All honour to Sheila Luck, of North Street, Winchelsea, who had the courage to report a dog owner who allowed his dog to foul the grass verge outside her home - not, on his own admission, for the first time. The offender, Michael Bridges of The Five Houses in Winchelsea, told Rye Magistrates - according to the News - that his dog had messed on the verge for ten years and "would continue to do so". There was a sign drawing attention to the new anti-fouling bylaws just nearby, and Mrs. Luck had suggested that Mr. Bridges should remove the mess - which he refused to do; so, very properly, she reported him. The magistrates fined him £20 with £20 costs; it could come expensive if he meant it about continuing to allow this anti-social behaviour. Mrs. Luck tells us that there is only the grass verge outside her house, no pavement, so people have no alternative to walking on the fouled grass and then bringing the muck into the house on their shoes.
Rye dog-owners might care to note this prosecution; Rother really means business. New bylaws also ban dogs at all from entering the children's play areas on The Salts and in Mason Field; the bylaw relating to verges applies here, of course, as well as in Winchelsea.
Both Budgens and the supermarket developers assure us that there really will be 86 parking-spaces on that side of Station Approach once the builders have gone. Of these, ten will be reserved for Budgens staff, which is reasonable; but this of course reduces to 76 the spaces available to the public, and means at once that the town has less parking in the area than it had in the days of the Goods Yard park. Mr. Birch, managing director of Budgens, said he would like to see extra parking to serve their customers, but of course this is not in the firm's hands. He told us that the exact management system for the car park was not yet decided - they have different methods at different stores - but it will, for obvious reasons, be a short-stay car-park, for one or two hours at a time.
The Goods Yard was much used for all-day parking, since it cost the same however long you stayed - as in the present railway car park, price 50p a day. The Cattle Market, at 30p a day, is the best value in town for all-day parkers, or even for people staying just a couple of hours. The old coal yard in Winchelsea Road charges £1 all day, or 30p for the first hour and then pro rata. -'s parks cost 20p for one hour, 40p for two, 60p for four, or El all day; and, says the notice in the Town Wall park, non-payers face a flat-rate charge of £20!
The Chamber of Trade have been agitating for extra (as opposed to replacement) parking for some time now, and they were told a couple of years ago that Rother was going to open up for this purpose the land between the railway and the Mill lane. Indeed, Rother had the money put by, and obtained planning permission; but nothing happened. What was the problem, we asked Alan Dodge at Battle? It seems that British Rail were only willing to lease the land for coach parking, not for cars - and for technical reasons Rother found it would be impossible to have coaches parking there. Then the road proposals were published, and at that point - decided the scheme was a non-starter, and spent the money elsewhere. And anyway, added Mr. Dodge, Gibbet Marsh is under-used. That, we said coldly, is because it isn't signed properly and there is no indication that it is only minutes on foot from Strand Quay. Ah, came the answer, but the locals all know that, and visitors are so glad to find somewhere to park at all that they don't mind walking round by the road!
Still on parking, BR say that, anyway as a temporary measure, an extra staff member will be on duty in the railway car park on Thursdays from 10 to 2, in the hope of making sense of the coach-versus-car problem we wrote about last week. Exactly the same situation arose on Thursday last week, so this is good news indeed.
2.
Mr. Maurice Taylor, of the High Street, died in RESH on 15 May. He was 59, but had suffered from heart trouble for some time. Mr. Taylor was born in Rye into a long-established Rye family. He went to the Lion Street boys' school, and then became a self-employed painter and decorator for the whole of his working life. A bachelor, he leaves a sister and two brothers. He had a great many friends and customers in the town, and his loss will be deeply felt in local circles, perhaps particularly in Rye Club of which he was a member. The funeral took place at St. Mary's on Monday.
Mr. Arthur Russell, who died on 19 May, retired some twenty years ago to Fair Meadow, after having been farming in Kent. He was a well-known member of Rye Golf Club, of which he was Captain in 1971, and had golfing and other interests in Scotland and abroad. He is survived by his widow. The funeral takes place at Hastings Crematorium tomorrow (Thursday) at 3.0.
At the RCVS meeting last week (see also page 5) Derek Carter of Social Services was asked by the chairman about a rumour that Greyfriars was to close; Mrs. Oliver said that people who had spoken to her about this were very worried. Mr. Carter admitted that Social Services (who run the home) were in an awkward position. They are absolutely committed to having an old people's home in this area. However, they have high standards for accommodation in such homes, which they impose on privately- as well as publicly-run ones, and nowadays single rooms are obligatory. At Greyfriars, four people share a room - and it would be almost impossible to divide up the accommodation to provide any useful number of singles. Yet it doesn't seem right, said Mr. Carter, to have sub-standard accommodation in a County Council home! He made it quite clear that nothing was likely to happen at the moment; but in the long run, if ESCC were to receive a good offer for Greyfriars, it could in theory be sold and other accommodation provided instead. However, "other accommodation" would have to be purpose-built, and would be very expensive; and Social Services hasn't got the money... The position is in a way complicated by the fact that the Greyfriars residents are settled and happy there, so why alter things? - and yet the accommodation is really not up to modern standards. Anyway, it seems clear that there is no immediate prospect of Greyfriars closing; the Council has to provide such a home here, and can't afford to build anything else.
The Whitsunday procession led by the Baptist Church was banner-besprinkled (and quite a job the bearers had, in the high wind) and based round a tractor and trailer carrying singers and instrumentalists; the main body of the choir was on foot, and a fine sight it all made coming up Ferry Road from the Estate and then heading all round by the High Street to end up on Strand Quay - parked clear of the traffic, by courtesy of Southern Water. There was some low-key drama and cheerful singing, all much enjoyed not only by those who had accompanied the procession but also by a number of tourists who had been sitting in the sunshine watching the boats. Very pretty the Quay looked, too, with "Mascotte" at the slipway end like a mother duck keeping an eye on her nestlings bobbing on the half-tide:
Perhaps this is the time to thank George Roberts of Southern Water for his imaginative recycling of some of the big dressed stone blocks from the old Scots Float lock; they have been laid along the edge of the quay, primarily so that fishermen's vehicles parked there will not inadvertently end up in the river, but also to provide excellent seating for picnickers and river-watchers. It was noticeable, too, on Sunday that the grassy area was completely free of litter though another bin would be useful, since the existing one was full to overflowing and had bags of rubbish stacked beside it.
PS The Pentecost Party in the St. Mary's churchyard was well patronised; and we hear that the French choir in the evening was extremely good, as was the City of Southampton Orchestra, all 68 of them, the previous evening.
- 3 - THE RYE GAZETTE, 25 May 1988
Francis Rowe of Pottingfield Road, one of the Town Councillors newly elected just over a year ago, has given notice of his resignation from the Council for personal reasons. This of course means a vacancy on the Council; and if there is more than one candidate, it will also mean a by-election some time in the next few months (which could put £1,000 on the parish rate for next year). Councillor Rowe has assured the Mayor that he is quite adamant about his decision; so if anyone else is thinking of resigning - which seems unlikely - could they please do it at the same time so that at least we shall only have to have one election between now and 1991!
Why were ESCC Highways staff cutting down some of the cherry trees in Ashenden Avenue last week, angry residents wanted to know? The dead one - yes, of course; but in view of the slaughter of trees last October, it didn't seem quite the time to take down others which were just elderly (they date back to the days when the houses were first built, in the 1930s). However, the trouble was deeper than mere old age, says Graham Furness at Bexhill. Just recently all over the area there has been an outbreak of fire-blight, which is to cherry trees what dutch elm disease is to elms; a tree which is blighted is best removed immediately before it infects its neighbours. Hastings and Bexhill have both lost trees to the disease, and it remains to be seen if the others in the Avenue have indeed escaped. As for replanting, Highways will do so - in theory; but in fact their annual treeplanting budget is already entirely committed to storm losses. So if anyone local offers to replace the Ashenden Avenue trees, such an offer would be gratefully accepted (Bexhill 220022).
The intellectual cream of the generation born mainly between 1880 and 1910 is spread all over the walls of the Stormont Studio this month. Douglas Glass, painter and photographer who spent the last years of his life at Stone, was commissioned by the Sunday Times to photograph the famous for a series which ran for 12 years from 1949. South East Arts now owns the entire collection - though the idea germinated at Rye Art Gallery when an exhibition was held here before Glass died. The portraits are unobtrusively framed so as not to distract from the subjects - of whom 78 (even so, not the whole collection) hang in the Ockman Lane gallery. Each portrait has a separate caption giving the sitter's name and date of birth as well as the date the picture was taken - the oldest in both categories dates back to 1946 and shows "the Duchess of Duke Street", Rosa Lewis, --when she was 90; the youngest sitter, as far as we could see, is Elizabeth Frink, born in 1930. A nice irony of hanging shows a benevolent Pope John XXIII next door to someone of whom he would have most violently disapproved, the birth-control pioneer Marie Stopes (photographed in her rose-garden in full evening dress but with bare feet and apparently no bra). Upstairs is a head of the Queen, all diamonds and teeth, and a very well-known study of Winston Churchill. Angela du Maurier looks just right for a romantic historical novelist, but Agatha Christie - what a shock! The Robert Helpman portrait is probably madly symbolic, with a black patch over one eye, a silver hand-mirror and a champagne glass - or was he in costume for one of the ballets for which we queued outside Covent Garden forty years ago? Many of Glass's subjects were painters - ranging from Matthew Smith in a three-piece tweed suit sitting on a nice middle-class brocade sofa, to Edward Burra, photographed in his studio in 1964 as he worked as usual at a cluttered table rather than an easel. One photograph is special to this exhibition, lent for the occasion by John Newsom to whom Glass gave it; it shows George Bernard Shaw in his coffin, parked in the churchyard shed at Welwyn prior to his funeral. The show continues until 5 June; no-one interested in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s should miss it.
At the Easton Rooms, four artists share the honours: Tim Nathan, with large domestic and culinary interiors; Emma Turpin, Louis' sister, with some unusual prints; John Kelly, showing wooden structures in the upstairs gallery; and Alastair Knights, with some particularly attractive glazes on his pots in the Craft Gallery. The show runs until 13 June.
4.
A report to Rother's Housing Committee on Monday was the follow-up to one before the March meeting; both dealt with possible use of undeveloped land for low-cost housing. The matter had originally been raised in June 1987 with particular reference to the housing needs of young people in Rye; but Rye has been entirely left out of the current report, which deals only with land alreadyacquired for housing purposes but not yet built on. There is no such land in Rye, but "it is intended to report to a further cycle of meetings on landholdings in Rye generally, at which time various proposals as to the use will be made". (This report, we understand, is due shortly, coming first before the Council's Policy & Resources Committee.) The present proposals are for a five-year programme in partnership with Housing Associations to provide houses in mixed tenure, shared ownership and low-cost schemes.
So what does Rye get? Nothing at present, simply because Housing owns no land here and so the position is more complicated. But Rother in general has quite a lot of land here, all taken over from the Borough Council in 1974 but belonging to committees other than Housing. There are the two allotment sites, and also the field between the Love Lane allotments and the school (or is this bespoken for the new school buildings in due course?). There is the land across the river from the Estate, but this has in effect no access. There are doubtless other bits and pieces dotted around the town (including of course The Salts and the Gungarden, which are hardly relevant, and the marina-threatened field across from the Fishmarket). But there is one site which would be extremely suitable for first-time housing.
This is the present Council depot immediately opposite the GAZETTE office window. It occupies the south-eastern corner of a block of land otherwise taken up with terraced cottages and a few small shops with flats above (plus of course the Foreman's/Oasis buildings at the railway end). It has been the Council depot for a long time - though not in 1860, when it was used as several small yards by private owners. Most of it is open space for the dustcarts and other Rother vehicles or deliveries, plus a small amount of staff parking. There is an undistinguished brick building recently refronted, and four garages (replacing bombed cottages) accessible from the main road; the main entrance is just round the corner of Cyprus Place, and is not particularly convenient for large vehicles - as passers-by cannot fail to note just at presents
Two of the garages are currently rented by Camiers, and two are used by the road-sweeping vehicles which obviously need a central base; but it would not be impossible to incorporate arrangements for this in a housing development. Surely the main dustcart operation could manage to find a more convenient home on the outskirts of the town, perhaps in Harbour Road? It does seem a terrible waste of a perfectly good town-centre site, in a town with so few of them, to give it over to a load of old rubbish:
Monday's Housing Committee also discussed, in private, the proposed extension and refurbishment of Badger Gate - which can begin as soon as the Magdala House building is ready to receive half the present Badger Gate tenants, probably before Christmas since the completion date is given as 26 October.
The Rye Group of Women's Institutes held their Spring Meeting at Rye Harbour, with 67 members present. Satisfactory reports were presented by all the Institutes. Rye Harbour WI arranged a delicious supper, Iden WI won the competition for a miniature flower arrangement, and the talk (with slides taken from period photographs) was by Molly Shepherd, relating the exploits of her mother Dolly - "The Adventures of an Edwardian Parachutist". Despite her adventures, we were glad to know that the enterprising lady lived to be 97!
Landgate WI, like Rye, has been discussing resolutions for the national AGM, at which Mrs. Lampon will represent them. The recent coffee morning raised £71, and £20 was given to the Rye tree appeal.
5.
The Rye Council for Voluntary Service has always been a rather mysterious organisation. It was founded some seven years ago to pull together the various voluntary bodies in the town so that they could work jointly on certain projects; and to act as a focus, simply by existing, for sundry grants from Them which could only be made if there were a specific body to receive them.
Its first project was what was then known as YOP - Youth Opportunity Programme, predecessor of YTS. The Council put a great deal of work into the Rye YOP scheme, which only ended because of lack of support from Manpower Services. Since then the Council has supported the Day Centre, the summer playscheme, and other projects; its current worry is the lack of leadership for the Youth Club, a problem which Rye shares with other places.
But Rye is not an easy place to co-ordinate; different groups have their own ideas about how their pet projects should operate - and the WRVS doesn't relish good advice from the WI, nor does Mencap from the RNLI, nor... (well, you get the point). So what is left for the RCVS? Not a lot, to judge from the support at the AGM on Thursday at the Town Hall: twelve people were the entire presence. They were the Mayor (chairman) and Jean Bull-Marshall (secretary); three Social Services representatives; Leslie Bulman of the RDA: Barbara Wild of the Day Centre; Ray Fooks of TPS; Duncan Starkey and Ringo, from the Town Council; Winnie Warren; and your reporter. Not what you would call sensational support from the numerous voluntary organisations in the town? Anyway, a committee was elected, the officers were reappointed, and perhaps things will be better soon.
However, the meeting did produce some really good news for people who spend their lives caring in their homes for relatives or others who are elderly and frail, or handicapped in mind or body - ie. those who can't be left on their own. Early next month an advertisement will appear seeking a full-time paid co-ordinator for Crossroads Care - a scheme new to this end of Sussex, though there are a hundred spread all over the country. The co-ordinator (who needs no special social-services qualifications) will be running the operation for the Hastings and Pother area; she (or he, naturally) will be responsible for a number of part-time care attendants, and ads for these jobs will appear in July, with the scheme likely to start in September/October. (There will also be plenty of room for volunteer helpers - but not at this stage.) Before any of this, though, there needs to be someone from Rye willing to serve on the steering committee which is setting up the scheme (and which will be meeting variously in Hastings, Battle and Rye so as to be fair to everyone). If Rye carers are to get their share of this cake - funded by an organisation which sprang from the TV soap opera - our representative will have to keep her (or his, naturally) wits about her. If the co-ordinator were to be a Rye person, that would of course help even more…
The scheme will provide trained care attendants to relieve the usual carers, either on a regular basis or simply on one-off occasions. No longer will someone looking after their old mother have to sweet-talk a reluctant neighbour into coming in to "sit" while the carer goes to the dentist; Crossroads Care will be able to help out - once this all gets going.
So: first Rye needs a committee representative, now. Derek Carter and Sandie Laazrus, who were talking to the RCVS meetin about the scheme, weren't sure exactly when and where the co-ordinator's job would be advertised, but anyone interested can ring Hastings 716616, leave their name and address, and they will get a copy of the ad. The same number (answerphone) applies to people who see themselves as possible care attendants; it also applies to people who are themselves carers and would like to be included in the scheme in due course. Social Services already know of a good many, but they would also like to hear from those with whom they are not in touch so far. A similar scheme ran recently for a couple of years to help those caring for people with Alzheimer's disease. This is a more permanent thing, and should be a godsend to a large number of devoted families and friends. There will of course be more publicity locally once the plans are further advanced (but not, naturally, in the GAZETTE which won't be here by then).
6.
Burrowing into the State Papers (Domestic) at the Public Record Office in the course of his Armada research, Kenneth Clark found two intriguing documents which he produced at the Local History Group meeting last week and will be using in his lecture on "Rye, Tenterden and the Armada Challenge" at the FE Centre on Saturday evening. We have his kind permission to use them in advance of the lecture - arranged by the A259 Action Group, which exists to fight a present-day challenge emanating from Dorking rather than from Spain.
In February 1587 there was a census (SP 198.16) of shipping based at Rye (the government, already nervous of the Spanish, was doing this homework at all the English ports); it includes the name of each ship, its tonnage, master, number of mariners and where it was at the time. The fishing boats were all in Rye; they range in size from the "William" (25 tons) to the "Magdalen" (13 tons) and had crews of between 7 and 10 men. 15 boats were in service and a further 12 were apparently laid up, but there were three masters and 47 mariners without ships, so perhaps the February weather was bad for fishing.
The trading vessels were mostly larger, but with smaller crews, the average number being no more than three. John Olyver's "Nicholas" (75 tons) was perhaps laid up, since she had no crew at all; but Allen Grybble (presumably an ancestor of the town's subsequent most famous murder victim) was the master of what sound-suspiciously like a pirate ship - the "Blessing of God" (90 tons) was in La Rochelle when the census was taken, and had a huge crew of 13 men including a gunner! William Coxson, the master chosen to take charge of the town's Armada ship the following year, was in Westchester (where is this?) with his "Blessing", 50 tons and a crew of five. Of the rest of the 18-strong trading fleet, ten were in Rye, two in London and four in Dieppe; they varied in size from 16 to 40 tons.
In January 1988 29 fishing vessels were moored at Rye, plus eight smaller boats at the Harbour. In the four months from October to January, 26 commercial vessels traded to Rye, 16 of them British. Apart from the rather different scale of the modern coasters (averaging 330 tons each), things aren't all that different, four hundred years later - though the Ryer of 1587 would have been rather taken aback by the 400-plus yachts and pleasure craft which now moor in the Harbour!
Mr. Clark's second discovery (SP 12/213/72) is a letter from the Lieutenant of Dover Castle to Sir Francis Walsingham. Marked with the Tudor equivalent of "URGENT" - "haste haste haste haste post haste" - it left Dover at noon on 31 July 1588 and (via Canterbury 3pm, Sittingbourne 6pm, Rochester 8pm, Gravesend lOpm) reached London at 6.30 the next morning. (Can the Post Office guarantee such a result now?) Rychard Bartin was writing rather apologetically to Sir Francis to ask what he should do about the fire-ships laden with kindling and barrels of pitch, which were currently tied up in Dover Harbour (though his worry was apparently gQ the fire hazard, which must have been considerable!). As every schoolboy knows, the English fire-ships had helped to send the Spaniards on their ill-fated way through the North Sea (though Mr. Clark will have a good deal to tell his audience about exactly what did happen as the Spaniards worked their way up-Channel). By 31 July Dover was host to about 30 such boats, and "if there shall not be any further employment for them, may it please Your Honour to signify Your Honour's pleasure therein, for they are most of them fishermen of Rye and Hastings, and lie here at great charges, calling upon me every day to victual them". Some of the boats had apparently not seen service at all, but some "are returned from my Lord Admiral, who say that my Lord Admiral discharged them" - (does one detect a slight emphasis on that word "say"?). By the 31st, the Armada ships were well past Dover, but there was always the risk that if the wind changed they might return and the fire-ships be needed; in the meantime, the Rye and Hastings fishermen, knowing a good thing when they saw it, were clearly eating the Castle garrison out of house and home...!
Unfortunately, Sir Francis Walsingham's reply is apparently not preserved; just possibly it could have been unprintable anyway.
7.
We missed out two planning applications last week which are, strictly speaking, Icklesham, though they certainly concern Rye. They are both from the leaseholders of Castle Water Estate (A. Hind and P. Button of 101 Winchelsea Road). One is for change of use of the land to an 18-hole golf course, driving range and parking, and use of the water by windsurfers, sailing dinghies and one rescue boat. This sounds as if it might become rather congested down there. But the second application is much more controversial. It is, in outline only, for the erection of a clubhouse incorporating two flats (for manager and professional) and residential accommodation for visitors. (The existing building would be relocated and used as an equipment store and workshop.) Plans show the clubhouse situated behind the Atlas Stone site; the layout for the rest of the area is very complicated, incorporating a tunnel under the water, and we can't possibly begin to describe it here - you must look for yourself. For years Rother and Norman Jones, owner of Castle Water, have been at loggerheads, with enforcement orders flying in all directions, about buildings on the site; in view of this, it seems possible that anyway the clubhouse would be out. As for the development of the land, the Nature Reserve people are very concerned about the proposals as seen from a birds'-eye point of view.
The only Rye application in the current list is for a two-storey extension at Brickfield, off Udimore Road.
Clifford Foster gives us more news about H & D's new venture, starting on Tuesday. All that we said in GAZETTE no. 268 applies, but there is to be a return fare of 40p (single fare is 25p), so it will hardly be extravagant to leave the car at home and go by bus both ways. Outside the town centre, there will be a "hail and ride" system - but passengers are asked to wait at a spot where the bus can conveniently pull in. Since the vehicle is a 20-seater, it may well become crowded once it gets known, so H & D warn that if anyone stays on for more than the full hour of the route's cycle they may be asked to pay again - which seems only fair. The June "Fixtures" will have all the details of the twin routes, with a map; and leaflets are now available at the Council Offices.
• By the time this appears, the new surface on the Station Approach end of the Cattle Market should be finished. All of us who have stumbled for years over the loose stones as we enter the market from Cinque Ports Street will be deeply grateful, and we are sure the stallholders will be too. Bill Cooke, chairman of the Cattle Market Company, hopes that the smart appearance of the ground on that side of the fence will now inspire someone to do something about the developing slum on the Station Approach side, where there are still no litter bins and the shrubs struggle piteously through the hard-trodden surface of the "landscaping" whose main ornaments are drinks cans.
• Work on replacing the cobbles at the top of Mermaid Street continues; when this is done, the team will eliminate the tarmac snake from West Street, and then move to the bottom of Mermaid Street. A vast improvement at the top of Mermaid Street is the pair of granite-sett pathways across the cobbles from the corner outside the Mermaiden shop to both sides of upper West Street - created in response to public demand and (like the new tarmac in the Market) very much kinder to the feet!
• A team from Manpower Services have started work on the grassed area just round the Strand Quay corner past the sluice; new granite curbs are being erected in the hope of keeping cars off the grass, though there were seven parked on it on Sunday. A further eight on the SWA side of the path presumably belonged to the boat owners who are entitled to park there - though there is no way of policing this that we could see.
• Finally, non-local work in progress - at the Radio Sussex studio at 26 Gildredge Road, Eastbourne (close to the station), which is holding an Open Day on Saturday for the first time. See how it's done; meet the people behind the voices... It's all happening there between 10 and 4.
Ypres Garden Gig (fundraising for the NSPCC, entrance £3) from noon till llpm; entertainment includes a number of bands, puppets at 3.30, barboque, pot-throwing, face-painting.
Rye Action Group social evening, with talk by Kenneth Clark (see below), FEC, 7.30
Celebration of the 250th anniversary of John Webley's conversion (preacher, Rev. Cyril Hutchinson), St. Mary's, 10.30 Antiques Fair, FEC, 10.30 to 4.30 United Service, Baptist Church, 6.30
Half-term week
Coffee morning, ploughman's lunches, stalls, for Flower
Festival expenses, St. Mary's (outside if fine), from 10 Mayor-making (invited guests only), Town Hall, 11, followed by a short service and the throwing of hot pennies (c. noon) Musica Viva performs in St. Mary's, 1.0
Annual Town Council Meeting, Town Hall, 7 - to receive reports on the year's work from committee chairmen and others, with a chance at the end for members of the public to comment, suggest and query - do please come and show some interest!
BRCS Hearing Circle coffee morning, Red Cross, 10.30 Day Centre AGM (all friends welcome), Baptist Hall, 3
• Welcome to Terry Manning, the new community services manager at Rye Social Services patch office, who started work this month. Derek Carter is still team manager, but now with responsibility for Battle as well as Rye, so we shall see less of him here.
• On Wednesday week, 8 June, Robin Saville of Leasam Lane is chairing an illustrated talk at the Town Hall at 7.30. The speaker is Alec Parks, regional representative of the Goodwill Children's Village Society of South India, and he calls his talk "One Man's Challenge to Poverty". Leaflets about an asso- ciated sponsorship scheme, etc., will be available, and Mr. Saville (who is the son of the author Malcolm Saville) is very much hoping for a good turnout.
• The Rye A259 Action Group promises a pleasant social evening at the FE Centre on Saturday. The £2 ticket price (from the Wool Shop or at the door) includes refreshments and a glass of wine, with what is described as "up-market" coffee and biscuits halfway through the evening. The main entertainment is Kenneth Clark's talk on "Rye, Tenterden and the Armada Challenge", which will be ill• trated with slides - he has gone to some trouble to seek out unusual ones. Mr. Clark has allowed us to use some of his research on page 6 - and the Local History Group much enjoyed a preview of the talk last week.
• A visiting jazz pianist-singer at midday on Saturday announced the opening of a new shop, Grammar School Records, in the old Peacocke Grammar School premises in the High Street. Swept away from the door on a tide of amplification, we went back on Monday when things were quieter - but they were too busy to talk to us, so all we can say is that the shop sells records, tapes, etc.; is undoubtedly open; and has the excellent taste to leave the windows clear of clutter as they should be.
• Please will those who want publicity for an event let us have particularly long notice from now on, as our last five issues will need careful planning if things are not to get left out.
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 through Cinque Ports Stationers of Rye. Deadline is second post Monday for each Wednesday's issue; spare copies (45p) are obtainable at Young Ideas (children's wear), 7 Cinque Ports Street. (Copyright Mary Owen 1988)