A good story was going round Rye a week or two back: the face of the St. Mary's clock was going to remain permanently blank and would conceal an electric motor specially ordered from Japan to replace the historic mechanism! In fact, Howard Arkill of Beckley (who did the Town Hall lettering) finished the gold leaf work on clock and quarter-boys late on Friday afternoon. If the weather had broken a few days earlier, he tells us, one quarter-boy could well have spent the winter in his yellow undercoat, since gold leaf is very choosy about weather conditions and there hadn't been a great deal of time. But the job is now finished, the scaffolding will probably have gone by the time you read this, and each quarter-boy is fully clad in twenty books of best-quality gold leaf. The hands, clock-face and quotation from the Book of Wisdom - "For our time is a very shadow that passeth away" - are all shiny new. The newly-gilded weathervane is visible for miles. And the clock mechanism, we need hardly add, is the same as ever.
Congratulations to the staff of Burnham & Son, Mr. Arkill and the St. Mary's Parochial Church Council on the final glittering result.
Of course, it was tempting Providence - to say that Rye firemen were having a quiet time (GAZETTE no. 197) was a sure way to get them called out three times in one night! The first call - all this was last Tuesday - was a false alarm with good intent, out along Military Road where a passing motorist saw a bonfire and thought it was a barn fire. But just gone midnight, the bleepers went again, this time for real, and the firemen used ladders to rescue five people from top floor flats in The Link (see page 5). Michael Bourn says he can't even remember - it could well be fifteen years ago - when he last brought someone in Rye down a ladder with a real fire behind them. The firemen dealt with The Link and went home; those with early-morning jobs wondered whether it was worth going to bed, decided it was - and were bleeped again fifteen minutes after putting the light out. This time it was a wooden bungalow at Jury's Gap; it was unoccupied - the owner lived next door - but the firemen were unable to save the building, which was gutted. The early-turn men left the rest to mop up at Jury's Gap and went home to start work at 6 am. It's a long time, thank goodness, since they last had a night like that.
Almost a hundred Tilling Society members met in Rye on Saturday to honour the memory of EF Benson. Thirty walked up to the cemetery, and the drizzle cleared with a shaft of sunlight just as they reached Benson's grave. Guest speaker at the buffet lunch at the George Hotel was writer and journalist Hugo Vickers, who talked about three society hostesses all well known to Benson; a bonus came from actor Aubrey Woods, who read the account of Mrs. Wyse's stuffed budgerigar and the raspberry soufflee. The company included four members from America, one from Canada (a professor on sabbatical leave studying Benson) and one from Honolulu; also Keith Cavers, treasurer of the EF Benson Society, seated at Cynthia Reavell's side to mark the full and friendly reconciliation between the two societies. Mrs. Reavell brought the audience up to date with the latest Benson news, and produced an advance copy of a collection of his ghost stories which she has edited for Black Swan, "The Tale of an Empty House" (about which we shall be writing nearer the official publication date, 14 November). Tea was taken at the Hope Anchor and the Mermaid, neither of which could house the whole party. It was an occasion greatly enjoyed, and doubtless accounted for the fact that there was hardly a bed to be had, at the top of the town anyway, on Saturday night.
2.
Mrs. Beryl Barnes, of The Merrythought, died on 18 October in the Sussex Private Clinic after a fairly short but painful illness; she was 59. Her family wish to express their gratitude to the Clinic staff for their tremendous care and professionalism. Beryl Barnes, always a home-lover, moved house many times as her husband Roy's career progressed. When he retired, as Chief Fire Officer for Essex, in 1979 they bought The Merrythought to run it jointly, and Mrs. Barnes's artistic nature had a great influence on the shop's stock and attractive displays. She managed to keep her family closely united, though all three sons live overseas; there are three grandchildren in Kenya, two in Spain. Mrs. Barnes was a member and past Vice-President of Rye WI. The funeral takes place tomorrow (Thursday) at 1.30 pm at Hastings Crematorium - family flowers only, but donations in memory of Mrs. Barnes may be made, if friends wish, to Cancer Research.
British Rail is once again offering holders of Senior Citizen Railcards cheap travel in November. Those with £12 railcards will be able to buy Saver tickets normally costing up to £20 for £4 - up to £40 for £8 - and costing more than £40 normally, for £12. There are restrictions about travel times, and the offer does not apply for travel on Fridays, while the position about Sundays is not clear from the press release. So it is important to check, before you buy the ticket, that the trains you intend to use (both ways) are within the permitted times and days - or you could find yourself having to pay the standard fare.
For holders of £12 or £7 railcards who just want a day out, Cheap Day Returns will cost not more than £2 each - except on Friday when the offer does not apply. On either offer, SC Railcard holders travelling to the Isle of Wight can get their sea crossing (via Red Funnel, Southampton to Cowes) for just £2 extra, as long as they buy rail and boat tickets at the same time.
Southern Region also announces that it is stepping up its fight against the fare-dodgers who cost it £10m a year. Computer technology and special training for staff are being used in the cause of "revenue protection". We reported in GAZETTE no. 196 that BR's various cheap-offer tickets are no longer being sold on trains except to passengers who joined at an unstaffed station (which Rye has been from time to time but is not normally). Those deliberately avoiding pay- ment face prosecution, with a fine of up to C400 and/or six months in jail, and anyone using stolen or forged tickets is liable to even higher penalties (though this, of course, is of purely academic interest to Rye - we hope!).
A shocked reader tells us that railway people don't talk about "arm" signals; the proper name for what was removed at the Gibbet Marsh crossing is "an upper quadrant semaphone signal" (up for "go", level for "stop").
"It's all change on the buses" says the headline in ESCC's Rider News ("your handy guide to local bus services in East Sussex"). The tabloid news-sheet lists every service in the county, with its new number and the name of the operator (addresses are given too) and a brief summary of its timetable - so copies are well worth picking up at the Library or Council Offices, and doubtless elsewhere too. The detailed timetable leaflet for the County Rider route from Rye back to Rye via Udimore, Broad Oak, Beckley and Peasmarsh (800, renumbered 301 from Monday) is already available; the Hastings & District one, which we haven't seen, appeared at the Council Offices on Tuesday, and doubtless Fuggles will follow shortly.
Too late for this week we received Michael Dearing's summing-up of the new Rye services; all we can say here is that things will be different. However, Clifford Foster at Adams made sure that he got advance information in time for the November "Fixtures", and those without timetables will find his pages an accurate substitute to be going on with, once "Fixtures" is out.
3 THE RYE GAZETTE, 22 October 1986
Andrew Manktelow, of Udimore Road, has been all at sea - for 13 days on the "Malcolm Miller" as the winner of the 1985 John Williams sail-training award. Andrew, who had been to sea often as a Sea Cadet but had never sailed in anything quite so large, was one of a crew of 39 trainees, all male, plus permanent crew, watch leaders and officers. They embarked at Southampton, and from there sailed to Fowey, St. Malo, Alderney and back to Shoreham. Although he thoroughly enjoyed the cruise and would like to go back again later as a watch leader, Andrew has no hankerings for a permanent career at sea; he has just started work as a lab technician for a photographic firm in Ore. He tells us that he was able to take some photographs on the trip, prints rather than slides - how nice if they could be on display in the town for the benefit of landlubbers? Talking-newspaper listeners will be hearing about Andrew's experiences, since he recorded an interview for the magazine side of its cassette at the weekend.
Daniel Owen, ex-Thomas Peacocke School and now starting his second year at Oxford has been awarded a college Scholarship from Brasenose for the coming year on the strength of very good results in his Prelims. Daniel, who spent the Long Vac backpacking round Indonesia to prepare for an expedition he hopes to take out there next summer to study bats, is (regrettably!) celebrating his success by taking up hang-gliding.
Another ex-TPS pupil doing well is Ian Turner, now 23. Ian, whose home is at Winchelsea Beach, gained a First at Cabridge a year ago, and is now working for an Oxford D.Phil. Eased at Linacre College, he was actually there for only one term before going out to Penang in Malaysia to study forestry; he is due to come home for a month in November before going back to Penang for a second year.
Scaffolding beside the cliff above the Strand Quay garages does not mean that the cliff is falling down! Recently some of the brushwood growing on it was cut back and the underside of the Traders Passage footpath was exposed to view - not the original footpath, there since time immemorial, but the concrete extension built perhaps 40 years ago (does anyone remember exactly when?). This is cantilevered out above the edge of the cliff, and ESCC is not happy about the condition of the reinforcement. When the work is finished, in about six weeks' time, Peter Martin of ESCC Highways at Lewes tells us that the cliff won't look startlingly different - merely rather smarter, since they are taking the opportunity to rub down and repaint the railings along the top. The pretty cliff gardens behind some of the white terraced houses will not be affected.
Apologies, apologies to the Cattle Market Company, whose Rope Walk car park we left out of last week's calculations. A further 100-plus car spaces should be added to the total we gave, making 550+ in winter and 850+ in summer - still not a lot. David Cranston, who pointed out this :apse to us, adds that in the days when Rother ran the Goods Yard car park they used to reckon it held 160 cars (plus coaches) rather than the 200 we quoted. This doesn't affect the 1987 prospects, but it does mean that the new arrangements for the station area will approximate more closely to the old ones, when the work is finished.
Rye & Pother Valley Round Table is taking part in the British Bone Marrow Donor Appeal by holding a blood-sample session for potential donors in the town on 26 November from 6 to 9pm. Samples will only be taken from people aged between 18 and 50, but Round Table do need to have names in advance, by mid-November.
We shall be anclosing a leaflet in the GAZETTE next week. Donations towards the cost of testing samples (E3 each) are welcome from people of any age, and can be left at Woolworths, the banks, or any Round Table member. We shall have more details of the donor session nearer the time; they need 160 volunteers to make it worth while for the team to come here.
4.
At a meeting on Monday night between the Cooper Road tenants, the Housing Officer and Rother Councillors, questions were asked and limited explanations were given - limited, because the investigation into what is causing subsidence under some of the Cooper Road houses is not yet complete.
There are about 70 houses in Cooper Road, the first street off to the left past Tilling Green School (it is joined to the end of Pottingfield Road by The Link). Of these, some are subdivided into flats. Some have been bought, and improved, by their former tenants; these householders are, of course, particularly worried. No. 34, which has been empty for several years, is the worst affected, but the peat which is causing the trouble is nearer the surface in some places than in others, and the damage is patchy. A further problem is the surface water which regularly floods the actual road at the far end; another is the bad state of repair, particularly as regards electrical wiring and the condition of the windows, of the concrete houses all along it.
The press was not invited to the meeting, so we are grateful to the correspondent (name and address supplied) who reported to us afterwards from a tenant's-eye point of view. It seems that Rother really has two alternatives: either to rehouse the tenants, buy back the privately-owned houses, and then redevEop the whole site; or to demolish no. 34 only (propping up the adjoining no.32), underpin the other houses showing signs of subsidence, carry out the repairs, and to keep an eye open for further trouble. If Mr. Catt is in a position to report fully to the Housing Committee on 10 November, the decision could be made then; if not, it will have to be deferred until his report is ready.
The meeting, at Tilling Green School, was well attended, and those present had every opportunity to contribute to the discussion, we were told, though by no means all of them did. Some tenants, indeed, are perfectly happy with things as they are. But many (not surprisingly) are confused and anxious, and the meeting was at least an opportunity for two-way communication between tenant and landlord; indeed, it could be the start of a useful liaison for the Estate generally, quite apart from the particular problem in Cooper Road?
A new outlet for local artists has recently opened at The Old Vicarage in Church Square. Ernest and Ruth Thompson originally decided that their guests might like the opportunity to look at pictures for sale, and this was such a success that they are now able to welcome people simply wanting to browse without having a cup of tea or a bed for the night. The Thompsons bur their stock-in-trade from all kinds of sources, and desirable Victorian water-colours at high price hang alongside the type of small drawing which makes a charming and inexpensive souvenir of a visit to the town - prices range, says Mr. Thompson, from £5 to £500 and beyond. Subjects include local and foreign views, still life, flower and bird studies - really and truly something for everyone, and an ever-changing show since some visitors leave with four or five paintings or prints under their arms. Local painters Ruth Thompson and Tina Gray are among those who have work on view at present, and the gallery is open whenever the guest-house is.
It seems that Rye has a great many more young poets than we knew about last week; the poetry competition in Hastings (GAZETTE no. 197) had entrants from Freda Gardham School too. Three years ago the school had a third prize winner, last year a second prize - and this year Kelly Penfold, aged 10, of New Winchelsea Road, won a cup in the Junior section for her poem "When I blow my own trumpet" which was awarded first prize. Simon Rice of Udimore Road won a book as a special prize in the same section for "Christmas in Ethiopia", and the following Freda Gardham pupils were awarded certificates: Emma Tiltman from the Infants, and from the Juniors Charlotte Carey, Jane Silver, Amy Thorndike, Joanna Butcher, Joanne Goggin, Nadia Bagwell, Edward Thomas, Helena Swaine, Darren Paine and Samantha Endell. Well done, indeed!
5.
Tuesday night's fire at The Link (see front page) raises questions of safety which haven't, apparently, been seriously considered before. The Link consists of three three-storey blocks of flats, three flats on each floor, some with two bedrooms and some with three, and the occupants are of all ages. Each flat has just one outside door, which opens onto the communal staircase for each block. In the three-bedroomed flats, the kitchens are immediately inside the doors; the bedrooms are at the far end in all the flats.
What happened on Tuesday at midnight was that a forgotten chip-pan caused a fire in one second-floor flat; smoke from it filled the stairwell, and the people from the other flats on that floor couldn't get down the stairs because they couldn't see. Firemen rescued the sole occupant of the burning flat, who was a guest of the (absent) tenant, and also the family next door - Brian Champion and his wife and 15-year-old daughter and a friend staying the night - by ladder. When it became clear that the occupants of the third top-floor flat were in no danger, they stayed put. Most of the damage was caused by smoke, and the tenants spent much of the next day cleaning up. No-one was hurt.
But suppose the fire had been in a ground-floor kitchen? Suppose it had been a major fire, or =undetected for longer? Rye firemen might then have needed to rescue not just five people, but perhaps 20 from the six flats above ground-floor level. The building has no alternative exit to the one central staircase.
Matters were not helped, Brian Champion tells us, by the lights being out. There should be two on each landing, but if all six in the block are on at the same time it is little short of a miracle. He understands that the firemen were not pleased about this, and doubtless they will be putting in a report.
A petition, signed by the tenants of all 27 flats in The Link, is going to Rother, with a copy to Rye Town Council and to Ken Warren, asking for something to be done about the situation. What they want is a fire escape - and Tuesday night proves that they need one. Since the fire, the landing lights have been on 24 hours a day; what the tenants would like to be sure of is that they stoma on during the hours of darkness, with bulbs replaced when necessary.
Finally, a heartfelt thank-you from the tenants to Rye firemen. "We all know them out of uniform" said Mr. Champion, "but it's not until you see them in action as a team that you realise quite what a marvellous job they do." Agreed unanimously!
The wedding at St. Mary's on Saturday afternoon was that of a young couple who both come from away, but who have bought a house in Sea View Terrace. Timothy Bushe's bride, Philippa Edwards, was married in an unusual dress of ivory lace, trimmed with ribbon and swirling frills and tiny gilt decorations; her embroidered veil was caught back by a flower crown, and she carried a spray of pale pink and cream flowers. Her bridesmaid wore a full-skirted dress of shot burgundy taffeta and carried flowers in a deeper shade of pink. After a drizzly morning the weather had cleared, and the bride made a charming picture walking across the churchyard. The reception was at the Mermaid.
A committee of four and their friends made £520 profit in two hours at the FEC on Saturday morning, when the coffee morning and sale of work for the blind sold out of cakes within half-an-hour but still had plenty of other goods for the customers. Hilda Nelson-Barrett, Monica Oliver, Joan Spencer and Betty Alford would particularly like to thank the helpers from Winchelsea and Brede who joined the Rye supporters to ensure the success of the sale, and the Rye trades-people who were so very generous with prizes for the raffle and tombola. In view of the demand for such help at this time of year, from the numerous good causes represented in the town, it must be quite a problem for a shopkeeper to find enough things he can reasonably spare from his stock.
6.
In this week's planning list is the long-awaited application for the new fire station and training tower which are to replace the Drill Hall building in the lane to the Mill. The plans show a long building fronting onto the lane, with the two-bay garage for the fire-engines at the Ferry Road end of the site and the rest taken up with admin., stores and accommodation for the firemen. The tower is at the back of the site, and is the same tower for which planning permission was obtained some time ago, just before FSCC's money ran out - 15m high, brick-built. The main building will be roofed with brown synthetic slates and faced with light-brown bricks. The plan shows the whole of the ESCC-owned land, including a small area at the entrance to the lane on the far side from the railway; but we understand from Lewes that there is no plan to widen the lane, or certainly not in this application. Access to the site is to be altered: the existing entrance will be narrowed from 8jm to 5m and will be used for all normal traffic, while the fire appliances will have their own 8m-wide access immediately outside the doors of their garage. Michael Bourn says the firemen are very happy with the plans; when the fire station is built, they will also be getting a second large fire-engine for which there is no room at present.
John Underwood of Le Fevre Wood & Royle's Hastings office clarified for us two planning applications for Rock Channel. One is for change-of-use for Unit 4/4a into two self-contained flats; this is not one of the blue-roofed industrial units, but the biggest of the new houses, which the developers realised was going to be too large for a site with no garden space and would be better as flats for those who don't want gardens. (Work on the houses, John says, has been hung up by a delay over supplies - the building industry is now so busy that this is not uncommon: But work is due to resume very soon.) The other application is a formality. Tony Maynard at Bide Cottage has made a charming garden out of his piece of land on the river site of the :Rock Channel approach, but since this was originally scheduled for car parking Bother asked that a change-of-use application should be made.
An application which we missed when it originally came up in the weekly list (under Icklesham, of course, which covers Rye Harbour) is to be considered by Rother's planning committee tomorrow. Hatleys want to add to their industrial development along Harbour Road, putting a single large building (46im x 13m, 5.20m high) at the back, set 6m from the West of the buildings. Constructed in the same materials, this would be subdivided inside to suit the requirements of the clients. There are still vacant units in the original development, but Leslie Bulman has found that double-garage-size units are what new businesses mostly want, and perhaps these new ones will be snapped up more quickly.
The Crime Prevention Panel met last week and elected a "civilian" chairman, Mike Warren of Oliver's in the High Street. Vice-chairman is Jim Fiddimore of Iden Kennels. Police personnel have been changing so quickly at Rye since the June decision to have a police chairman and civilian vice-chairman, that the meeting voted for the new arrangement as giving stability to the Panel.
Superintendent Mason reported that the Neighbourhood Watch scheme really did seem to deter burglars. The main problem at present is that the Home Office has run out of stickers, and new groups are unable to get supplies; all coordinators who have stickers they don't need are asked to return them to the police station as soon as possible. Householders are reminded, now that the dark evenings are here, to leave lights on when they go out; and also to close garage doors when the car is out, if only for a short trip - an empty garage is a clear indication that someone is not at homes said Superintendent Mason.
The next meeting of the Panel will be on Wednesday, 7 January at 7.30; in future, to save postage, agendas will not be sent out, so members are asked to note the date in their diaries when they receive Cieir minutes after meetings.
7.
• Four people have been charged in connection with "an incident in Rye" at the weekend and will be appearing in Court on 19 November. Disappointingly, we have been advised by the Clerk to the Magistrates that we can't say any more than this - which seems a pity, but there it is. Sorry!
• Vidler & Co report that at the 68th Rye Show and Sale of registered ram tegs on 13 October, an excellent entry slightly exceeded the demand, with exceptionally high prices for quality rams from the premier flocks. The cup-winning champion ram teg was shown by Mr. Tom Hills of Swallow Mill Farms Ltd., Charing, and was sold for £600 to Ashby Farms of Brookland, Kent. The top price of £620 went to an unplaced ram teg exhibited by Mr. D.J. Cole of St. Mary-in-the-Marsh; the purchasers were Swallow Mill Farms Ltd., this price being a record for Rye Market. Nine rams of the total on offer realised E400 or over, another record. The overall average for the 130 ram tegs sold was €212, the second highest average in the history of these annual sales in Rye.
• The local branch of the Muscular Dystrophy Group will be closing down at the end of the year; it is going out in style with a final coffee morning at the George Hotel from 10 to 12 on Wednesday, 5 November. As well as the usual stalls, there will be Usborne children's books on sale, and also new brand-name children's clothes. Since this is the last chance to support the cause locally, Gill Wood hopes that her final fling will be a good one! Things for sale may be delivered in advance to Tower Forge House.
• Stella Bellem, the Curator appointed in the summer by Rother to look after the Bexhill Museum and advise when required by other museums in the district, came over to Rye recently to talk to the Local History Group and show slides of what she is doing at Bexhill. Her first exhibition there opens next week, and is entitled "Health and Holidays: Bexhill, the Select Town". For people who don't perhaps think of Bexhill nowadays in quite those terms, it should be an eye-opener.
• On Monday (27th) at the FE Centre, Jake Jacobs of the SDP will chair an open discussion on the problems associated with the nuclear industry. Among those present will be several people who work at Dungeness, coming in a personal rather than official capacity. The meeting begins at 7.30, and the organisers stress that it is a genuine opportunity for discussion and not a political meeting and we believe them, or we wouldn't be writing it up here!
• James Menhinick was one of the speakers at the annual conference of the National Union of Ratepayers in London on Saturday, when he spoke in support of the first resolution. Proposed jointly by the Local Government Committee and Rye Rate-payers Association (of which Councillor Menhinick is secretary), this related to the government's proposal to abolish domestic rates; the Association agreed, in no uncertain terms, that it would like to see a local income tax rather than the proposed poll tax.
• Landgate WI's first AGM last week re-elected Sue Thomas as President for a second year. Secretary Liz Allen reported on the Institute's successful start, and a vote of thanks went to the members for all their hard work. The next monthly meeting will be on 19 November, with a talk on lace-making.
• On Thursday and Friday of next week (30 and 31 October) the Mariners Hotel in the High Street plays host to an electronic keyboard demonstration organised by Richard Moore of B & T Keyboards, of Hastings. The exhibition, described as a roadshow" will be open between 10 and 5, and will incidentally provide a musical accompaniment to lunch and tea on both days.
• Once or twice recently, GAZETTE copies left at pick-up points have vanished by the time the owners come to collect them; it seems possible that earlier birds may have picked up two by mistake. Please - because we have no spares now - make sure that you only take your own, named, copy. If you find that you have, by mistake, taken home someone else's as well, phone the pick-up point concerned and return the extra copy as soon as you can, as the owner will be wanting it.
Thursday, 23rd Day Centre coffee morning, Red Cross, 10.30
Tilling Green School Autumn Sale, 6
Thomas Peacocke School PTA AGM, Upper School, 7.30
TPS closed (and Friday) for in-service staff training for GCSE.
Friday, 24th Nat.His.Soc., a slide evening with Michael Tweedie, FEC, 7.30
Saturday, 25th Coffee morning for RAFA, Red Cross, 10
Draw for MSS raffle, 149 Pottingfield Road, 10
Craft Market, FEC, 11 to 5
Scouts jumble sale, Scout Hut, 1.30
Old Scholars Association annual dinner, Hope Anchor
Sunday, 26th Vigil (Week of Prayer for World Peace), St. Anthony's Church, noon to midnight
Monday, 27th Half-term week
WRVS Lunch Club, CC, 12.15
Sussex Spinal Injuries Association, talk and video, FEC, 7.30
Discussion on problems of nuclear power, FEC, 7.30 (see page 7)
Wednesday, 29th Local History Group visits St. Mary's Church, 7.30.
• The local branch of the Multiple Sclerosis Society are very grateful to Rye & District Rotary Club for a most generous donation - a cheque for £200.
• Condolences to St. Mary's Church, whose Restoration Fund box was broken into recently; it only held one day's donations, however, since all the church boxes are emptied daily.
• Both street lights in Needles Passage were back on by the weekend, lighting it very adequately.
• Rye Town Council on Monday were delighted to welcome back Councillor Duncan Starkey after his recent illness.
• Once again this year Peasmarsh Primary School PTA is holding a bonfire party for families, this Saturday from 5.30 in the Glebe Field in School Lane. Entrance 70p for PTA funds.
• The Youth Service at the Methodist Church on Sunday - an annual event - was attended by members of the St. John Nursing Cadets, the Sea Cadets, Guides and Brownies, who paraded their colours at the start of the service. The ATC, who would normally have been present, were away on a course.
• The press book records a burglary in Udimore Road on 14 October, during the day, when £70-worth of jewellery and old coins was stolen.
• The ARC Ploughman's Lunch is on 11 November, not 12th as we said last week.
• A colourful chart in the Lion Street window of Freight Express-Seacon shows flags and funnels of British and international merchant fleets.
• Postage rates finally went up on Monday by 1p for each class of letter. Postal subscribers who were charged at the new rate from the original date, 1 October, will find 3p in stamps attached to their copies.
• Is your kettle black inside? We are told that so e people's kettles - both aluminium and plastic - do turn black, while others, a few doors down the same road, don't. One worried householder had her water supply analysed, and there was nothing wrong with it. Has anyone an explanation?
THE RYE GAZETTE is registered as a newspaper with the Post Office, published by Mrs. Mary Owen, 2 Cyprus Place, Rye, East Sussex, TN31 7DR (0797 222303), and printed by Cinque Ports Stationers of Rye. News items for inclusion are always welcome - deadline Monday afternoon. The GAZETTE costs 30p weekly and is delivered to subscribers and pick-up points on Wednesday. A very few spare copies and back numbers may be available from Cyprus Place. (Copyright Mary Owen 1986)