VILLAGE VOICE Following on from last week’s note, an increasing number of readers have joined those who have already liked the style now used for the Village Voices in the Hastings Observer.
PEWS NEWS St Peter’s is the home for This Sunday’s 11 am service, which will be at St Peter’s, will be Morning Praise. This Sunday, Pett Methodists’ 10.45 am service will be led by the Revd Neville Barnett.
Online, you’ll be in time to catch up on the fun event that is Café Refresh at St Peter’s on Thursday, February 20 from 10.30 am until 12 noon. You know the good stuff that awaits you there – so go along and enjoy it!
FRIDAY LUNCH CLUB Today there will be fish and chips and following it, banoffee pie. Have fun with the day’s tombola. Friday next week, February 28, there’s beef casserole and plum tart for afters. Comfort plus will be along as well.
THE HISTORY GROUP AGM has been postponed for a week for essential work in the village hall, it will now take place on Wednesday, February 26. Gowlland family holidays in Fairlight from 1947 to 1951 on cine and in photos are the fascinating items that follow the business. Now is a good time to renew your membership, or sign up for the first time. It’s still £10 per annum, as it was in 2019! This really is an exceptionally good value for money offer.
HOW ARE THINGS GOING AT THE FRIDAY LUNCH CLUB? Funny you should ask. MOPPs, as it was known for several years after its foundation, which was planned by Sylvia Gutsell and came into effect in 2008, was the Marsham Older People’s Project. The name satisfied everyone until the members, a vibrant family of friends whose ages are somewhat on the high side numerically, said ‘Hey! Who are you calling old?’ and the Friday Lunch Club took over. Lunch and refreshments cost each member £8 a week, and transport is £3 to £6 weekly. From the outset, grants and donations were sought and found, but it has become clear that as financial needs increase, the availability from so many sources have either dried up or have just withered down and down. Only this week has Ann Hohenkerk pointed out that, without a very positive move in finances, the Club could even be faced with closure in the autumn. Fairlight folk tend to be generous contributors in many areas, such as May’s Christian Aid, the Royal British Legion, the locals love of the Pett Level Independent Rescue Boat and, yes, the Friday Lunch Club. Ann suggests that, if everyone reading this or similar notes elsewhere were to arrange a, say, monthly regular donation then the Lunch Club would be in a position to take advantage of a reassuring continuing existence. Please give it some thought and contact mopptreas@gmail.com Many could manage a tenner a month for such an excellent cause.
MP TO THE FORE Helena Dollimore, our MP in the Hastings and Rye constituency, has got involved, once again, in the Market Garden building site affair as she believes that her constituents are being met with denial and obfuscation and are not being given the answers to which they are entitled.
ROAD UP, UP, UP We may not have the record for the number of roads Closed, Access only, No Entry and so on. What is a record is the number of instances where there is not a soul in sight actually doing any work. What is going on? A helpful diversion sees the 25 minutes it takes to get me to Robertsbridge taking just under an hour. Major road alterations were predicted to be complete by Christmas drift on and on. The inadequate amateurs responsible couldn’t run a temperature. Of course, they never spelt out which Christmas.
The road surface on Fairlight Road that ‘always fails’ has failed again, marked as usual by oncoming vehicles swerving to avoid the pothole but not you. How about a Roman séance? They knew how to build roads…
A SLIP OF THE PEDANT’S PEN? The building plot whereon 16 properties have been erected was, surely, called the Market Garden site, where plants were grown commercially for profit. Now, however, it has been romanticised into Market Gardens. This is only really effective if it is ‘Lost’ and is something as compelling as Heligan. A scruffy bit of scrub by any other name would still not cut it
REPEAT WARNING The FRA is advertising its Spring Fling on Saturday, April 5 in the village hall at 7.30 pm. There’ll be a hot supper and pud, bar and music by the Kytes. Tickets, which are £15, can be had from DISH, the Friday Lunch Club and Hairbase. This is the sort of event the FRA do so well. Get your tickets while they’re still there!
Keith Pollard, Brookfield, Broadway