member last year, and was also a longstanding member of the Rye Harbour Boat Owners Association; his intense interest in the river and its coastal traffic continued right up to the time of his death. But Rye Harbour village also meant a great deal to him; he took his share in the affairs of the village hall, and for some years ran the Youth Club and was very much their champion. On Friday the little church at the Harbour was full with friends who had come to say goodbye to a modest and charming man who will be much missed in the harbour community. His memorial is to be the flagstaff there - he made himself responsible for this, and was a leading spirit in the erection of the new 70' one in 1973; he handed over the responsibility to the Boat Owners Association shortly before he died, and with the help of the memorial fund it will continue as the Harbour landmark.
Mrs. Mary Jeal, of Camber, who died recently, worked for many years in the Sussex Express office; she had also been at one time the manageress of the dry-cleaners in Cinque Ports Street. Always known in Rye as "Bunny", she will be mourned by many local people.
Sgt. Alfred Potten, who collapsed and died while playing bowls in Bexhill, had served in the East Sussex Police Force for 30 years until he retired in 1966. He was 73 and single, and is survived by his sister. Sgt. Potten was at one time stationed at Rye, in the course of a career spent at various towns in the county.
Aunt and niece were discussing their shopping. "I've just got to go to the Farm Shop" said the older lady. We looked puzzled. "She means Waghorns" explained the younger one.
To the Editor, younger again, the High Street greengrocers at the foot of Lion Street will always be Wallaces; but since then it has changed hands four times. Can one date people by the shop names they use? If you say "Hides" to any local woman over thirty, she knows exactly where you mean. Many people still think of 92 High Street as Jarretts rather than Millers, despite its current incarnation as Anglia, and Vennalls at 97 is not entirely forgotten, though it is more often referred to as Schofields. Milsoms, the ironmongery which occupied several shops on the corner of the High Street and Market Road, is still spoken of though it closed in the 1920s.
The GAZETTE is regularly in trouble with older readers for referring to Banisters Corner - "You mean Longleys Corner", they say. We thought it would be interesting to pursue this, so we went to Len Banister of Ashenden Avenue. He tells us that in his young days the shop which actually stood right on the corner of Ferry Road and Cinque Ports Street was Gassons, men's outfitters, though it had been Longleys before that - a grocer's, it had had a jam factory tucked away behind. Banisters itself was opened in its present premises by his father in 1918 (first as a green grocer's and later moving into ironmongery, the trade to which Mr. Banister senior had been apprenticed). The corner shop - call it what you will - was bombed, and demolished after the war as part of a scheme to improve the traffic flow at the corner; this left Banisters as the shop on the corner, so we really do think that Banisters Corner ought now to be regarded as a decently established usage!
3. THE RYE GAZETTE, 30 October 1985
Rother's Planning Committee made some surprising decisions at a very long meeting last week, when a lot of applicants were unsuccessful (not only in Rye). Subject, as usual, to getting it in writing and to conditions in some cases, the following local decisions were taken. The owners of Saltcote Place have permission for change of use to a nursing home for the stable block. The supermarket roads plan was deferred again so that the new proposals could be advertised. A double garage in South Undercliff will get the go-ahead from the Planning Officer if there are no objections. The Wee Nestle reinstatement plans were deferred to await the applicant's reply as to why he had demolished it without permission. Bridgland Insurance was given change of use for 103a High Street from shop to Mee (see below), and the Postern Gate surgery also got change of use for the phone exchange (but, as Dr. Thomas told us when the application first appeared, this is still a very tentative plan). There were two refusals: for four houses at the top of the Cadborough Cliff cul-de-sac, and for the conversion of 55 New Road into two flats. And finally, it is interesting to note that two repainting jobs in the High Street, both of which were almost if not entirely completed before the Planning Committee had riven seen the applications, were deferred - in Anglia's case "for negotiation" and in that of Frank Golden for "a further report". Anglia's application for a hanging sign was also deferred for negotiation; the Planning Officer had suggested in the report that they might be allowed the sign but not the spotlights.
The Bridgland decision, of course, theoretically opens the gate to a flood of applications for change of use to building society and other offices from the owners of various properties in the High Street known to be on the market, and it is difficult to see how Rother can now refuse them - until its Planning Department produces the shopping policy for Rye which was shelved at the time of the Anglia rethink. When we raised this with the Planning Officer a month ago, he replied "1 shall be reporting to Planning Committee about shopping in Rye and the need or otherwise for a policy, as staff resources allow, probably early next year". So there could well be a free-for-all in the next few months.
The current list shows an application to convert 4 Sea View Terrace from a single house to two maisonettes. At Rye Harbour, Spun Concrete has an application for a new access road; and Goulds propose in outline a development of ten houses with garages, parking space, and alterations to the existing access, on the site of the old stone works. This land, now derelict, adjoins the Gould works on one side and the Tram Road gardens on the other; it is set in back from the Harbour Road, behind the village hall and the garage.
Thomas Peacocke School headmaster Ray Fooks appeared briefly on television the other evening - by proxy! Now in her third year at Queens College, Cambridge, ex-TPS Head Girl Amanda Briggs of Pett was filmed as a freshman in the current television series - complaining bitterly that there was no longer Mum around to deal with her accumulated washing, and later, wearing her gown for the first time, remarking (with singularly appropziate gestures) that she was reminded very much of her former headmaster... Amanda, now reading psychology after two years spent studying philosophy, hopes to become a buyer for the fashion chain which has recently acquired, among other things, Debenhams in Hastings. (So one day we shall know who to complain to - or maybe not even need to complain!)
In the very first GAZETTE we wrote about a handful of what were then new businesses in Rye. One of them was that of Peter Farrow, jeweller and goldsmith; he is still "tucked away under the rafters of the Old Brewery" and access to his workshop is via Rye Tiles in Wish Ward. Access by phone, however, has recently changed; the workshop number is now Rye 224430. His original work apart, Peter is held in gratitude by many local ladies whose jewelry he has rendered wearable after it was set aside as hopeless for years!
4.
Last week's summary of the Senior Citizen Railcard concessions for November did less than justice to BR's generosity as regards the Cheap Day Returns. The leaflet misguidedly has no map; but Passenger Information at Hastings outlined for us the "London and South East Area" eligible for the E2 Cheap Day fare, if you have a SC Railcard. It is bounded by a line drawn from Weymouth to Harwich via Salisbury, Hungerford, Oxford, Banbury, Northampton, Huntingdon, Cambridge and Ipswich; anywhere inside that fair-sized chunk of country is yours for the day (any day, including Fridays) for £2 return - and on Saturdays and Sundays there is no restriction about the time of starting. (It is the special Savers period return fares which cannot be used for outward journeys on Fridays, and carry restrictions about travel times on other days.)
Vidler & Co were optimistic about this year's Ram Sale on 14 October, and they were right: 170 rams sold for an average of £230. The 66th Annual Special Sale of Romney Ram Tegs at Rye Market saw the Championship go for the third time in the past five years to Robert Hacking for an 18-month-old ram from the Cadborough flock. Reserve champion came from Messrs. Blacklocks & Sons at Lydd, their second runner-up in less than a week. Third place went to the winner of the Supreme Sheep Championship and Romney Championship at this year's Kent Show a ram from Messrs. T. & J. Richards of Westwell, near Ashford; this ram also won the Best Wool competition. The three top prices paid were £540, £520 and £500, and the champion went to Mr. K.J. Perkins of Shepherds Farm, Peasmarsh. The judges were Bob Langrish and Mrs. V. Link.
The chance to own something from Rye's very remote past doesn't often come up, so we are glad to point out that George Gray at the Cinque Ports Pottery still has a few of the pots he made from clay dug out from under the cellar floor at 92 High Street. The GAZETTE'S local history collection is enriched by a cup and cover glazed in white and interestingly varied shades of green; Anglia have bespoken some pieces for themselves, obviously; but some Mr. Gray has left unglazed to display the handsome terra-cotta colour given by nature to this extremely local clay. He told us that it was not an easy material to work, and the salt in it had an interesting effect on some of the glazes; but how exciting to think that this same red clay could well have been used for cooking-pots in the island which was Rye a thousand years ago!
Jack Phillips of Rye Hill has passed on to the GAZETTE with some amusement a sheet of the Sussex Express & County Herald for 28 July 1950, which he found when clearing out an old suitcase. The lead story on the front page reports an announcement at a meeting of the Borough Council, made by the Mayor, Councillor Prebble, that Mr. Humphrey Ellis of The Old Hospital had promised to bequeath the house together with The Link to the town. (Obviously he didn't; what went wrong, we wonder?) There were complaints about the state of Landgate Square: "People living there could help, but just won't" said Councillor Mrs. Wethey. Mr. Bodilly conducted the Rye Ladies Choir at a rally held by Rye Free Churches. Geering & Colyer were advertising a sale of furniture at the Monastery. Rye Modern School held its Open Day - but the report, unfortunately, was on a middle page. Five girls from Rye Collegiate School had passed into the Grammar School, said Mr. Jacobs at the Collegiate's 31st annual speech day at the Monastery; in the absence of head girl Rosemary Ashbee (and where were you that day, Mrs. Bagley?) Mrs. Hacking was presented with a bouquet by Janet Taylor, and Maureen Mathews thanked the staff. The five girls going to Grammar School were Andrea Wood, Elizabeth Covey, Cecilie Morris, Madeleine Roberts and Prudence Wade, all Lower IV.
The Sussex Express - then a broadsheet rather than the present tabloid - had just 8 pages, and for fourpence ha'penny you could have it posted to you. Now that is different!
5.
The blue leaflet which we enclose with this week's paper will arrive as a second copy to all Rye households; but if you normally pass on your copy to someone outside the town, we would appreciate it if you could leave the leaflet inside, as it advertises a new book which will appeal to all lovers of Rye. We look forward to reviewing it properly next week. Peter Ewart - a Rhodes on his mother's side, brought up in the town and educated at the Grammar School - has brought together his carefully-acquired knowledge of working life in Rye to paint this picture of "A Poor Man's Rye" from 1847 to 1930. On Saturday, publication day, a group of his friends helped him with a lively "hype", putting leaflets in every letter-box in the town, autographing copies already selling fast in the town's bookshops - and smelling slightly of fish from the basket of shrimps brought along as local colour by one dedicated couple dressed for the part! (And if you see in your pub a poster which puzzles you - look for the small print at the bottom...)
We are delighted to report that Hastings & District, in response to public demand, have found themselves able to restore the 9.05 bus from Hastings to Rye via Ickle-sham (GAZETTE no. 149); the Transport Users Group took up the case, and there was a petition from Icklesham bus-users. It does mean an alterations to the to 45 route, from Hastings to Rye via Fairlight, whose morning bus now starts from Fairlight at 9.16 instead of from Hastings at 8.4o, arriving at Rye at 9.56 as usual.
Both changes will take effect from Monday, 4 November.
Another improvement is to the Thursdays-only service between Rye and New Romney. Kent County Council did a survey in connection with the RDA, and as a result the no. 47 service has been retimed. It will leave Rye at 9, reaching New Romney at 9.36 and returning an hour later to reach Rye again at 11.11. The afternoon bus leaves Rye at 13.45, so people from Brookland and Brenzett have plenty of time to visit the market - and so have people from Ivychurch now, since the route has been diverted to include that village, which has been without a bus of any kind for several years.
Still on the buses, Hastings & District are bringing in a photocard for use by children in their teens who are big for their age. It will cost £1 and can be obtained from the coach station in Hastings on production of a passport-type photo and the child's birth certificate - and will settle once and for all the vexed question of whether or not an adult fare is payable, a cause of argument between rivers and teenagers for years. Once bought, the card remains valid until the holder is 16, unless his or her appearance changes so dramatically that the photo is out of date.
Thomas Peacocks School has been very musical lately. The inter-House music competition, for the whole of the Upper School, was held over three days and inclu ded classes for singers and instrumentalists and for original compositions, and resulted in a tie - after ten classes! - between School House and Sanders, with Meryon coming third and Rother fourth.
A group of girls who went over to see "Carmen" at Glyndebourne recently were happy to find a former TPS pupil in the chorus: Jenny Adams, who appeared in the first TPS musical, "Oliver", as a pupil at Saltcote in 1970.
Musical ambition of a different sort was fed by a 24-hour marathon at Upper School from 2 pm last Thursday until the same time on Friday. The aim here was not a career, but cash - cash from sponsors to buy keyboard instruments
Ten singers and a cellist from the school will perform in the East Sussex Schools Prom at the Winter Gardens in Eastbourne on 8 November - intended to display "the cream of young musical talent in the county" says the County Music Adviser. Lois Benton takes over ten girls to sing madrigals, and Jane Bowler plays her cello as part of a group from Hastings. 11 schools take part in the concert.
6.
There was nowhere near enough room in last week's GAZETTE to do justice to the later history of the Meryon family in Rye, so we are glad of the space to finish it in this rather quieter week.
Dr. Vidler's "formidable old lady", Miss Meryon, remains something of a mystery; we learn with regret that the 1911 census returns remain confidential until 2011. Doreen Smith of South Undercliff - interested in the Meryon story since she and her brother were in Meryon House at school and her brother later called his own home Meryon - tells us that her late aunt, Florence nee Smith, was employed in her youth as a companion to Miss Meryon, but Miss Smith does not remember the old lady ever mentioning her ex-employer's Christian name. So we're stuck!
There used to be six Meryon Scholarships at the Grammar School -ewarded towards the cost of fees in the days when the Grammar School was fee-paying except for those who won County Scholarships. Indeed, John Smith - now the Chairman of the Board of Governors at Thomas Peacocke - tied for one of them, but it went to an older lad who wouldn't have had another chance. These scholarships were endowed by Mrs. Brocket, the widow of Charles Pix Meryon, who - herself. Childless - took a beneficent interest in the Grammar School. The endowment, now multiplied some eight times, is part of the funds of the Rye Grammar School Foundation Governors, whose income nowadays goes to provide school prizes and to help ex-TPS pupils with grants towards equipment, books, etc., needed in connection with their further education. Mrs. Brocket also endowed the school library when it was started (with 131 books) in 1893; and when there were plans at the turn of the century to move the school to its present site north of the railway, she very generously bought the school building in the High Street at a good price, and then allowed them free use of it while the building work proceeded in St. Mary's Marsh. She paid £1,000, which was needed towards the cost of the new school, and as she charged the school no rent and her executors sold it for only £800 on her death four years later, the school had cause to be grateful to her. The town has cause to be grateful to her husband, too; he presented the Council with the tiny garden at the back of the Town Hall, beside the north door of the church.
Readers might be as intrigued as we were to learn about Mrs. Brocket's complicated genealogical history. On display to the Meryon pilgrims when they visited the Town Hall, alongside the Town Maces, was a very handsome silver cup and cover known as the Woollett vase. 15" tall by 12" across, it bears on one flaf2A a harvest scene and on the other a hop-garden; there are two twisty handles, and a pretty convolvulus posy tops the cover. An inscription in flower: lettering reads:
"A tribute of respect and gratitude to John Woollett Esq. from the principal inhabitants of the ancient town of Rye and from the agricultural interest frequenting that market, for the advantages they have mutually derived from his munificent donations and unceasing exertions for the general improvement of the place - 2nd November 1818."
We don't know what John Woollett did to deserve this, but unfortunately he died before the donors were able to make the presentation, so it was given instead to his widow. This lady then married another local man, Stanes Chamberlayne; like the Meryons, he was heavily involved in the Reform agitation of the 1820s. He came from a well-to-do family called Brocket, and changed his name and that of his wife and children to Brocket when an inheritance came his way. There were two daughters. The younger, Mary, became the wife of Charles Pix Meryon and was of course then called Mrs. Meryon. On the death of her father, the inheri-tance passed to her older sister (who must have died childless, if not unmarried) and then to her - so she had to change her name back again to Brocket to receive the money. The only child of the marriage - a boy called Stanes Brocket after his grandfather - died as a baby, so when Mrs. Bracket herself died in 1906 the inheritance presumably went elsewhere. But the Woollett vase was left back to the town in her will; it had come to her through her mother, Mrs. Woollett/Chamberlayne/Brocket. It now reposes snugly in the Town Hall safe.
7.
• Remembrance Sunday this year falls on 10 November; the service at St. Mary's at 11 will be followed by the Act of Remembrance at the War Memorial at noon. The Parade will move off from Hilder's Cliff at 10.35, and will include the men and women of the Royal British Legion, the RAFA, the Sea Cadets and ATC, the Police, Fire Service and St. John Ambulance Brigade, the BRCS and WRVS, the Scouts, Guides, Cubs and Brownies, along with any other organisation present. Bob Bowler's usual businesslike instruction sheet ensures that everyone knows just who is to be doing what, where and when.
• The Poppy Day street collection is on 9 November, and the associated house-to-house collection starts this week.
• Win Allen tells us that WEA lectures have been attended by small but enthusiastic groups, though there is still space left for new students; it would not be diffi cult to pick up either "France in the Eighties" (Monday, 7.30) or "Drama: Shakes peare to Shaw" (Thursday, 1.45) when classes at the FEC start again after this week's half-term break.
• Rye WI went on a journey through China at their October meeting, by courtesy of Mrs. Ferridge's fascinating slides; it gave members a new insight into that beautiful country. Mrs. Phyllis Smith has once again started up her craft classes for WI members. The social half-hour at the November meeting promises a feast of nostalgia, when members are asked to bring along photographs and information illustrating "Memories of Old Ryers" (it is, we are sure, just coincidence that the speaker, Stella Pigrome, entitles her talk "Worms and Epitaphs"!) The Institute has welcomed three new members. The autumn Group Meeting takes place on 8 November at Playden WI Hall, and the coach leaves Rye Station at 7 pm.
• Because the organisers fear that they have missed getting into Fixtures, we are asked to mention particularly the Playden Church Autumn Fair at the FEC on Saturday week, 9 November, from 10 to 12.
• Also on Saturday, 9th, Ryesingers have a concert at the Community Centre at 7.30, when the proceeds will be divided between Community Centre funds and Action Research for the Crippled Child. The Young Ryesingers choir will be contributing items to the concert, and there will also be an opportunity for audience partici pation.
• How often does a Rye resident get his photograph in an Icelandic newspaper? Philip Martin has; he was featured twice in a double-page spread covering the TVS fishing championship (GAZETTE no. 146). A copy was sent to him recently uith, he is relieved to say, a translation of the text!
• Rye potters are among a group whose work will be on show at the Hastings Museum and Art Gallery from 2 November to 1 December. The exhibition, Contemporary Sussex Ceramics, includes work by Wally and Tarquin Cole, and the delicious "nostalgic corner shop" devised by Ernest Collyer and the late Pamela Nash. Doors are open from 10 to 1 and 2 to 5, Monday to Saturday, and from 3 to 5 on Sundays. The Museum is, of course, at the top of the hill near the RESH outpatients department.
• The new Radio Sussex studio in Rye has already been in use at least twice: Errol Girdlestone (GAZETTE no. 148) was on Sussex Scene last week, and Professor Powers (GAZETTE no. 151) was talking on Tuesday's Lunchdate about his search for Henry James contacts. In each case the interviewer was in Eastbourne.
• Another Meryon story to end with - but a modern one this time. A New Zealand member of the family, Mrs. Tinker, happened to remark to her golf pro in Napier that she was coming to Rye; "Good heavens" he said, "I was at school there!" Ernie Southerden was a member of Rye Artisans before he emigrated and turned professional golfer in New Zealand, winning the Open Championship out there. So a member of one of Rye's very long-established families is nowadays coaching a member of another, all that way off on the far side of the world!
Thursday, 31st Bible Society Annual Meeting - Paul Tew talks about the new direction of the Society, Baptist Hall, 7.30
Local History Group looks at the Library's local history collection, Library, 7.30
Friday, 1st Vidler & Co's monthly auction sale, 10 (viewing Thursday pm) Movie Society - "Making a Film", FEC, 7
Saturday, 2nd Radio Sussex in Rye, 9 to 12 (see below)
RNLI coffee morning, FEC, 10.30
Inner Wheel jumble sale and cake stall, FEC, 2
National Trust talk, "Villages of the Brede Valley" (Barry Funnell), CC, 2.30
Sunday, 3rd Boot Market in aid of Firemens' Benevolent Fund , Market, 10 to 4
Tuesday, 5th FRAG talk, "The-Roman Bath House at Beauport Park" (Gerald Brodribb), TH, 8
Wednesday, 6th BRCS Hearing Circle, Red Cross, 10.15 to 12
• Radio Sussex will be back here on Saturday this week when the Jim Ensom Show goes out live from Rye from 9 to 12 on all Radio Sussex wavelengths. We can't tell you what is likely to happen, because we have no idea; listen for yourself - or hang around the middle of the town, and you might be on it:
• Leasam House - the Thomas Peacocke School boarding house - is looking for a full-time caretaker. For details ring Rye 222296.
• The Rye and District Day Centre's coffee morning last Tuesday made £90 for Day Centre funds.
• Trains: on Saturday they will run 20 minutes later in either direction between Hastings and Ashford; on Sunday they will run at the usual different times, so to speak; and on Sunday, too, the trains beyond Ashford are highly irregular.
• Christmas shoppers with children in mind may well be among the buyers at Vidlers' sale on Friday, since the goods on offer include dolls, three dolls' houses, model yachts and a computer, as well as desirable presents for rather older people - plus, of course, the usual interesting mix of antiques and useful household goods.
• Have any of our readers any particular memories, souvenirs or knowledge in general about the Crystal Palace, which moved to Sydenham from its 1851 Great Exhibition site in Hyde Park, and was spectacularly burnt down in 1936? If so, the Crystal Palace Foundation (84 Anerley Road, London SE19 2AH) would be glad to hear from you, as they are collecting material of all kinds about the building and its history.
• An unusual Christmas card is being produced this year by the EF Benson Society - an amusing line drawing on cream card of a family party of the Thirties; it includes, as the Tilling novels do, no children. The idea is to personalise it by hand-colouring each card yourself. The pack of ten costs £2.50 plus 30p postage, from The EF Benson Society at 26 Oldfield Road, Bath, BA2 3NF. Profits go towards the Society's project to improve Benson representation in the Lamb House library.
GAZETTE postal subscribers who paid for 13p postage will find the change in stamps attached to this week's copy; the rate drops to 12p from 4 November.
THE RYE GAZETTE is registered as a newspaper with the Post Office, and published by Mrs. Mary Owen, 2 Cyprus Place, 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; a few spare copies are available from Squirrels, 9-13 Cinque Ports Street, and back numbers from Cyprus Place. (Copyright Mary Owen 1985)