Village Voice Friday 13th June 2025
CADS will be performing a Murder Mystery entitled ‘Who Killed the Postmistress?’ tomorrow, Saturday, 14th June at 7pm for 7.30pm in the Village Hall. Bring your own refreshments and there will be a Raffle run by St Michael’s Hospice to whom all the proceeds of the evening will be donated. If you want to witness some real skulduggery and have a good laugh, book your tickets right away by calling Vanessa on 07972360135, they’re going fast!
Catsfield Ukealongians – Ian writes - On Monday July 21st from 7-9pm in Catsfield Village Hall, we will be raising money for "The Bexhill branch of Stroke Support Group". We hope you can come along and support this charity along with hopefully over 30 ukulele players, we’re going for a record amount of players in the Hall, so if you play or sing or both, come along for a great informal evening of a wide variety of songs. It's free and refreshments are served. Just a voluntary donation to the charity, if you so wish.
The Windmill Hillbillies are coming to Catsfield Village Hall on Thursday July 24th at 7.30pm (doors open at 7pm) Admission is £5 each and refreshments will be available. The group is so named after the beautiful old windmill at Windmill Hill and are known for singing lively country-style sing-along songs and dancing to fundraise for the maintenance of the mill. The Windmill Hill Windmill is the tallest traditional Post mill in Sussex and was built in 1814 on the site of a previously demolished mill. A Charitable Trust now owns the building and with the aid of a grant from the Lottery Heritage Trust, in 2003 they undertook a complete structural restoration of this Grade 2 listed building, which took three years. Over the following years, further grants came from various organisations and trusts amounting to an overall total of over a million pounds to continue the restoration work of the mechanism and by 2016, once more the mill became a complete and traditional working mill.
The WI’s ‘Fun, Flower & Produce Show’ meeting was well attended and it is so good to be welcoming several new members lately. The business matters were dealt with after singing ‘Jerusalem’ accompanied by David as usual, something that we all seem to enjoy and sing with great enthusiasm. The main topic was the details of our outing on Thursday 19th June, joining our minibus in the village car park at 10.30am. We will drive to Hastings to visit The Shipwreck Museum where we will have a tour mainly focused on the artifacts from the wreck of ‘The Amsterdam’ at Bulverhythe in 1749. Members will remember the interesting talk by Robin Keyte at the January meeting which awakened our interest in the wreck and prompted this visit to the museum.Following this we will have lunch in Hastings and return to Catsfield by 2.30pm. On arrival at the hall, those who were contributing to the ‘Fun, Flower & Produce Show’ displayed their exhibits in the various classes ready for the judging. The different categories were well supported on the whole and were all displayed in the hall as Hermon Cottage was booked for the afternoon. Beryl had set an excellent and enjoyable musical quiz to keep us all guessing whilst the judges made their assessments of the exhibits. When they had completed their task, it was time for a lovely tea and the opportunity to view the winning entries in the competition. There were many excellent and well-deserved winners and the member with the greatest number of points was committee member Gail Davies. The next meeting will be on Thursday 3rd July at 2pm when the speaker will be Bob Butts talking about ‘The Founding of the English Soap Company’. Visitors and new members are always welcome to come and join us.
Coffee Morning – from Sandra - Far from stopping people from attending the coffee morning last Saturday, the rainy weather brought many people to the Village Hall to cheer themselves up with a hot drink and a delicious cake, meringue, sausage roll or cheese scone. The kitchen was nonstop from 10am until 12 noon and a bit beyond. People were very generous buying raffle tickets, plants, and gifts as well as cakes to take away. It was lovely to see the hall full of people for the entire morning, many locals and some from further afield. We had regulars and newcomers all of whom praised our kitchen delights, were overwhelmed by the array of plants and took advantage of purchasing some very reasonably priced gifts. The total raised for church funds was a terrific £456.70. Thank you. The fundraising team is having a few weeks off but will return to the Village Hall on Sunday 10th August for Afternoon Tea to celebrate St Laurence. Watch this space for further details of this event.
A Tribute to Keith Bishop 1.8.63 – 3.6.25 Catsfield Horticultural Society are sad to announce that one of their stalwart members Keith Bishop, unexpectedly passed away at the beginning of last week. This has come as a great shock as although we all knew he had been receiving cancer treatment for some years, he appeared to be responding well. Our sincere condolences go out to all who knew him. Keith travelled from Stroud every year to enter his exhibits in our shows. The timing of the shows on the first Saturday in August, coincided with his birthday, so it was such a highlight for him. Apparently back in the mid-1990’s he first came across the Catsfield Summer Flower Show & Fete by chance, when travelling down to Bexhill-on-Sea with his mother. They stopped to see what was going on and got chatting to Lily Davey who was the show secretary for many years and she encouraged them to enter the show and so his long association with us began. The records show that by 1997 he had got the hang of winning - not just one trophy but often three each year! One trophy in particular, was the “Newtime Salver” for preserves, he won this 26 times. Had it not been for the Covid virus when we had to halt the shows, I’m quite sure he would have had two more years with his name engraved upon the plinth. (The Newtime Salver was sponsored by the company of the same name “Newtime Fruits” of Battle aka Newberry Fruits) No one could ever beat him. He was so talented and not only as an accomplished cook, he also grew superb flowers and vegetables and was an expert at knitting (last year he entered an amazingly intricate polo-neck jumper.) Last year Keith won three trophies the “Sweet Pea Salver, the “Newtime Salver” for the highest number of points in preserves and confectionery classes and the “Stobbs Cup” for the highest number of points in home cooking classes.
Keith will be fondly remembered for his exuberance and perfectionism. We always looked forward to seeing him at our Summer Fete & Flower Show and appreciated his support with his many entries every year. His demise has left a deep void. May he rest in peace.
Jan writes – It is so sad that Catsfield cricket and football teams are finding it difficult to make up the numbers required to play matches. There were no such problems in the past because there were plenty of local lads who had grown up in the village, attended the local primary school and then automatically joined in village activities. Nowadays, village schools rely on children being brought in from elsewhere to make up the numbers. Sadly, the price of houses are unaffordable for the young people who have grown up in Catsfield. We were so fortunate in Skinners Lane in the 1960’s – 90’s when we were all country folk who lived in harmony, helped each other and joined in everything as a community.How times have changed.
- Sport etc – from Ann - Sadly our cricket match on Sunday at Winchelsea was cancelled early in the week with our opposition only able to call upon four cricketers. We had a full team with nowhere to go. We hope Brightling Park on Sunday will go ahead as we all love the rural aspect of this small ground deep in the grounds of the Park. There are no longer any facilities for teas, nor has there ever been any shelter, just a wooden changing room, so we hope for a fine day with no cold wind.
I went to Ardingly Spring Show on Friday where we got plenty of wind and rain, but managed to stay dry by diving into various marquees. The best of local farm animals was on show, lots of magnificent bulls, some very reluctant to be led by the nose around the show area, calves, heifers etc and a good representation of Red Sussex cattle. In the distance I saw Mike and Diana Hickman, who have been associated with the Sussex Cattle Society for so long. There were plenty of sheep, in fact we couldn't go into the barns as the judging seemed to go on most of the day, but then I see enough sheep here at home. Rabbits, goats, pigs and piglets, shire horses, so powerful but gentle, ponies etc. Several packs of hounds were shown and a special pack with their handlers went into the central area while hundreds of children were thrilled to be invited to race around trying to beat them to the sounds of the hunting horns. It was tremendous fun and good to see so many fit children. We bought ourselves lots of good food from the many stalls selling local produce and had a grand day out, spoilt just a little by forgetting where we'd left the car. Ah well, it was raining when we arrived!