01273 302170 www.staubynsschoolbrighton.co.uk - Viva Lewes
01273 302170 www.staubynsschoolbrighton.co.uk - Viva Lewes
01273 302170 www.staubynsschoolbrighton.co.uk - Viva Lewes
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Photo by Fraser Crosbie<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> is built on hills and surrounded<br />
by a curvaceous landscape, so glimpses<br />
of the sky are often caught, accidentally,<br />
from high windows or when you<br />
reach the top of a twitten. But there<br />
are often dramatic, pink-streaked sunrises,<br />
gloriously bold sunsets, and lovely<br />
cloud formations over the Downs.<br />
Some of us walk around <strong>Lewes</strong> noticing<br />
only things from ground to eye<br />
level, or looking at our mobile phones.<br />
There’s a tremendous amount to be<br />
gained from looking up. The extraordinary<br />
early morning mood of the tilting<br />
ground with sunlight creeping up behind<br />
the buildings, for example. Then<br />
VIVALEWES<br />
issue 66. march 2012<br />
EDITORIAL<br />
there are the wider skies to see past<br />
the War Memorial and up over Mount<br />
Caburn. One of the delights of Twitter<br />
is the immediacy of the stunning photographs<br />
of the <strong>Lewes</strong> skyline posted<br />
by early morning runners up on Blackcap<br />
and dog walkers along the Ouse<br />
or strolling on the Railway Land. Of<br />
<strong>co</strong>urse, there are also the glories of the<br />
night sky to be explored, with or without<br />
fireworks adding extra splashes of<br />
<strong>co</strong>lour. So this month we’re celebrating<br />
the wel<strong>co</strong>me onset of spring with a<br />
theme of skies. Look up, every now and<br />
then, and enjoy what’s going on above<br />
your head.<br />
VIVA DEADLINES<br />
We plan the <strong>co</strong>ntents of each magazine six weeks ahead of any given month, with a mid-month<br />
advertising/<strong>co</strong>py deadline. Please send details of planned events to emma@vivalewes.<strong>co</strong>m,<br />
and any advertising queries to steve@vivalewes.<strong>co</strong>m, or call 434567.
VIVALEWES <strong>co</strong>ntents<br />
Bits and bobs.<br />
7-19. Ian Sec<strong>co</strong>mbe’s Point of View,<br />
another <strong>Lewes</strong> Moment, Diary Dates and<br />
more<br />
Regulars.<br />
21. My <strong>Lewes</strong>: Edwina Livesey<br />
23. Photo of the Month by Russell Tuppen<br />
24. Interview with Jack ‘Wycliffe’ Shepherd<br />
26. <strong>Lewes</strong> in History. Polish Spitfire aces at<br />
Chailey Airfield<br />
Events.<br />
29. Patience Agbabi<br />
31. Comedy Round-up<br />
33. <strong>Lewes</strong> Skeptics. Chris Lintott on how<br />
to dis<strong>co</strong>ver planets from your sofa<br />
35/37. Cinema. Satyajit Ray’s Company<br />
Limited and round-up<br />
39/41. Art and About, with our spotlight on<br />
Dawn Stacey<br />
43. <strong>Lewes</strong> Operatic Society celebrate 100<br />
years, with Pirates of Penzance<br />
45. Classical Round-up<br />
47. Cuarteto Guaranchando at the Lamb<br />
49. Gig Guide<br />
Food.<br />
53-61. We review the King’s Head, take tea<br />
in The Shelleys, make gnocchi in Famiglia<br />
and drink gin with the Nibbler<br />
The Way We Work.<br />
62-65. Simon Crummay’s portraits of<br />
florists<br />
Features.<br />
67. My Space. Astronomer Richie Jarvis<br />
69. Bricks and Mortar. The wind turbine at<br />
Glyndebourne<br />
71. Wildlife. Michael Blen<strong>co</strong>we tells us<br />
about rooks<br />
73. History of <strong>Lewes</strong> in 100 objects: the<br />
Southover shark<br />
Photo by Katie Moorman<br />
Photo by Russell Tupper
The Team.<br />
EDITOR: Emma Chaplin emma@vivalewes.<strong>co</strong>m<br />
DEPUTY EDITOR: Beth Miller beth@vivalewes.<strong>co</strong>m<br />
SUB-EDITOR: David Jarman<br />
EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Alex Leith alex@vivalewes.<strong>co</strong>m<br />
STAFF WRITER: Steve Ramsey<br />
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Caitlin Hayward-Tapp<br />
DESIGNER: Katie Moorman katie@vivalewes.<strong>co</strong>m<br />
ADVERTISING MANAGER: Steve Watts steve@vivalewes.<strong>co</strong>m<br />
PUBLISHER: Nick Williams nick@vivalewes.<strong>co</strong>m.<br />
<strong>Viva</strong> <strong>Lewes</strong> is based at Pipe Passage, 151b High Street, <strong>Lewes</strong>, BN7 1XU<br />
Issue 66. March 2012.<br />
74. Neighbours. Hastings and St Leonards<br />
77. Slow Sussex. Tim Locke on Hardham’s<br />
wall paintings<br />
79. Outdoor space. Baxter’s Field<br />
81. Where to go on Mother’s Day<br />
83. We try cardio-tennis<br />
85. Football. Interview with Simon<br />
Wormull<br />
86. Odd socs. The South Downs Society<br />
87. Shopping. Things in the sky<br />
Columns<br />
89-97. The usual suspects. John Henty,<br />
Beth Miller, David Jarman and Norman<br />
Baker<br />
Trade Secrets.<br />
99. The <strong>Lewes</strong> Cho<strong>co</strong>late Company<br />
Business news.<br />
101. What’s <strong>co</strong>ming and going in <strong>Lewes</strong><br />
Inside Left.<br />
122. A bird’s-eye view of <strong>Lewes</strong> in 1957<br />
...the head-in-the-clouds issue<br />
Every care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of our <strong>co</strong>ntent. The <strong>Viva</strong> <strong>Lewes</strong> Handbook cannot be held responsible for any<br />
omissions, errors or alterations.
THIS MONTH’S COVER<br />
WHERE DID yOu gET THAT HAT?<br />
Retired English<br />
literature lecturer John<br />
Hopley wears a leather<br />
hat with a braided band<br />
around the crown. The<br />
hat was bought from<br />
“the shop just outside<br />
Rye Station, specializing<br />
in hats,” about five<br />
years ago. Since then,<br />
John has subjected it to<br />
his personal breakingin<br />
technique of wearing<br />
it in the rain and<br />
regularly stamping on it to remove any sign of<br />
newness. Picture and words by Joe Knight.<br />
biTs and bobs<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> artist Tom Benjamin approached us about doing<br />
a <strong>co</strong>ver to <strong>co</strong>incide with his exhibition at St Anne’s<br />
Galleries, The Service of Clouds. We’re familiar with<br />
Tom’s wonderful landscapes, which he paints, as David<br />
Hockney does, on the spot, carting his canvases with<br />
him on his bicycle. Recently, he’s been crouching on<br />
the ground and <strong>co</strong>ncentrating on the sky, so we felt it<br />
would be great to use part of one of the paintings that<br />
will be in the show, Towards Mount Harry, to create<br />
a dreamy, cloud image for our <strong>co</strong>ver. Although Tom<br />
painted this on a clear, late afternoon in November,<br />
we feel it evokes an optimistic sense of sunny spring<br />
skies returning in March. He painted it, he tells us,<br />
when based near the old race<strong>co</strong>urse buildings, looking<br />
north-west towards Mount Harry and the Weald. We<br />
like the broad brushstrokes and the variations of thickness<br />
in paint which give the clouds texture and a sense<br />
of movement - any image of the sky, is, after all, only<br />
there until the cloud patterns change again.<br />
Tom Benjamin, The Service of Clouds, St Anne’s Galleries<br />
weekends 10-5pm, until 4th Mar or by appointment<br />
until 10th Mar. 111 High Street stannesgalleries.<strong>co</strong>m<br />
LEWES IN quOTES<br />
BALLOON ASCENT<br />
FROM THE GAS WORKS, LEWES<br />
MONDAY, SEPT. 22, 1828<br />
Mr Green respectfully announces to the Nobility,<br />
Gentry, and Inhabitants of the Town of LEWES<br />
and its Vicinity, that he intends on making an AS-<br />
CENT with his MAGNIFICENT BALLOON on<br />
MONDAY, the 22nd of September, 1828 at Three<br />
o’clock precisely, (being <strong>Lewes</strong> Great Sheep Fair Day)<br />
from a <strong>co</strong>mmodious Situation near the GASWORKS.<br />
A Band of Music will be in attendance.<br />
Tickets of admission at One Shilling and Two<br />
Shillings each, may be had at Lee’s, Lower’s and<br />
Baxter’s Libraries, at Laporte’s, and of Mr GREEN<br />
at Mr Jones’s, Linen Draper, bottom of School Hill,<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong>. Full particulars in the Hand Bills.<br />
7
OVER 1,000 REASONS TO<br />
BRING YOUR PRESCRIPTION<br />
TO SPECSAVERS<br />
Plus £20 o� glasses<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong><br />
218 High Street<br />
Tel <strong>01273</strong> 407 690<br />
Glasses from £69 range or above. Cannot be exchanged for cash or used with other o� ers. External non-Specsavers prescriptions only. Prescription must be<br />
presented at time of purchase. ©2012 Specsavers. All rights reserved.
IAN SECCOMbE’S pOINT Of VIEW<br />
biTs and bobs<br />
Two magnificent oak trees stand at the top of Cinder Hill, North Chailey, dwarfing the spaniel and its owner while<br />
the dusting of snow accentuates the shape and size of the boughs.<br />
HOSTINg INTERNATIONAL STuDENTS<br />
I grew up in Newbury, a town quite similar to <strong>Lewes</strong>, which<br />
also had a popular <strong>co</strong>llege of further education. As with Sussex<br />
Downs, many international students came to study in<br />
the town, and our family ‘hosted’ a number of them. It was<br />
a brilliant thing to do. It gave my parents some in<strong>co</strong>me of<br />
<strong>co</strong>urse, but Newbury had been a pretty monocultural place<br />
up until then, and I knew very little of the world outside my<br />
school and family. Having a delightful series of young men<br />
and women live with us; Bassem from the Lebanon, Hassan<br />
from Pakistan, Ayu from Indonesia, opened my eyes to other<br />
cultures in a way that studying books at school never <strong>co</strong>uld. I tried new foods, listened to different music, and<br />
gained an understanding of ‘other’ ways of doing things. EC<br />
If you think your family might be interested in hosting an international student, <strong>co</strong>ntact Camila Supervielle 402231 or<br />
visit the Sussex Downs website sussexdowns.ac.<strong>uk</strong>/International<br />
9
Real<br />
Wood<br />
Floors<br />
ANTARES<br />
Specialists in hardwood fl ooring.<br />
Professional fi tting service.<br />
Visit one of our showrooms.<br />
<strong>www</strong>.antarespsl.<strong>co</strong>m<br />
OPEN TUESDAY-SATURDAY<br />
10AM-5PM<br />
14 Sussex Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 4EA<br />
Tel: 01444 416892<br />
4 Market Lane, <strong>Lewes</strong>, East Sussex BN7 2NT<br />
Tel: <strong>01273</strong> 473498
TOMb WITH A VIEW #13<br />
biTs and bobs<br />
In September 1930, Alice Dudeney,<br />
then aged 64, went with Mr Bridgman,<br />
a <strong>Lewes</strong> stonemason, to Ringmer<br />
Church. ‘We saw a charming<br />
old stone tomb – 1727 – in Sussex<br />
sandstone. If it isn’t too much<br />
money he will <strong>co</strong>py it for Ernest’s<br />
grave.’ Two years later, feeling<br />
‘so tired’, she turned in to <strong>Lewes</strong><br />
Cemetery; ‘I sat, actually and for<br />
the first time, on Ernest’s grave. Oh my dear, how strange it seems that you are dead, that that is your grave.<br />
And some day it will be mine.’ Ernest and Alice Dudeney sustained their marriage for nearly fifty years; he was<br />
a mathematical genius who <strong>co</strong>mpiled crosswords for newspapers and magazines, she was a prolific novelist.<br />
Their partnership survived his depression and bad temper and her three-year absence with a married man. In<br />
late 1915 they re<strong>co</strong>nciled to ‘re-start’ their life at 138 High St with separate sitting rooms and bedrooms. Shared<br />
meals were tempestuous; when Henry called her a liar and a fool Alice would take herself upstairs and <strong>co</strong>nfide<br />
in her diaries – ‘What a wonderful marriage we might have had!’ After Ernest’s death in 1930 Alice resumed her<br />
affair with the artist David Hardy, although by 1934 she admitted that she was ‘bored by him’, preferring, in<br />
the mellowness of age, an independent life with her dalmatian Spangles, and the luxury of her ‘delicious’ house<br />
and well-stocked garden. Following a stroke in January 1945, Alice Dudeney lived, incapacitated, until 21st<br />
November; her ashes were placed in her husband’s grave. ‘I so hate Death and dread it,’ she had written after a<br />
church service in 1934. ‘Comforted myself by thinking I wasn’t dead yet and that there was roast chicken and<br />
ice cream for dinner.’ Words and photo by Lindsey Tydeman<br />
LEWES MOMENTS #3<br />
Why we good people of <strong>Lewes</strong> have to<br />
be subjected to a parking regime so out<br />
of kilter with everything else about the<br />
town, I shall never know. In any case, I’m<br />
told that writing in the grip of emotion is<br />
never a good thing, so I’ve waited a sensible<br />
amount of time before putting pen<br />
to paper on this one. It was the Monday<br />
after New Year’s Day – a Bank Holiday,<br />
no less – and <strong>Lewes</strong> was still basking<br />
in the glow and leniency of Christmas.<br />
But I should have known: for a certain<br />
section of the workforce it was business<br />
very much as usual. And so our overnight<br />
visitors, having parked well within the bounds of both decency and the white lines, were the recipients of a<br />
parking ticket at precisely 8.58 am that morning. Most of us here in <strong>Lewes</strong>, in most areas of our lives, have got<br />
the law-abiding thing sussed. But somehow, when it <strong>co</strong>mes to how and where and when to park, however well<br />
intentioned we are, we can’t quite get it right. A <strong>Lewes</strong> moment through and through. Juliette Mitchell<br />
11
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STREET NAMES Of LEWES #44<br />
Despite having existed for many years, Southover Road only<br />
gained a formal name in 1857 with the building of the railway<br />
station. Previously it had been known locally as ‘the Mabbotts’<br />
after the family living in Southover Grange. The family kept<br />
some rather strange <strong>co</strong>mpany, most notably a man known only<br />
as ‘Spring Heel Jack’. Jack gave the area a bad name after attaching<br />
springs to his shoes, enabling him to terrorise locals by leaping out from behind bushes and trees. Lined with<br />
elms, walnut trees and ash trees at the time, Southover Road would have been majestic but shadowy, providing<br />
him with many suitable hiding places and resulting in local residents boy<strong>co</strong>tting the area after dark. It appears no<br />
harm was meant by his bizarre behaviour, he just enjoyed giving people a fright. We still have our fair share of<br />
unusual characters, of <strong>co</strong>urse, but thankfully Jack’s odd tradition is one <strong>Lewes</strong> has willingly parted with. Thanks<br />
to Kim Clark’s revision of LS Davey’s Street Names of <strong>Lewes</strong>. Caitlin Hayward-Tapp<br />
SpEED-THE-pLOW<br />
In David Mamet’s<br />
Speed-the-Plow,<br />
Hollywood exec<br />
David Gould bets<br />
his friend $500<br />
he can seduce his<br />
new secretary. At<br />
the same time, his<br />
secretary is trying to seduce him into filming a philosophical<br />
novel rather than the cheesy ‘buddies’ movie<br />
he was planning. It’s a classic story of <strong>co</strong>mmercial<br />
appeal vs high art, and Mamet is clear which side he’s<br />
on: “The aim of drama is to put tushies in the seats”.<br />
Lyndsey Meer directs <strong>Lewes</strong> Theatre Club’s production<br />
from Sat 24th-Sat 31st, 7.45pm every day except<br />
Sunday, 2.45pm matinee on 31st, £8-10, 474826.<br />
SpOIL MuM ROTTEN<br />
CANCAN<br />
The usual jewellery purchase for Mother’s Day seemed a little old hat 21 years down<br />
the line, so I made my way to family-run gift shop Spoilt Rotten to see if they <strong>co</strong>uld<br />
help me out with their e<strong>co</strong>-friendly bath treats. The detail in each product was intricate,<br />
ranging from tiny flowers on a ‘butter based bath melt’ to love birds perched<br />
on a heart as part of a ‘bath blaster’. As I delayed decision-making by smelling all the<br />
candles, my eye was caught by a ‘love bomb’ grenade, embedded with flowers. And I<br />
knew I’d found the one - quirky, badass and definitely different, all while promising<br />
‘fragrant waves of loveliness’...resisting the urge to buy it for myself as a treat for<br />
International Women’s Day, I left the shop with a weight off my mind and a pink<br />
grenade in my handbag, ready to spoil my mother ‘rotten’. CHT<br />
Think you can’t<br />
cancan? Michelle<br />
Porter is here to teach<br />
you how - for a good<br />
cause. With a Frou<br />
Frou swap, to exchange<br />
‘frivolous garments and<br />
trinkets’ and a cancan<br />
workshop all for just £10 per person, the Oxfam Can-<br />
Can sounds like an event people will be queuing up to<br />
attend, perhaps practising those high kicks and ‘yips’<br />
while they wait. Lack of a suitable outfit is no excuse,<br />
as use of petti<strong>co</strong>ats is included in the <strong>co</strong>st, as is the<br />
<strong>co</strong>ffee and cake required to replenish energy after all<br />
that petti<strong>co</strong>at ruffling. Open to people of all abilities.<br />
Thurs 8th, All Saints Centre, £10, 12-2pm. CHT<br />
13
iTs and bobs<br />
SEASONAL TIppLE: MuM’S THE WORD<br />
Our March <strong>co</strong>cktail of the month is dedicated to mothers. Sam Pryor,<br />
<strong>co</strong>cktail wizard at Pelham House, has <strong>co</strong>n<strong>co</strong>cted a pretty, delicate<br />
drink which reminds him of his grandmother, and reminds me of<br />
Paddington Bear. You start with Parfait Amours, the delightfully lilachued<br />
liqueur which smells of Parma Violets. You mix this with equal<br />
quantities of lemon juice, gin (he uses Tanqueray 10, which is “very<br />
refined”, but not in a Hyacinth Bouquet sense) and - the bit that reminds<br />
me of the duffel <strong>co</strong>ated bear - marmalade syrup. Sam created<br />
the syrup by <strong>co</strong>mbining marmalade, dry Vermouth and orange bitters.<br />
To make the <strong>co</strong>cktail, all of the ingredients are poured into a shaker,<br />
ice is added and the mixture stirred, not shaken, because, he explains,<br />
“shaking turns the violet liqueur grey”. The resulting drink, which<br />
he’s named ‘Mum’s the Word’, is then strained into a glass, with a curl<br />
of lemon rind to de<strong>co</strong>rate. We sip the aromatic blue liquid without a<br />
straw to get the full flavour of violet, with a hint of bitter orange and<br />
a delightful aftertaste. I’m not sure if Paddington would like it, but<br />
we certainly do. Pelham House will be offering Mum’s the Word as a<br />
<strong>co</strong>cktail special on Mother’s Day, 18th March. EC<br />
bENN bERkELEy<br />
On Thursday 15th, <strong>Lewes</strong>-based adventurer<br />
Benn Berkeley, 25, will be<br />
taking part in the first ever Siberian<br />
Black Ice Race, <strong>co</strong>vering 379 miles in<br />
14 days over the frozen Lake Baikal.<br />
The lake, which Benn calls ‘one<br />
of the world’s most beautiful and<br />
treacherous wildernesses’, experiences<br />
temperatures as low as -40 degrees<br />
C. and winds of up to 90mph. Benn<br />
is still looking for sponsors; <strong>co</strong>ntact<br />
bennberkeley@hotmail.<strong>co</strong>m for details.<br />
CLARIfICATIONS<br />
CRuSE bEREAVEMENT<br />
It has been brought to our attention that the meditation group mentioned in the January issue is <strong>co</strong>ncerned about a<br />
mix-up. The Meditation Society, as we erroneously referred to them, is actually a well-known international society,<br />
not to be <strong>co</strong>nfused with the <strong>Lewes</strong> group. Known as the ‘Walking in Peace Sangha’, our local group are part of<br />
the ‘Community of Interbeing’, which hopefully practices forgiveness as part of its philosophy. They follow the<br />
teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh. And, after our February handbook hit the doormats, we received two further suggestions<br />
for the large building pictured in the 1948 photograph on the Inside Left page. We thought it might be a<br />
grain store or <strong>co</strong>king plant, but Tony Muddle was certain it was the gasworks. And Bob Elliston was sure it was an<br />
electricity generating station. Anyone else know different?<br />
Photo by Katie Moorman<br />
The period after losing someone dear to<br />
you can be a terribly lonely time. Talking<br />
to people who understand can help<br />
a great deal. Cruse Bereavement Service<br />
have set up a drop-in session open to anyone<br />
who’s been bereaved. This takes place<br />
every Friday and is based at the House of<br />
Friendship on School Hill. All ages are<br />
wel<strong>co</strong>me. New people should <strong>co</strong>me along<br />
at 10am; people who’ve been before from<br />
11am. Contact Jennifer on 555258 for<br />
more information.
SHAkESpEARE MARATHON<br />
biTs and bobs<br />
Sussex Downs College has recently been ringing with ‘Sounds, and<br />
sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not’, as the se<strong>co</strong>nd year students<br />
tackle Shakespeare for their final assessments. Taking to the stage of<br />
the Brighton Pavilion Theatre with The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, A<br />
Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Winter’s Tale, the students will be<br />
performing this four-day marathon of some of Shakespeare’s best-loved<br />
plays as a mixture of stylized and traditional theatre. Hopefully the<br />
students will pass with flying <strong>co</strong>lours, leaving the audience to declare:<br />
‘O, brave new world, that has such people in’t!’. 23rd/25th/26th/27th, 7pm, £6/£5 <strong>co</strong>nc, 709709 brightondome.org<br />
bOOk REVIEW: THE SERVICE Of CLOuDS<br />
The Service of Clouds is a book celebrating Tom Benjamin’s<br />
paintings, published by St Anne’s Galleries, where he exhibits.<br />
The title is from a statement by John Ruskin, which<br />
is used as an epigram for this handsome 52-plate publication:<br />
“if a general and characteristic name were needed for<br />
modern landscape art, none better <strong>co</strong>uld be invented than<br />
‘the service of clouds’.” That Ruskin was writing in a book<br />
called Modern Painters, in 1843, is fairly telling: Benjamin’s<br />
work is gloriously, unashamedly old-fashioned, seemingly<br />
uninfluenced by any artist or movement since Claude Monet. And all the more wonderful for that: here we<br />
have familiar scenes (Brighton seafront, Cuckmere Haven, the fields around Rodmell) in lavish multi<strong>co</strong>loured<br />
brushstrokes, offering the reader, to quote Julian Bell in the book’s foreword, “blasts of virtual fresh air.” Most of<br />
us can’t afford a real, live Tom Benjamin on our living room wall: here’s some <strong>co</strong>nsolation.<br />
£15 from St Anne’s Galleries, Skylark and Tourist Information.<br />
COMpETITION<br />
This month we’re offering two <strong>Viva</strong> readers the opportunity to win a pair of<br />
tickets to watch the exhilarating dancers of the Ballet Rambert in their Seven<br />
for a Secret tour. Part of the programme is based on the tempestuous Tennessee<br />
Williams play, A Streetcar Named Desire. You can see it at The Theatre Royal,<br />
Brighton, 28th – 31st March. Tickets £11-£25. 0844 871 7650 (bkg fee) atgtickets.<strong>co</strong>m/brighton<br />
For your chance to win a pair of tickets, valid for performances<br />
on Wed 28th March at 7.30pm or Sat 31st March 2.30pm ONLY, answer<br />
the following question: Who played Blanche DuBois opposite Marlon Brando<br />
in the 1951 film of A Streetcar Named Desire? Usual <strong>co</strong>mpetition rules apply.<br />
Send your answer with a phone number to emma@vivalewes.<strong>co</strong>m or to <strong>Viva</strong> <strong>Lewes</strong> <strong>co</strong>mpetition, 151b High Street,<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong>, BN7 1XU. Closing date, Thurs 15th March. The two winners will be <strong>co</strong>ntacted by Mon 19th March.<br />
READER OffER<br />
Put your best foot forward with an lovely pedicure offer from The Beauty Rooms. See page 93 for more details.<br />
15
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MARCH 2012<br />
diaRy daTes<br />
Fri 2nd, International Guitar Night. With Lulo Reinhardt (Django’s great nephew), Adrian Legg and<br />
Brian Gore. <strong>Lewes</strong> Town Hall, 7.30pm, £15/£12 from Union Music Store and Tourist Info.<br />
Sat 3rd, Salsa night. Dance class by Patricia de Souza with a show dance from salsa troupe The Mandrels,<br />
followed by salsa orchestra Bacalao. All Saints Centre, 7pm, £10/£15 from Union Music Store.<br />
Sun 4th, Brass for Brunch. Latin, swing and blues from Sussex Ensemble Brass Fusion. All in aid of<br />
Pells Pool and the Oyster Project. All Saints Centre, doors 10.30am for 11am start, £5/3 from <strong>Lewes</strong><br />
Town Hall, <strong>Lewes</strong> Travel or 471469.<br />
Mon 5th-10th, Aladdin. The <strong>Lewes</strong> Arms Dramatic Society’s 35th Annual Adult Panto, declared<br />
‘totally unsuitable for children, or those of a nervous disposition’. <strong>Lewes</strong> Arms, 8pm, Mon-Thurs £7<br />
Fri-Sat £8.<br />
Wed 7th, Dementia Café Launch. New <strong>co</strong>mmunity initiative to support anyone affected by dementia,<br />
with “visiting speakers, tea, cake, music, friendship and laughter”. Claydon House, 2.30pm, Free<br />
(donations appreciated).<br />
Wed 7th, <strong>Lewes</strong> Astronomers Talk. Dr Marisa March from Sussex University will be speaking on<br />
Dark Energy and the Accelerating Universe. Town Hall, 7.30pm, members free/£3 non-members.<br />
Thurs 8th, Burma Campaign UK Talk. Tun Khin from Western Burma will be speaking about the<br />
current political situation. Westgate Chapel, 7.30pm, free.<br />
Thurs 8th, Historic <strong>Lewes</strong> Talk. Emma O’Connor sheds new light on the history of <strong>Lewes</strong>. <strong>Lewes</strong><br />
Town Hall, 7.45pm, free for members/£2 non-members.<br />
Fri 9th, Freedom from Torture Talk. Peri<strong>co</strong> Rodriguez will be talking about his role at the charity<br />
Freedom from Torture. Westgate Chapel, 7.30pm, free.<br />
<strong>www</strong>.<strong>co</strong>mmoncause.org.<strong>uk</strong><br />
Saturday 3rd March<br />
Cliffe Precinct<br />
9.am - 1pm<br />
17
diaRy daTes<br />
MARCH 2012 (<strong>co</strong>nt)<br />
Fri 9th, Long Revolution. Prof. Marie Harder will be speaking at the Headstrong Club on sustainability<br />
and the underlying values of the individual. Elephant and Castle, 8pm, £3 non-members, headstrongclub.<br />
<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong>/<br />
Wed 14th, Public Lecture. <strong>Lewes</strong> University of the Third Age host a talk on Fool figures in Shakespeare’s<br />
plays by Terry Hodgson. <strong>Lewes</strong> Town Hall Council Chamber, 2.30pm, free.<br />
Thurs 15th, <strong>Lewes</strong> Poetry. An evening of poetry with MC Ollie Wilson, with a prize limerick <strong>co</strong>ntest in<br />
the interval. <strong>Lewes</strong> Arms, doors at 8pm, £4.<br />
Sat 17th, St Patrick’s Night Gig. All Saints Centre, 7.30pm, £8.50/£7 <strong>co</strong>nc from Union Music Store.<br />
Sat 17th, Paws & Claws Bookfair. A huge range of se<strong>co</strong>ndhand and rare books from 40 book dealers.<br />
Town Hall, 10am-4pm, 50p, 477555.<br />
Wed 21st-Sun 25th, Charleston Gardening Festival. Talks, demonstrations and workshops. 01323<br />
811626.<br />
Sat 24th, Book Sale. Nutty Wizard Café, 10am-1pm, £1 per family.<br />
Sun 25th, The <strong>Lewes</strong> Mile. Run a mile for Sport Relief. <strong>Lewes</strong> Leisure Centre, event opens at 10am, £6<br />
adult/£3 child/£15 family.<br />
Tue 27th, Public Lecture. <strong>Lewes</strong> University of the Third Age host a presentation on Convenient Marriages<br />
and In<strong>co</strong>nvenient Deaths. <strong>Lewes</strong> Town Hall Lecture Room,10am, free.<br />
Fri 30th, Suspiciously Elvis. The well-known Elvis tribute act returns to <strong>Lewes</strong>. <strong>Lewes</strong> Rugby Club, 8pm,<br />
£12, 476616<br />
Sat 31st, Starfish Event. Junior gig in the early afternoon followed by a senior gig with The Officials headlining.<br />
All Saints Centre, 3-5pm/7pm, £3 under-18s/£5 adults.<br />
Sat 31st, The People’s Passion Workshops. BBC Radio 4’s new music project involving singers across the<br />
<strong>co</strong>untry performing an Easter Anthem - singing and drama workshops through the day culminating in a performance.<br />
St Pancras Church, 10am-4pm, £5, 475438, towardslewes2015@gmail.<strong>co</strong>m
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Photo by Katie Moorman<br />
mylewes<br />
Profession: I’m one of the education officers at <strong>Lewes</strong><br />
Castle. My main job at the moment is running a<br />
project aiming to raise awareness in the <strong>co</strong>mmunity<br />
about the Battle of <strong>Lewes</strong>, in the run-up to its 750th<br />
anniversary in 2014. We’re en<strong>co</strong>uraging people to<br />
<strong>co</strong>me up with ideas for projects, and helping to turn<br />
those projects into reality. There’s one group, for<br />
example, fashioning a tapestry depicting the battle.<br />
And a group of researchers working on identifying<br />
where the 1264 war graves are, and <strong>co</strong>mmemorating<br />
those sites.<br />
We hear you’re going to set the castle on fire… On<br />
the 14th April there’s an interactive event in which<br />
specialist projection experts are going to recreate the<br />
Battle of <strong>Lewes</strong> on the flintwork of Barbican Gate<br />
using state-of-the-art lighting techniques, as part of a<br />
4d extravaganza, involving actors dressed in medieval<br />
gear, silent dis<strong>co</strong> headphones, and Harveys beer. A<br />
once-in-a-lifetime experience: tickets will be on sale<br />
soon. On the same day there’s a <strong>co</strong>nference involving<br />
some of the biggest names in medieval history<br />
research.<br />
So the 2014 celebrations are likely to be a big deal?<br />
An enormous deal. The Battle of <strong>Lewes</strong> wasn’t just<br />
any old battle, it was an extremely important event in<br />
English history, as it led to the first-ever representative<br />
Parliament, and helped shape our democracy. In<br />
2014 the eyes of the whole <strong>co</strong>untry will be on <strong>Lewes</strong>:<br />
we have to decide what they will see.<br />
Battle re-enactments, that sort of thing? We’re<br />
hoping so. But we also want to reflect the effect the<br />
EDWINA LIVESEy<br />
battle had on the townspeople of <strong>Lewes</strong>. It must have<br />
been an extremely traumatic event for the townspeople:<br />
the monks re<strong>co</strong>rded 2,700 deaths that day, as<br />
many as lived in the town.<br />
Are you local? I’m originally from Yorkshire, which<br />
is evident whenever I say ‘castle’, which is a lot, in the<br />
circumstances. I came here ten years ago for a visit,<br />
and never left.<br />
What’s your favourite <strong>Lewes</strong> landmark? Harveys<br />
Brewery. I love it when steam <strong>co</strong>mes out the chimney,<br />
which drives home the point that it’s not just a beautiful<br />
building: there’s real industry going on in there.<br />
What’s your local? The <strong>Lewes</strong> Arms. I don’t eat out<br />
much in <strong>Lewes</strong>, but I do like drinking hot cho<strong>co</strong>late<br />
with cream, on the sofas in the Riverside, with the<br />
wonderful views.<br />
Anything you don’t like about <strong>Lewes</strong>? Being a<br />
lovely hill town, with a medieval street pattern, parking<br />
my van is difficult and it has been vandalised three<br />
times recently.<br />
Do you think <strong>Lewes</strong> <strong>co</strong>uld sustain a permanent<br />
cinema? At first I didn’t like the idea of the Town<br />
Council taking over the cinema at the All Saints.<br />
State-run cinema? It sounded like something in the<br />
Soviet era. But if the money can be churned back into<br />
the building to make improvements to the seating, and<br />
other facilities, maybe it is a good idea. I’d like to see<br />
a permanent cinema. The Maltings will soon be<strong>co</strong>me<br />
vacant, when the re<strong>co</strong>rd office is moved to Falmer.<br />
That would be a perfect venue. I bet someone <strong>co</strong>uld<br />
find some funding for that… Interveiw by Alex Leith<br />
21
WATCH THE bIRDIE<br />
PhoTo oF The MonTh<br />
Every week readers’ pictures taken in and around <strong>Lewes</strong> are published on our web magazine at vivalewes.<strong>co</strong>m,<br />
and also on our facebook page, and from these we choose the image to grace this monthly slot. This month’s<br />
picture – bang on our ‘sky’ theme’, is of a wheatear, resting on a fencepost near Rise Farm (during its long<br />
journey from Sub-Saharan Africa to the Arctic), taken by Russell Tuppen.<br />
Russell spends much of his spare time in the <strong>co</strong>untryside, and takes his Olympus DSLR E510 wherever he<br />
goes, snapping wildlife, landscapes and flora close-ups. “I took this shot using the telephoto lens, on an aperture<br />
setting,” he says, “which gives it that shallow depth of field. I know fairly well how wildlife behaves, and I<br />
knew that this bird wasn’t bothered about me being fifteen or so yards away, so I took my time about it. As soon<br />
as I pressed the shutter, I knew that I had a nice image.”<br />
“<strong>Lewes</strong> is a <strong>co</strong>untryside town,” he says, “and it’s great how quickly you can get away from the urban area and<br />
see all sorts of wildlife, like yellowhammers, fieldfares, various owls, larks, waders, dippers and differing birds<br />
of prey.” We’re looking forward to seeing some more of his shots in our web magazine. Meanwhile, you can<br />
check them out at rmtphotography.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong>.<br />
Send your pictures to alex@vivalewes.<strong>co</strong>m. Our favourite wins the photographer £20. Unless otherwise arranged<br />
we reserve the right to use all pictures received in future <strong>Viva</strong> Magazines Ltd publications.<br />
23<br />
23
Jack Shepherd<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> is ‘a really healthy <strong>co</strong>llection of radicals and cranks’<br />
I meet veteran actor, director<br />
and playwright Jack<br />
(Wycliffe) Shepherd and<br />
we speak about moving to<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> and his new play,<br />
soon to be performed in the<br />
town, Valley of the Shadow.<br />
What drew you to live in<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong>? I gave a talk at The<br />
Headstrong Club about<br />
a play I’d written, which<br />
featured Tom Paine, called<br />
In Lambeth [winner of two<br />
Time Out Awards for Best<br />
Directing and Best Writing<br />
when it was performed at<br />
the Donmar Warehouse in<br />
1989]. And gauging from<br />
the response, and speaking<br />
to people afterwards, I<br />
thought ‘This is quite good.<br />
I <strong>co</strong>uld live here. There are<br />
people I can get on with.<br />
Working class, professional<br />
class and middle class<br />
dissidents. People I like.’<br />
There’s a really healthy<br />
<strong>co</strong>llection of radicals and<br />
cranks, and individuals with<br />
cussed opinions. I worked<br />
in Chichester, and sensed<br />
the politics were certainly<br />
not on the left. <strong>Lewes</strong> is different.<br />
They blow up parking<br />
meters. The actor and<br />
anarchist David Markham,<br />
imprisoned by the KGB in<br />
1970, talked to me about the<br />
power of saying ’no’. <strong>Lewes</strong><br />
understands that.<br />
You’re well known for<br />
your TV roles. How<br />
would you characterise<br />
television work? It’s selfserving.<br />
You’re an expert,<br />
you turn up and do the job<br />
to the best of your ability.<br />
The programme is broadcast,<br />
sold and you be<strong>co</strong>me<br />
part of the <strong>co</strong>mmercial<br />
system. You can get paid<br />
well for it. But the Reithian<br />
values about television being<br />
‘to educate, inform and<br />
entertain’ are long gone.<br />
TV in Britain has be<strong>co</strong>me<br />
part of the market system,<br />
like it is in America.<br />
Do you watch much telly?<br />
I like the recent Danish<br />
programmes like Borgen. It’s<br />
very good. Birgitte Nyborg<br />
starts off with the belief<br />
she can be Prime Minister<br />
and not be <strong>co</strong>mpromised by<br />
sex and power. It reminds<br />
me of Bill Brand, a 1970s<br />
TV series I was in, written<br />
by Trevor Griffiths. It was<br />
about an old Labour that<br />
has more or less disappeared,<br />
and it involved<br />
political principles getting<br />
destroyed by the nature of<br />
power.<br />
You’re involved with<br />
the (relatively) recently<br />
formed The Players’<br />
Collective in <strong>Lewes</strong>? Yes.<br />
I believe that theatre is<br />
strongest when it relates<br />
to the <strong>co</strong>mmunity around<br />
it. The <strong>co</strong>llective has an<br />
egalitarian structure, in<br />
which everyone involved<br />
gets a similar share in<br />
profits, whatever their role<br />
(acting or backstage). We<br />
draw in professionals, semiprofessionals<br />
and amateurs.<br />
Acting is a difficult profession<br />
these days, especially if<br />
you’ve got family <strong>co</strong>mmitments.<br />
But lots of people are<br />
very good, and an organisation<br />
like this can help. We<br />
call on the resources of<br />
anyone who lives in the area<br />
who has something to offer.<br />
I like it because I don’t just<br />
want to do safe, <strong>co</strong>mfortable<br />
plays. I prefer cutting-edge<br />
work, things to get my teeth<br />
into.<br />
The Players’ Collective is<br />
putting on your new play,<br />
Valley of the Shadow. Yes,<br />
it’s the first in a trilogy in<br />
which the central characters<br />
are artists. Clever audience
members will know who I’ve<br />
based them on.<br />
The action begins in 1914,<br />
the same era as Downton<br />
Abbey. Are you a fan? I’ve<br />
not watched it, but I know<br />
Julian Fellowes. He’s a very<br />
good historian and a nice<br />
chap. A patrician.<br />
What’s the play about?<br />
There are all kinds of<br />
threads. The unforgettable<br />
trauma of the First World<br />
War. The shift in art from<br />
Victorian naturalism to<br />
Brutalism and Modernism.<br />
The crumbling ‘old’ sense of<br />
class. And the death of a village.<br />
My parents were from<br />
a tiny village outside Ripon<br />
called Sharow, and like so<br />
many in England, its infrastructure<br />
was destroyed by<br />
mechanisation. The action<br />
drifts along in the first part,<br />
beguiling the audience. One<br />
character is a <strong>co</strong>mposer who<br />
<strong>co</strong>llects folk songs from all<br />
over the <strong>co</strong>untry, using their<br />
music to further his own art<br />
without any sense he’s stealing<br />
from them. The se<strong>co</strong>nd<br />
part takes place in 1917, and<br />
it’s much more disquieting.<br />
Everyone still alive is badly<br />
injured or traumatised. One<br />
character had begun by call-<br />
Photo by: alex Leith<br />
ing himself a ‘Futurist’ who<br />
believes in arms, riots and<br />
destruction. In the se<strong>co</strong>nd<br />
part, he’s so damaged, he<br />
can’t get out of a wheelchair.<br />
Where does the art theme<br />
<strong>co</strong>me from? I went to art<br />
school in Newcastle. I still<br />
paint for pleasure. And writing<br />
plays can be like creating<br />
a picture, of a sort. You start<br />
off fuzzy, with outlines,<br />
and bit by bit, you build the<br />
solidity and create a ‘world’.<br />
What’s next for you? I<br />
hope to be able to put on the<br />
se<strong>co</strong>nd play in the trilogy,<br />
which I actually wrote first,<br />
called Half Moon, set in 1982.<br />
It’s about the artists when<br />
they’re old and decrepit,<br />
gathered for the funeral of<br />
one of their number. It looks<br />
at their appalling behaviour<br />
during the Se<strong>co</strong>nd World<br />
War. Interview by Emma<br />
Chaplin<br />
Valley of the Shadow, 2nd-<br />
12th April, theplayers<strong>co</strong>llective.<strong>co</strong>m<br />
inTeRview<br />
25
chailey’S WW2 heritage<br />
Polish pilots’ vital role in the D-day Landings<br />
On the afternoon of 18th May 1944, Flying<br />
Officer Mieczyslaw ‘Miki’ Adamek, 26, found<br />
himself in real trouble, two miles off Seaford<br />
Head, returning from a mission in his Spitfire,<br />
attacking a German gun emplacement in<br />
Dreux, Normandy.<br />
His plane had been hit by enemy anti-aircraft<br />
fire, it was losing power, and it didn’t look as if<br />
he would make it back to the nearby ALG (Advanced<br />
Landing Ground) between Plumpton<br />
and Chailey, where he was based. His Squadron<br />
Leader, Wlodzimierz Mikska, ordered him via<br />
radio to bail out, which he did, exiting the <strong>co</strong>ckpit<br />
and releasing his parachute as his aircraft<br />
plummeted towards the sea.<br />
Adamek, tall, dark, handsome and heavily<br />
de<strong>co</strong>rated, a butcher in civilian life, was one<br />
of around 150 Polish pilots based in England,<br />
many of whom were veterans of the Battle of<br />
Britain, in which they had played a vital part.<br />
Like most of these pilots, he had taken part<br />
in the defence of his <strong>co</strong>untry after the Nazi<br />
invasion in early September 1939. The Polish<br />
air force had been swiftly defeated by the far<br />
superior Luftwaffe, and Adamek, like so many<br />
others, had managed to avoid capture by escaping<br />
across the border to neutral Romania, and<br />
eventually onto England, to <strong>co</strong>ntinue the fight<br />
against Hitler’s forces.<br />
Chailey Airfield had been built in the winter<br />
of 1943/44 as part of Operation Overlord, the<br />
forth<strong>co</strong>ming invasion of Normandy, to house<br />
three squadrons of Spitfires (all manned by<br />
Polish pilots) and the Controlling Wing Headquarters.<br />
Their eventual mission was to provide<br />
air support for the Allied troops as they landed<br />
in Normandy; in the meantime they were<br />
utilised to attack enemy installations in France,<br />
provide es<strong>co</strong>rts to bomber formations, help with<br />
air-sea rescue missions, and to carry out air<br />
re<strong>co</strong>nnaissance.<br />
The Poles had been in Chailey since April 26th,<br />
largely living under canvas and, weather permitting,<br />
ac<strong>co</strong>mplishing several missions a day. In<br />
their free time they participated in football<br />
matches (one against the schoolboys from Ardingly<br />
College), watched propaganda films in the<br />
makeshift cinema at the airfield, and frequented<br />
the pubs in the area, including the nearby<br />
Plough, then housed in a wooden hut (the<br />
original having been demolished in the making<br />
of the airfield). Dances were held in their<br />
honour at Wivelsfield Green and Chailey village<br />
halls. Food was strictly rationed, but supplements<br />
were available. In one instance a pig was<br />
acquired from nearby Warningore Farm, by<br />
Miki Adamek, and the squadron enjoyed superb<br />
sausages for a week or more.<br />
In the air, the Poles were revelling in the fact<br />
that, in a <strong>co</strong>mplete reversal of the situation<br />
in 1939, they had superior planes in superior<br />
numbers to the Luftwaffe, and up until that day<br />
they had suffered no casualties on their missions<br />
from Chailey.<br />
Flight Lieutenant Adamek, within sight of the<br />
Seven Sisters, became the first. His parachute<br />
got caught up with the tail-plane of his Spitfire,<br />
he was unable to undo the harness, and he was<br />
dragged into the sea as the aircraft sank to the<br />
bottom. Later his body was located by the Newhaven<br />
lifeboat. That night, at the airfield, there<br />
was a party and a dance held for the airmen,<br />
attended by ATS and Land Girls, but spirits<br />
would have been low.<br />
Spirits would have sunk still further three days<br />
later: six Spitfires set off on an early-morning
mission to attack trains north of the Seine, and<br />
only four made it back after being caught up in<br />
flak. Flight Lieutenant Josef Jeka was hit and<br />
wounded, and forced to crash land in France,<br />
managing to get out of his damaged plane in<br />
one piece. Flight Lieutenant Jan Kurowski<br />
wasn’t so fortunate; his Spitfire was hit twice<br />
and exploded in mid-air, instantly killing the<br />
pilot.<br />
The D-Day landings took place just over two<br />
weeks later, and Chailey-based Spitfires played<br />
an important part, providing air <strong>co</strong>ver for the<br />
crucial American landings at Utah and Omaha<br />
beaches. The next few days were practically<br />
without respite for the pilots, flying up to four<br />
cross-channel missions a day. But remarkably,<br />
until the Polish squadrons moved out of Chailey<br />
by July 1st (they were transferred to ALG<br />
Apuldram, SW of Chichester) they suffered no<br />
more casualties.<br />
Only a skeleton RAF presence remained at the<br />
airbase, but Chailey was to witness one more<br />
dramatic episode before it was closed down. A<br />
Flying Fortress, nicknamed ‘The Devil’s Brat’,<br />
having managed to limp across the Channel<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> in hisToRy<br />
with two of its four engines out of action, still<br />
laden with its bombs, emergency-landed after<br />
the pilot had spotted the small strip. The plane<br />
was far too big for the runway, and on landing<br />
a damaged propeller ripped through the petrol<br />
tank, causing a fire in the plane. The crew<br />
all managed to exit the aircraft and get a safe<br />
distance away from it before it exploded with a<br />
noise that <strong>co</strong>uld probably be heard in <strong>Lewes</strong>.<br />
There’s little evidence of the existence of such<br />
an important historical site nowadays, though<br />
in the car park of The Plough, a <strong>co</strong>uple of miles<br />
down the road, there’s a memorial to the Polish<br />
pilots, which was erected in 2000 (an Airshow<br />
was held in 2004 to mark the sixtieth anniversary<br />
of the pilots’ arrival in Sussex). It pays<br />
its respect to the two men who died while stationed<br />
in Chailey. In total, 2,000 Polish airmen<br />
lost their lives during the war. Alex Leith<br />
The main research resource for this article was<br />
the book ‘Spit & Polish’ by Richard Whittle,<br />
which you can buy at The Plough. Thanks to the<br />
artist Barry Weekley and Richard for the use of<br />
the painting Wings over Chailey, which we’ve used<br />
to illustrate these pages.<br />
27
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exclusive bands this March<br />
Thursday / March 1 / 8.30pm<br />
Dexter Grimes Quartet / Classic jazz featuring Sam Miles<br />
Thursday / March 8 / 8.30pm<br />
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Thursday / March 15 / 8.30pm<br />
Moonlighters / Easy RnB/Soul featuring Kate Turvey<br />
Thursday / March 22 / 8.30pm<br />
Smokestack / Authentic blues featuring Phil Mills<br />
Thursday / March 29 / 8.30pm<br />
Moonlighters / Easy RnB/Soul featuring Kate Turvey<br />
Sunday lunchtimes from 2-4pm<br />
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patience agbabi<br />
A ‘post-watershed poet’<br />
For the first time, Patience Agbabi will be alighting<br />
in <strong>Lewes</strong> long enough to perform her poetry at the<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> Monday Literary Club.<br />
You’ve called yourself a ‘post-watershed poet’.<br />
Should we prepare to be shocked? It depends<br />
whether you read the Guardian or the Daily Mail!<br />
I’m currently <strong>co</strong>mpleting a <strong>co</strong>ntemporary version<br />
of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, so it’s a good idea not<br />
to bring the children. I mostly write for adults and<br />
some of my work’s influenced by film noir so there’s<br />
sometimes sex, violence and/or strong language. I’d<br />
be un<strong>co</strong>mfortable if there were children present but<br />
I have been known to offend adults. If you <strong>co</strong>me<br />
prepared to be shocked, you won’t be shocked.<br />
So you’ve been influenced by long-dead white<br />
men. Anyone in particular apart from Chaucer?<br />
Other long-dead white men include Wordsworth<br />
for attempting to write in the simple, direct<br />
language really spoken by men, and Coleridge for<br />
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel. And<br />
there’s still a place in my heart for the Romantics.<br />
But there are loads of more recently dead writers<br />
I’m inspired by, like Robert Frost and Michael<br />
Donaghy. And loads of women poets still alive and<br />
kicking: Carol Ann Duffy and Sharon Olds, Jackie<br />
Kay and Kate Clanchy, Leontia Flynn and Catherine<br />
Smith. The list goes on…<br />
As an alive-and-kicking poet yourself, is it all<br />
about being on the stage rather than the page?<br />
It’s both. I’ve spent the last fifteen years trying to<br />
close the chasm between the two. There was a time<br />
when you were either a ‘page’ poet or a ‘performance’<br />
poet, as if you <strong>co</strong>uldn’t be both. As if poetry<br />
itself <strong>co</strong>uldn’t be both. I generally rhyme and my<br />
work is accessible, so it lends itself well to performance.<br />
Some poems are born for performance; others<br />
have performance thrust upon them. If I had to<br />
choose between the two, I’d go for the page. It all<br />
starts with the writing. Without the page, there’d<br />
be no stage.<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
Photo by: Lyndon douglas<br />
LiTeRaTuRe<br />
You did a Creative Writing MA at Sussex. Was<br />
that a formative experience? It was one of the<br />
best years of my life. I’d already published my first<br />
two books but it gave me permission to write full<br />
time rather than fit it in around other activities. I<br />
wrote a <strong>co</strong>rona (a sonnet sequence where the last<br />
line of one be<strong>co</strong>mes the first line of the next, and<br />
the very last line is the same as the first). I lived, ate<br />
and slept sonnets. I began my love affair with film<br />
noir which has be<strong>co</strong>me a strong influence on my<br />
work. So, yes, it was a creative feast.<br />
Were you a frequent visitor to <strong>Lewes</strong> during<br />
that year? I used to change at <strong>Lewes</strong> to go to<br />
Falmer, but there was never time to hang about.<br />
But I have a soft spot for Sussex because I lived in<br />
Goddards Green as a child and went to Twineham<br />
School. Part of me is still in Sussex.<br />
Juliette Mitchell<br />
Patience Agbabi will be at Pelham House on 26th<br />
March, 8pm. For more information, <strong>co</strong>ntact chris.<br />
mondaylit@gmail.<strong>co</strong>m.<br />
29
The<br />
Con<br />
Club<br />
Treason Productions & Boundary Events Ltd Presents<br />
THE TREAS N SHOW<br />
Every 2nd<br />
Thurs of the<br />
month<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> Constitutional Club<br />
139 High Street, <strong>Lewes</strong>.<br />
Thursday 15th March @ 8.30pm<br />
Tickets £9.00 & £7.00<br />
Reservations 0845 396 4762<br />
or e-mail: tickets@treasonshow.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong><br />
Look<br />
out<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong>!<br />
“Savegely Funny-Fantastically Silly” THE GUARDIAN
<strong>co</strong>medy round-up<br />
CoMedy<br />
Typical. You wait ages for one <strong>co</strong>medy club and then<br />
three <strong>co</strong>me along at once. Prime Cuts is a new cabaretstyle<br />
club at the Phoenix Theatre on the industrial<br />
estate. The promoter is <strong>co</strong>median and <strong>co</strong>mpère Eden<br />
Rivers who’s been running events at the Three and Ten<br />
pub and Marlborough Theatre in Brighton for years.<br />
He aims to promote less established names alongside<br />
well-known <strong>co</strong>mics, and there will be three gigs this<br />
month, with even more planned for April.<br />
Next up is The Treason Show, a Brighton fixture for<br />
more than ten years. From March to May there will be<br />
a monthly <strong>Lewes</strong> outing for this ‘slick and irreverent satirical<br />
sketch show’, performed by a cast of five players.<br />
Finally, of <strong>co</strong>urse, there’s the reliably hilarious Comedy<br />
at the Con, which this month stars Ben Norris (pictured).<br />
Ben describes his stand-up style as ‘<strong>co</strong>nversational,<br />
albeit with me asking most of the questions’.<br />
Don’t let this put you off sitting in the front row,<br />
though: “If I end up chatting to anyone, I promise it’ll<br />
be fun and not remotely awkward,” he says.<br />
Comedy at the Con, Con Club, Thursday 1st, Ben Norris,<br />
Stu Goldsmith and Angela Barnes, 7.30 for 8.30pm,<br />
tickets £9/7 on door or in advance from Union Music or<br />
07582 408418. Treason show, Con Club, Thursday 15th,<br />
8.30pm, tickets tbc, 473076.<br />
Prime Cuts Comedy, Phoenix Theatre, all 8pm, Thursday<br />
15th Paul McCaffrey £5, Saturday 17th St Patrick’s<br />
Day Comedy Special with eight <strong>co</strong>medians, £7, 23rd Stay<br />
At Home Dad £5. primecuts<strong>co</strong>medy.<strong>co</strong>m, 07563 340277<br />
31
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Dis<strong>co</strong>ver your own planet<br />
sKePTiCs<br />
In 1781, William Herschel spotted Uranus, the first<br />
planet to be dis<strong>co</strong>vered in 1,600 years. Herschel<br />
was an obsessive amateur astronomer who designed<br />
and built his own huge teles<strong>co</strong>pes, and spent years<br />
cataloguing the night sky.<br />
In January 2012, Chris Holmes and Lee Threapleton<br />
independently dis<strong>co</strong>vered a new planet<br />
hundreds of light years away. Holmes, a 48-year-old<br />
systems analyst from Peterborough, is not an obsessive<br />
amateur astronomer. He told the press: “I’ve<br />
never even had a teles<strong>co</strong>pe. I’ve had a passing interest<br />
in where things are in the sky, but never had any<br />
more knowledge about it than that.”<br />
The pair dis<strong>co</strong>vered the planet by looking at data<br />
on planethunters.org. Holmes said: “I was checking<br />
some emails and thought I would give it a go.” The<br />
website asks users to look at a series of charts, and<br />
point out any sudden dips. Each chart shows the<br />
brightness of a particular star over time. A sudden<br />
dip suggests something, maybe a planet, has moved<br />
in front of the star and blocked some of its light.<br />
Computers have been analysing the data, but the<br />
website’s scientists believe “in the ability of humans<br />
to beat machines just occasionally,” and hope people<br />
will spot planets the <strong>co</strong>mputers have missed.<br />
One of the project’s leaders is Oxford astrophysicist<br />
and Sky at Night presenter Chris Lintott. He will be<br />
telling <strong>Lewes</strong> Skeptics ‘How to Dis<strong>co</strong>ver a Planet<br />
from your Sofa’, on Wed 7th at 8pm at the Elephant<br />
and Castle. (£3, lewes.skepticsinthepub.org) SR<br />
33
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<strong>co</strong>mpany<br />
limited<br />
The inimitable Satyajit Ray<br />
In April 1943, Satyajit Ray, a 21-year-old<br />
e<strong>co</strong>nomics graduate, took a job at a Britishowned<br />
advertising agency in Calcutta.<br />
He worked on ad campaigns for tea and<br />
biscuits, among other things.<br />
Ray was obsessed with western classical<br />
music and films, and “around 1946 he<br />
started writing film scripts as a hobby”,<br />
biographer Andrew Robinson says. The<br />
following year, Ray <strong>co</strong>-founded a film<br />
society in Calcutta, one of only two in<br />
India at the time. “While I sat at my office<br />
desk,” he said, “my mind buzzed with the<br />
thought of the films I had been seeing.”<br />
However, he had risen quickly to a senior<br />
position at the ad agency, and “the thought<br />
had not once occurred to me of changing<br />
my profession”.<br />
Then, in 1950, Ray’s employers sent him to<br />
England for six months training: “Doubtless<br />
the management hoped that I would<br />
<strong>co</strong>me back a fully-fledged advertising man,<br />
wholly dedicated to the pursuit of selling<br />
tea and biscuits.”<br />
Within three days of arriving in London,<br />
Ray saw Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves.<br />
“It was in a double bill at the Curzon with<br />
A Night at the Opera…it just gored me.”<br />
Ray had always wondered whether he <strong>co</strong>uld<br />
make a film cheaply by using a mostly<br />
amateur cast and shooting almost entirely<br />
on location. Bicycle Thieves showed him it<br />
was possible, and “I came out of the theatre<br />
with my mind fully made up,” Ray later<br />
said: “I would be<strong>co</strong>me a film-maker. The<br />
prospect of giving up a safe job didn’t daunt<br />
me any more.”<br />
He didn’t actually quit his day job until<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
1956, the year after he released his first<br />
film, Pather Panchali. He had made Pather<br />
in his spare time, putting his salary<br />
towards production <strong>co</strong>sts. It was a great<br />
success, and allowed him to make a drastic<br />
career change, aged 35.<br />
Ray was rather glad to escape the <strong>co</strong>rporate<br />
world, if his 1971 film Company Limited is<br />
anything to go by. It’s about a well-meaning<br />
office worker who is <strong>co</strong>rrupted by what<br />
Ray called the ‘bureaucratic and <strong>co</strong>mmercial<br />
machine’.<br />
Shyamalendu Chatterjee has risen quickly<br />
to a senior position in a British-owned fan<br />
<strong>co</strong>mpany, and his only ambition is further<br />
promotion. He dis<strong>co</strong>vers that a large batch<br />
of fans, due for export in seven days, is<br />
faulty. He will take the blame if the <strong>co</strong>mpany<br />
defaults on its <strong>co</strong>ntract. Can he solve<br />
the problem in time?<br />
The use of such a mundane plot may itself<br />
be a joke about how boring <strong>co</strong>rporate life<br />
is. Fortunately, Ray keeps it interesting<br />
with some romantic tension: Shyamalendu’s<br />
sister-in-law visits, and he wonders if<br />
he ‘married the wrong sister’. There’s also<br />
some satire, as Ray shows the Indian upper<br />
class as having be<strong>co</strong>me quite British; they<br />
watch horse racing, go to clubs which were<br />
formerly ‘British-only’, and casually use<br />
English words and phrases. At one point,<br />
a minor character is handed a whisky, and<br />
says in English: “Thank you, old boy.” Ray<br />
said of the film: “In a sense, the British<br />
have not really left.” Steve Ramsey<br />
March 6th, 8pm, All Saints.<br />
CineMa<br />
35
cinema<br />
round-up<br />
Horses for <strong>co</strong>urses<br />
There are two groups which show films at The All<br />
Saints Centre - <strong>Lewes</strong> Cinema and <strong>Lewes</strong> Film Club.<br />
For ten years, <strong>Lewes</strong> Cinema, a <strong>co</strong>mmercial operation<br />
(registered in Chichester) has been showing<br />
se<strong>co</strong>nd-run films, every other weekend. The same<br />
team also runs a separate <strong>co</strong>mpany, screening films<br />
in other locations throughout Sussex. In January, the<br />
Town Council decided to organise their own se<strong>co</strong>ndrun<br />
screenings (after June 24th), instead of using<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> Cinema’s services, hoping to churn profits<br />
back into the <strong>co</strong>mmunity. <strong>Lewes</strong> Cinema have subsequently<br />
expressed great <strong>co</strong>ncern that this decision<br />
was made without any <strong>co</strong>nsultation with them.<br />
The two movies we know that LC are showing<br />
in March are fairly typical of the sort of fare they<br />
usually put out. War Horse (w/e 9-11th, times tbc)<br />
is the latest Spielberg film, an expensively made<br />
crowd-pleaser, which had a mixed response from<br />
critics (loved by The Mail, for example, panned by<br />
The Guardian).<br />
They’re also showing the BAFTA-garnered The<br />
Artist (w/e 23rd-24th, times tba), the French silent<br />
<strong>co</strong>medy-drama, which was almost universally acclaimed<br />
by critics, and also proved a popular success,<br />
so far making over $50 million worldwide on its<br />
general release.<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> Film Club, whose future is not under threat,<br />
and whose members are scheduled to offer their<br />
services in the new <strong>co</strong>uncil-run operation, are an<br />
independent, not-for-profit organisation, run by<br />
volunteers, who for 25 years have shown arthouse,<br />
classic and foreign films, in their annual season<br />
between September and May. Again, this month’s<br />
output is fairly typical of what you can expect to see<br />
in their programme.<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
CineMa<br />
There’s an Indian double header, for example, with a<br />
screening of Deepa Mahta’s critically acclaimed, and<br />
beautifully <strong>co</strong>mposed 2005 affair Water (2nd, 8pm), a<br />
curious mix of hyper-realism and melodrama, which<br />
explores the plight of Hindu widows in the 1930s.<br />
Mahta has clearly been influenced by the master of<br />
Indian arthouse, the late Satyajit Ray, and to underline<br />
this point the LFC are screening one of Ray’s<br />
lesser known works, Company Limited (6th, 8pm, see<br />
page 35).<br />
The LFC are also showing an American-based<br />
thriller starring an A-list celebrity, Julia (16th, 8pm),<br />
though the celebrity in question is the revered Tilda<br />
Swinton, and the film is a gritty, independently produced<br />
affair, with a French director (Eric Zonka).<br />
The LFC is also keen to screen films from nations<br />
less well known for their cinema industry; they end<br />
the month with Kurdish-Iranian director Bahman<br />
Ghobadi’s 2005 drama Turtles Can Fly (30th, 8pm),<br />
set on the Turkish-Iraqi border on the eve of the<br />
Anglo-American invasion of the latter <strong>co</strong>untry. The<br />
film highlights the ordeal of refugee children forced<br />
to defuse and sell landmines to earn a crust.<br />
The Film Club also has an award-winning Junior<br />
branch, which <strong>co</strong>mbines themed activities with fulllength<br />
feature films, in order to introduce youngsters<br />
to film history and world cinema. March’s offering is<br />
Mike Newell’s Into the West (18th, 10am).<br />
Horses for <strong>co</strong>urses, then: between the two organisations<br />
they’ve done a pretty good job of offering a<br />
wide range of movies to cater for every taste. Let’s<br />
hope any changes made by the <strong>co</strong>uncil (and they’re<br />
talking about better seating in the ground-floor auditorium)<br />
ends making the movie-going experience for<br />
the <strong>Lewes</strong> public better, not worse. Dexter Lee<br />
37
art&<br />
about<br />
The Chalk Gallery’s recently<br />
had a bit of a refurb job, and<br />
is well worth popping into.<br />
Featured in March are oil<br />
landscapes by Paul Allen and<br />
the minimalist townscapes<br />
(pictured) of Will Dickerson.<br />
Down at the Print Room, you<br />
can see pieces by hyper-yoof<br />
Australian Alex LeHours,<br />
designer of posters, t-shirts,<br />
skateboards, you-name-it. And<br />
at Laporte’s, Carol Seatory<br />
helps you enjoy your tea and<br />
cakes by adorning the walls<br />
with images of… er… tea and<br />
cakes, fashioned from recycled<br />
materials. Yum.<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
Sheila & peter<br />
marlborough<br />
Two long-established, locally<br />
based artists, married, are<br />
exhibiting together at the Hop.<br />
Sheila and Peter Marlborough<br />
‘go out and about together and<br />
have similar likes and influences,<br />
but the end results are very different’,<br />
reads their press release.<br />
Her work oscillates between<br />
realism and abstraction, while<br />
his, more representational, seeks<br />
out mood and atmosphere. The<br />
pair met at the St Ives School of<br />
painting in 1980, and have been<br />
together ever since. If you’ve<br />
been paying attention, you’ll<br />
have seen their work at the Hop<br />
(née Star) before, and at the<br />
Chalk Gallery, too. This show is<br />
entitled Variations.<br />
Hop Gallery, 17th-29th, closed<br />
Monday<br />
portrait<br />
exhibition<br />
A charity event with a difference.<br />
An eclectic <strong>co</strong>llection of portraits<br />
on show at St Anne’s Galleries to<br />
help raise money and awareness<br />
for Sussex Community Foundation,<br />
an organisation which helps<br />
fund local initiatives. There’ll be<br />
a real mixed bag on show, lent by<br />
supporters of the event, from a<br />
Glasgow School of Art student’s<br />
painting of local teacher Aggie<br />
Jonas, via a Hockney, to works<br />
by the usual SAG stable, such as<br />
Nick Bodimeade, Julian Bell and<br />
Michael Cooper. This is not a<br />
buying exhibition: an invite-only<br />
private fund-raiser will be followed<br />
by a weekend in which the<br />
portrait exhibition will be open,<br />
for free, to the public.<br />
St Anne’s Galleries, Sat 24th,<br />
Sun 25th<br />
DIARY: Our <strong>co</strong>ver artist Tom Benjamin at St Anne’s till 4th (and beyond, by appointment); Kitty<br />
Finnegan’s sexily <strong>co</strong>lourful prints at the King’s Head all month; printmaker Luella Martin and last<br />
Easter’s ‘artist in residence’ Fiona Robinson are in Pelham House from 29th.<br />
A r t<br />
(From left to right) William Dickerson, Sheila Marlborough,<br />
portrait from exhibition<br />
39
focuS on:<br />
pink morning light by dawn Stacey 120cm x 190cm<br />
How did the idea for the painting <strong>co</strong>me about? When I was taking my dogs for a walk one early<br />
morning last summer, I saw a <strong>co</strong>ral pink glow on the cliffs above Cuilfail which was also reflected in the<br />
water. I like how the realism of the fal<strong>co</strong>n <strong>co</strong>ntrasts with the dreamlike, textured abstract of the foliage<br />
on the Railway Land.<br />
How long did it take to paint? Two weeks. I work on one piece at a time usually, which can be quite a<br />
struggle, but I like to push through with an idea.<br />
What materials did you use? Acrylic on canvas, plus printed doilies, lace, monoprint, <strong>co</strong>llage, <strong>co</strong>rrugated<br />
card. I trained in textiles originally, so I’m interested in layers of textures and <strong>co</strong>lour.<br />
Tell me about your approach to perspective. I’ve always loved painting a landscape as though I’m<br />
looking down onto it, so I can include all the elements in one whole piece. I will often take photographs<br />
and sketch while I walk along to gather information that I need. Town maps can give the kind of aerial<br />
view that I’m trying to portray, in<strong>co</strong>rporating all the features of a place at once.<br />
How much is it going for? £1,200.<br />
What do you wear to paint? A ski suit! My studio used to look out over the garden and it was freezing.<br />
What are the titles of some of your other paintings? Swans Flying Over the Railway Land, Early<br />
Morning Mist, Golden Light.<br />
What’s your favourite gallery? I love Pallant House in Chichester, in particular, the recent Robin and<br />
Lucienne Day exhibition. The bookshop has some fantastic art books.<br />
If you had to hang one painting from your desert island palm tree, what would it be? A John Piper<br />
painting of Newhaven. His work inspired me to use <strong>co</strong>llage in my own work.<br />
Dawn Stacey, A Sense of Place, Hop, Castle Ditch Lane, Sat 3rd-Thurs 15th March. hopgallery.<strong>co</strong>m<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
Art<br />
41
I often get titles muddled. This can lead to <strong>co</strong>nfusion<br />
when, for example, I’m animatedly discussing<br />
the film Drowning in Vietnam and it’s really called<br />
Swimming to Cambodia. I say this, because my presence<br />
at a <strong>Lewes</strong> Operatic Society (LOS) rehearsal<br />
came about because I’d mentioned in our editorial<br />
meeting that I’d once sung, as a member of the<br />
chorus, in Pirates of Penzance. This transpires not<br />
to be true. I’d sung in a Gilbert and Sullivan <strong>co</strong>mic<br />
opera, and it did have a nautical theme, but it was<br />
actually HMS Pinafore. But they’re a lovely lot, the<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> Operatics people, and very understanding,<br />
so even though I don’t sing a note, I spend a most<br />
enjoyable evening with them.<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> Operatic Society began 100 years ago, and<br />
their first show was the Pirates of Penzance, hence<br />
the choice of this show to celebrate their anniversary.<br />
A key part of the plot involves Frederic (Andrew<br />
Simpson) being a ‘leapling’, ie born on 29th February,<br />
it’s the perfect choice to put on in a leap year.<br />
As with many previous shows, plans are afoot to<br />
also perform it in one of <strong>Lewes</strong>’ twin towns, in this<br />
instance, Blois.<br />
Rehearsals are taking place in the ramshackle,<br />
draughty but charming rooms in the Market Tower,<br />
under Old Gabriel, the town bell. I climb the<br />
steps to find business manager, Nick Hazle, who I<br />
rec-<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
pirateS of<br />
penzance<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> Operatics celebrates 100 years<br />
oPeReTTa<br />
ognise from <strong>Viva</strong>’s dwyle flunking match against<br />
the <strong>Lewes</strong> Arms. His mum, Val, who sadly died last<br />
year, was a LOS stalwart herself, and a mighty fine<br />
pirate on many occasions.<br />
I see many familiar faces around me, including<br />
Tim Freeman, from the Big Iolanthe, who plays the<br />
Pirate King in this. I’m impressed to see a bar in<br />
the rehearsal room. It all seems much more jolly<br />
than the production I took part in.<br />
Singing begins, but since it’s more about pirates<br />
than petti<strong>co</strong>ats, I can’t really join in, so I nip out to<br />
the staircase to talk to director Libby Hannelle and<br />
choreographer Collette Goodwin. I begin by asking<br />
what they like about this opera. “It’s hilarious,<br />
jolly rude and very funny,” says Libby. “Just like<br />
Libby,” says Collette. Libby has set the production<br />
in the 1950s, with Teddy Boy pirates. With much<br />
laughter, they demonstrate some of the planned<br />
choreography using burlesque feathered fans.<br />
Nick then takes me to the <strong>co</strong>stume cupboard to<br />
meet delightful wardrobe mistress (a virologist in<br />
her day job), Sue Taylor, who shows me some leopard-print<br />
fabric she’s got for a “very low cut top”<br />
for one of the characters. We rummage through<br />
her amazing treasure trove of <strong>co</strong>stumes, with boxes<br />
of beards, wigs, bags of frilly bloomers from HMS<br />
Pinafore (and yes, I did wear them), a pair of chaps,<br />
several kilts. “People are very kind, donating items<br />
of clothing. I get some amazing things from eBay,<br />
which is where I’ve sourced suspender belts for this<br />
production.”<br />
It sounds like the 100th anniversary show is going<br />
to be a lot of fun and I’ve really enjoyed having<br />
a behind-the-scenes glimpse of how it’s put together.<br />
I slip away from the rehearsal, into the <strong>co</strong>ld<br />
evening air, listening to the voices gradually fade<br />
as I head down Market Lane. Emma Chaplin<br />
26th to 31st March, 7.30pm. <strong>Lewes</strong> Town Hall, Tickets<br />
£10/9/8. lewesoperatic.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong><br />
43
claSSical<br />
round-up<br />
Sir John Tomlinson et al<br />
An opportunity to hear Sir John<br />
Tomlinson in recital doesn’t<br />
<strong>co</strong>me along every day. Some<br />
Southover residents are treated<br />
at Christmastime to a re<strong>co</strong>rding<br />
of his voice booming out<br />
Good King Wenceslas outside<br />
their homes, but this month<br />
the Nicholas Yonge Society<br />
presents him for real at Sussex<br />
Downs College. And they don’t<br />
suffer just any old singer. Sir<br />
John’s programme <strong>co</strong>nsists of<br />
works relating to Michelangelo.<br />
He begins with Britten’s Seven<br />
Sonnets of Michelangelo, followed<br />
by Hugo Wolf’s Drei Gedichte<br />
von Michelangelo and ending<br />
with Shostakovich’s Suite on<br />
Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti,<br />
opus 145.<br />
Britten’s Seven Sonnets was <strong>co</strong>mposed<br />
in 1940 for the tenor (and<br />
his partner) Peter Pears. It was<br />
the first of several such song cycles<br />
Britten would write for him,<br />
and the re<strong>co</strong>rding of it was also<br />
the first of many that Britten<br />
and Pears would make together.<br />
Modelled on the great melodic<br />
arcs of Italian art songs, they are<br />
nonetheless distinctly English<br />
in nature, perhaps even echoing<br />
the works of Hubert Parry.<br />
Wolf’s three Michelangelo<br />
Lieder were actually written for<br />
the bass voice and were the last<br />
songs to be <strong>co</strong>mpleted by the<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
<strong>co</strong>mposer just six months before<br />
his mental breakdown and<br />
terminal illness due to syphilis.<br />
One of the greatest writers of<br />
German Lied, Wolf was terribly<br />
depressed to be <strong>co</strong>nsidered just<br />
a lowly songwriter. In 1974,<br />
Shostakovich too was in the<br />
last year of his life when he<br />
wrote the Michelangelo Suite,<br />
originally s<strong>co</strong>red for bass and<br />
piano. In one of his final letters,<br />
Shostakovich wrote, ‘By<br />
the essence of these sonnets, I<br />
had in mind: Wisdom, Love,<br />
Creativity, Death, Immortality.’<br />
Sir Tomlinson’s pianist will be<br />
David Owen Norris.<br />
23rd, 7.45pm, Sussex Downs<br />
College. Single tickets £14 from<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> Travel, localboxoffice.<strong>co</strong>m<br />
or on the door.<br />
For more 20th century masterworks<br />
but of the French choral<br />
church variety, one would do<br />
well to navigate over to nearby<br />
Ringmer to hear the Esterhazy<br />
Chamber Choir perform<br />
Duruflé’s Requiem along with<br />
that <strong>co</strong>mposer’s Quatre Motets.<br />
The <strong>co</strong>ncert will also feature<br />
the Langlais Messe Solennelle,<br />
Messiaen’s motet O Sacrum<br />
Convivium! and Villette’s bestknown<br />
work, the Hymn à la Vierge.<br />
The Esterhazy’s <strong>co</strong>nductor<br />
is Sandy Chenery.<br />
24th, 7.30pm, Church of St Mary<br />
CLassiCaL MusiC<br />
the Virgin, Church Hill, Ringmer.<br />
£10 via esterhazy.org.<strong>uk</strong> or<br />
on the door (under 16s free).<br />
Back in <strong>Lewes</strong>, the Corelli Ensemble<br />
will perform the Stabat<br />
Mater of Pergolesi. Written in<br />
1736 for male soprano, male<br />
alto, string orchestra and basso<br />
<strong>co</strong>ntinuo, it is Pergolesi’s bestknown<br />
sacred <strong>co</strong>mposition. This<br />
meditation on the Virgin Mary<br />
was <strong>co</strong>mmissioned to replace<br />
Alessandro Scarlatti’s Stabat<br />
Mater. After only nine years<br />
of service, Scarlatti’s Baroque<br />
work was already viewed as<br />
old-fashioned, while Pergolesi’s<br />
looked ahead to the more modern<br />
Classical style of <strong>co</strong>mposition.<br />
Also on the bill for this<br />
evening will be two of Corelli’s<br />
Concerti grossi, numbers 1 and 8<br />
and <strong>Viva</strong>ldi’s ever-famous Four<br />
Seasons featuring violin soloist<br />
Nathaniel Anderson-Frank.<br />
11th, 4pm St Pancras Church.<br />
Tickets £12, children free.<br />
Reserve tickets at reduced <strong>co</strong>st of<br />
£10 for adults by emailing <strong>co</strong>relliensemble@hotmail.<strong>co</strong>m.<br />
Paul Austin Kelly<br />
45
46<br />
Restore, Revive, Remake<br />
Tickets include -<br />
Participation in a choice of creative workshops where<br />
you’ll make something beautiful using vintage or<br />
recycled materials<br />
An optional <strong>co</strong>nsultation with a seamstress/designer<br />
for advice on how to restore or revive your own<br />
wardrobe<br />
Exclusive access to our range of high quality<br />
upcycled clothing and accessories<br />
Drink and canapes on arrival, and a light supper<br />
Join us for an<br />
evening of<br />
‘sustainable style’<br />
22nd March 2012<br />
7.00 - 11.00pm<br />
The Needlemakers<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong><br />
Tickets <strong>co</strong>st £45 pp and must be purchased<br />
in advance. They are available online at<br />
<strong>www</strong>.cascadestyle.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong> or from Josie at<br />
Made in <strong>Lewes</strong>, the Needlemakers.<br />
Find out more about this event and our other<br />
planned activities in <strong>Lewes</strong> by calling Caireen<br />
on 07799 071919 or at <strong>www</strong>.cascadestyle.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong>
MusiC<br />
cuarteto guarachando<br />
Our Lamb in Havana<br />
There are some cracking music pubs in <strong>Lewes</strong><br />
right now. Our monthly guide regularly lists<br />
something in the region of sixty gigs, ranging<br />
from one chap and his guitar to full-on<br />
bands-with-brass-sections, from groups who’ve<br />
been influenced by the Malling sound to others<br />
whose musical heritage is more <strong>co</strong>smopolitan. In<br />
the latter category are Cuarteto Guarachando,<br />
playing this month at the Lamb; they are widely<br />
regarded as being one of the top exponents of<br />
Cuban salsa, ‘son’ and Latin music in the UK<br />
today. They are fronted by vocalist Adriana Lord<br />
from Cuba who has been a leading force on the<br />
Havana scene since the early 90s, before moving<br />
to Britain in 2010. The list of top musicians she’s<br />
sung with appears endless and includes members<br />
of the Buena Vista Social Club, NG la Banda<br />
and Vocal Luna. Guitarist L<strong>uk</strong>e Rattenbury has<br />
a wealth of experience in many musical styles<br />
from Latin and Jazz to Afrobeat. He has played<br />
throughout Cuba and his father’s native Ghana,<br />
where he studied the roots of African music. Eddie<br />
Meyer has played bass throughout the world,<br />
maintaining close links with Cuba and Brazil,<br />
while drummer Juan Carlos Paez learnt his<br />
trade in his native Columbia, before travelling<br />
to Europe. Whether playing festivals, <strong>co</strong>ncerts<br />
or The Lamb, Cuarteto Guarachando’s wealth<br />
of experience, charismatic stage performance<br />
and exciting repertoire of music never fails to<br />
enthral audiences. Should be an amazing night.<br />
Beth Miller<br />
Cuarteto Guarachando, 3rd, The Lamb, 9pm, free<br />
47
MARCH MuSIC LISTINgS<br />
(From left to right) Contraband, Papa george and ska Toons<br />
THU 1ST<br />
Fiddle & Squeeze. Upbeat folk. Lamb, 8.30pm, free<br />
So Last Century String Band. Snowdrop, 9pm, free<br />
Dunia Duo. Flamen<strong>co</strong>. Pelham Arms, 8.30pm, free.<br />
Chris Bartram, Neil Brookes & Tony Weatherall.<br />
Folk. Royal Oak, 8 pm, £7<br />
FRI 2ND<br />
The Riffz. Covers. Volunteer, 9pm, free<br />
The Thin White D<strong>uk</strong>e. Bowie tribute. Con Club,<br />
8pm, £4 (members free)<br />
SAT 3RD<br />
Stone Junction. Alt rock. Snowdrop, 9pm, free<br />
Cuarteto Guarachando. Latin. Lamb, 8.30pm, free<br />
The Informers. Covers. John Harvey, 8pm, free<br />
Phantom Limb. Country. Union Music, 3pm, free<br />
Fay Hield Trio. Folk. Elephant and Castle, 8pm, £9<br />
Kent Duchaine. Blues guitarist. Lansdown, 8pm, free<br />
SUN 4TH<br />
Union Roots night. Lansdown, 8pm, free<br />
Fruitful Sunday. DJ Set. Snowdrop, 8pm, free<br />
Kitchen Party. Country duo. Con Club, 3pm, free<br />
Karaoke. Volunteer, 7pm, free<br />
MON 5TH<br />
Imogen Ryall. Jazz. Snowdrop, 8.30pm, free<br />
TUES 6TH<br />
Ceilidh Crew Session. Lamb, 8.30pm, free<br />
Folk. John Harvey Tavern, 8pm, free<br />
WED 7TH<br />
Tab & Ben’s A<strong>co</strong>ustic Session. Snowdrop, 9pm, free<br />
Jazz. John Harvey Tavern, 8pm, free<br />
THUR 8TH<br />
TBC. Lamb, 8.30pm, free<br />
Naomi Bedford & Paul Simmonds. Folk. Royal Oak,<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
gig guide<br />
8pm, £7<br />
Shauna Parker & the Saloon Bar Band. Americana.<br />
Snowdrop, 9pm, free<br />
Ultraswing Trio. Gypsy Swing. Pelham Arms,<br />
8.30pm, free<br />
FRI 9TH<br />
The Kondoms. Covers. Con Club, 8pm, £4/free<br />
SAT 10TH<br />
The Contenders. Blues/R&B. Lamb, 8.30pm, free<br />
Small Town Jones. Americana. Union Music Store,<br />
3pm, free<br />
Band of 2. Celtic. John Harvey Tavern, 8pm, free<br />
Susie Moate. Gypsy jazz. Con Club, 8pm, £3 (members<br />
free)<br />
Shakedown. Blues/rock. Snowdrop, 9pm, free<br />
Twagger Band. Folk. Elephant and Castle, 8pm, £6<br />
Chris Callow. Dance hits. Lansdown, 8pm, free<br />
SUN 11TH<br />
Fruitful Sunday. DJ set. Snowdrop, 8pm, free<br />
MON 12TH<br />
Terry Seabrook trio. Jazz. Snowdrop, 8.30pm, free<br />
TUES 13TH<br />
Folk. John Harvey Tavern, 8pm, free<br />
WED 14TH<br />
Open Mic. Lamb, 8.30pm, free<br />
Tab & Ben’s A<strong>co</strong>ustic Session. Snowdrop, 9pm, free<br />
Jazz. John Harvey Tavern, 8pm, free<br />
THUR 15TH<br />
Hatful of Rain. Americana. Lamb, 8.30pm, free<br />
Newick Folk. Snowdrop, 9pm, free<br />
Judy Cook. Folk. Royal Oak, 8pm, £7<br />
George Kypreos Trio. Greek music. Pelham Arms,<br />
8.30pm, free<br />
49
gig guide<br />
MARCH MuSIC LISTINgS (<strong>co</strong>nt)<br />
FRI 16TH<br />
Zed’s Dead. Rock <strong>co</strong>vers. Volunteer, 8pm, free.<br />
Dub’n Tuff All Stars. Roots reggae. Con Club, 8pm,<br />
£4 (members free)<br />
SAT 17TH<br />
TBA. Lamb, 8.30pm, free.<br />
The Bushy Whistles Band. St Patrick’s themed. John<br />
Harvey Tavern, 8pm, free<br />
Ros<strong>co</strong> Levee. Country Blues. Union Music Store,<br />
3pm, free<br />
Moonshine. Covers. Snowdrop, 9pm, free.<br />
Come-all-ye. Participatory folk. Elephant and Castle,<br />
8pm, £3<br />
Jump around. St Pat’s special. Lansdown. 8pm, free<br />
St Patrick’s Night Gig. Contraband, Zoe Brownrigg<br />
etc. All Saints, 7.30pm, £8.50/£7<br />
SUN 18TH<br />
Fruitful Sunday. Snowdrop, 9pm, free<br />
Papa George. Blues. Volunteer, 5pm, free<br />
Ray Owen. Juicy Lucy singer. Con Club, 3pm, free<br />
MON 19TH<br />
Pete Burden. Jazz. Snowdrop, 8.30pm, free<br />
TUES 20TH<br />
Ceilidh Crew Session. Lamb, 8.30pm, free<br />
Folk. John Harvey Tavern, 8pm, free<br />
WED 21ST<br />
Tab & Ben’s A<strong>co</strong>ustic Session. Snowdrop, 9pm, free<br />
Jazz. John Harvey Tavern, 8pm, free<br />
THUR 22ND<br />
Lonesome Hankers. Hank Williams <strong>co</strong>vers. Lamb,<br />
8.30pm, free<br />
Peter Jagger. Singer/songwriter. Snowdrop, 9pm, free<br />
Tune & Song Session. Royal Oak, 8pm, free<br />
Harry’s Tricks. Swing. Pelham Arms, 8.30pm, free<br />
FRI 23RD<br />
Who Slapped John. Rockabilly. Con Club, 8pm, £4<br />
(members free)<br />
Full House. Rock <strong>co</strong>vers. Volunteer, 9pm, free<br />
SAT 24TH<br />
The Slytones. Psychadelic. Lamb, 8.30pm, free<br />
Cam Penner. Folk/Americana. Union Music Store,<br />
3pm, free<br />
Cam Penner. Royal Oak, 7.30pm, £8 adv from Union<br />
Lights Out! R‘n’B <strong>co</strong>vers. Snowdrop, 9pm, free<br />
The Askew Sisters. Folk. Elly, 8pm, £7<br />
Kovak. Electro pop/indie. Lansdown, 8pm, free<br />
SUN 25TH<br />
Zora Duo. Gypsy punk. Volunteer, 5pm, free<br />
Fruitful Sunday. DJ set. Snowdrop, 8pm, free<br />
Keep The Faith. Covers. Con Club, 3pm, free<br />
MON 26TH<br />
Jason Henson. Jazz. Snowdrop, 8.30pm, free.<br />
TUE 27TH<br />
Folk. John Harvey Tavern, 8pm, free<br />
WED 28TH<br />
Tab & Ben’s A<strong>co</strong>ustic Session. Snowdrop, 9pm, free<br />
Jazz. John Harvey Tavern, 8pm, free<br />
THUR 29TH<br />
Dr Bluegrass and the Illbilly 8. Bluegrass. Lamb,<br />
8.30pm, free<br />
Shauna Parker Trio. Americana. Pelham Arms,<br />
8.30pm, free<br />
Peta Webb, Ken Hall & Simon Hindley. Royal Oak,<br />
8 pm, £7<br />
Pocket Size. A<strong>co</strong>ustic. Snowdrop, 9pm, free<br />
FRI 30TH<br />
Mark Wright is Elvis on my mind. Tribute. Volunteer,<br />
9pm, free<br />
Ska Toons. Ska. Con Club, 8pm, £4<br />
SAT 31ST<br />
Chicken Shed Zeppelin. Bluegrass/<strong>co</strong>untry/psychobilly.<br />
Lamb, 8.30pm, free<br />
Jack Harris. Folk. Union Music Store, 3pm, free<br />
Wakin’ Snakes. Cajun. Snowdrop, 9pm, free<br />
The Surfin’ Lungs. Vocal harmonies. Con Club,<br />
8.30pm, £5 (members free)<br />
John Heslop. Folk. Elephant and Castle, 8pm, £5<br />
Thanks to Frances<strong>co</strong> Andreoli, whose <strong>Lewes</strong> gig<br />
videos can be seen at <strong>www</strong>.youtube.<strong>co</strong>m/user/<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong>Music
MAR<br />
2<br />
9 THE KONDOMS<br />
PUNK & ROCK COVERS<br />
16<br />
23<br />
30<br />
MAR<br />
4<br />
11<br />
18<br />
25<br />
FRI & SAT<br />
@ The Con Club<br />
THIN WHITE DUKE<br />
BOWIE TRIBUTE<br />
DUB’N TUFF ALL STARS<br />
ROOTS ROCK REGGAE<br />
WHO SLAPPED JOHN<br />
ROCKABILLY<br />
SKA TOONS<br />
SKA JAZZ ROCKSTEADY<br />
SURFIN’ LUNGS<br />
31 NEW WAVE SURF<br />
A<strong>co</strong>ustic Sundays<br />
@ The Con Club<br />
KITCHEN PARTY<br />
COUNTRY WITH A HINT OF JAZZ & FOLK<br />
SUSIE MOATE<br />
GUITAR/VIOLIN GYPSY JAZZ<br />
RAY OWEN<br />
SESSION WITH JUICY LUCY FRONTMAN<br />
KEEP THE FAITH<br />
ROCK COVERS FROM IAN & DAN<br />
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unique visitors to our<br />
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Just think how many people would see your<br />
property if you were on the market with us!<br />
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• Semi Detached Family Home • Favoured Winterbourne Location<br />
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<strong>Lewes</strong> £299,950<br />
• A Charming Period Flint Cottage• Within the Heart of the Town<br />
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• 2 Double Bedrooms & Bathroom • Westerly Aspect Rear Garden<br />
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<strong>Lewes</strong> Town & Country Office T <strong>01273</strong> 487444<br />
14a High Street, <strong>Lewes</strong>, East Sussex, BN7 2LN
Saturday Legal<br />
Advice Clinic<br />
A busy working life can make it hard to get the advice you<br />
need. So to help you we are running a series of Saturday<br />
Advice Clinics <strong>co</strong>vering family matters, divorce, probate, trusts<br />
and wills.<br />
All discussions will be in the strictest <strong>co</strong>nfidence and by<br />
appointment only.<br />
The advice clinics will take place on the following dates:<br />
Brighton Office: Saturday 10th March, 9am-1pm<br />
Eastbourne Office: Saturday 17th March, 9am-1pm<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> Office: Saturday 31st March, 9am-1pm<br />
Call 01323 745660<br />
to book an appointment or email<br />
jbarnwell@mayowynnebaxter.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong><br />
for further information.<br />
Brighton • Eastbourne • East Grinstead • <strong>Lewes</strong> • Seaford<br />
52<br />
<strong>www</strong>.mayowynnebaxter.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong>
Photos by emma Chaplin<br />
It is a bitterly <strong>co</strong>ld day when I go to review<br />
the King’s Head with Sussex Wildlife officer,<br />
Michael Blen<strong>co</strong>we, and I’m looking forward to a<br />
warm pub, good food and interesting <strong>co</strong>mpany.<br />
I remember the last time we met in town he was<br />
carrying a tin of furry caterpillars to release in<br />
the Railway Land.<br />
Given his penchant for carrying extraneous<br />
creatures about his person, Michael surprises<br />
me when he admits to being unadventurous in<br />
his food tastes. The plan for today, he tells me,<br />
is to try things he’s never eaten before. He spots<br />
a starter on the menu that includes eel. And,<br />
when we’re told the fish of the day is grey mullet,<br />
that catches his attention too. “I see them all<br />
the time in the Ouse but I’ve never eaten one,”<br />
he says. I decide on the two-<strong>co</strong>urse set menu for<br />
£12, choosing a salad with ba<strong>co</strong>n and Jerusalem<br />
artichoke, followed by mussels.<br />
Immediately after the recent renovation, I<br />
remember someone saying it had been ‘Farrow &<br />
Balled’. Today it still has a nice open, elegant feel,<br />
but it somehow feels more <strong>co</strong>sy. The addition of<br />
art and photography on the walls helps.<br />
They source their food and drink very carefully<br />
and are quite rightly proud to be the only place in<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> to get into the 2012 Good Food Guide.<br />
We bypass the wine list with some regret, since<br />
it’s the middle of a working day. I enjoyed their<br />
Argentinian Malbec on a preview visit.<br />
We take our drinks up to the purple wallpapered<br />
area near the kitchen.<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
the king’S head<br />
A culinary adventure in Southover<br />
Food<br />
Our starters arrive swiftly. Michael’s salad<br />
<strong>co</strong>mprises smoked eel, crisp ba<strong>co</strong>n, pieces of<br />
Jerusalem artichoke, slithers of fennel as well as<br />
rocket and capers (£6.50). Mine is similar but<br />
with more ba<strong>co</strong>n and no eel. Both are beautifully<br />
dressed, zingy and delicious.<br />
After the main <strong>co</strong>urses are brought to the table,<br />
Michael remarks on how good the service is, and<br />
he’s right. It’s attentive without being obtrusive,<br />
friendly and efficient. My bowl of plump<br />
mussels in cream and wine is vast and steaming,<br />
scattered with chopped shallots. We also have<br />
some superb chunks of seeded Flint Owl bread to<br />
share. Michael’s attractive-looking, crisp-skinned<br />
fillet of grey mullet <strong>co</strong>mes in a large white bowl<br />
surrounded by clams, <strong>co</strong>ckles and winter greens<br />
(£12.50). By the end of the meal, we’ve built up<br />
quite a pile of discarded shells between us.<br />
A glance at the pudding options makes me very<br />
tempted to try the steamed apple pudding with<br />
caramelised pears and homemade vanilla ice<br />
cream, and the Barkham blue cheese looks good<br />
too, but we decide, with some regret, that we’re<br />
full up.<br />
So has Michael enjoyed his culinary adventure<br />
today? “I have, very much. It means, when I’m<br />
next giving a talk about the Ouse and I mention<br />
the grey mullet, I’ve got something interesting to<br />
say about them. They taste delicious.”<br />
Emma Chaplin<br />
The King’s Head, 9 Southover High St, 474628,<br />
thekingsheadlewes.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong><br />
53
I haven’t been to The Shelleys for a while; not<br />
since it changed owners in fact. However, as my<br />
brief was to choose somewhere nice to take one’s<br />
mother it seemed an obvious choice, particularly<br />
if one has a refined mother. Then it occurred to<br />
me that I am a mother, and terribly refined to<br />
boot, so I informed the kids they were taking me<br />
for afternoon tea. We all wiped our noses on our<br />
sleeves and set off, <strong>co</strong>llecting Grange Girl and<br />
Library Boy en route. The hotel wasn’t too busy<br />
and we had a choice of rooms: the <strong>co</strong>mfy lounge<br />
or the more clubby bar. The children flung themselves<br />
onto a sofa in the lounge, scattering <strong>co</strong>ats,<br />
shoes and <strong>co</strong>mics everywhere, yet the waiting<br />
staff still smiled benignly at them. I was relieved<br />
to see that the fragile tall vases my children used<br />
to toddle precariously towards had been removed.<br />
Or broken.<br />
I’d been thinking fondly of finger sandwiches –<br />
they used to do lovely egg ones – but alas the full<br />
afternoon tea menu now <strong>co</strong>nsisted of a choice of<br />
one large sandwich alongside s<strong>co</strong>nes and cake<br />
(£12.95 including tea or <strong>co</strong>ffee). They might<br />
think it odd if I whipped out a bread knife and<br />
started hacking up my sarnie so I opted instead<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
afternoon tea<br />
at the ShelleyS<br />
“I’ll be Mother”<br />
Food<br />
for s<strong>co</strong>nes and Darjeeling (£6.25 for tea and two<br />
s<strong>co</strong>nes – vanilla or fruit - with jam and cream).<br />
Grangey and Library Boy also chose s<strong>co</strong>nes and<br />
the kids ordered cho<strong>co</strong>late cake (£1.50), which<br />
was so good we ordered an extra piece and<br />
squabbled over it. And the homemade biscuits<br />
(£2.95 for two with tea) were delicious. In fact<br />
there was no trace of food left when it came to<br />
taking a photograph, hence the sparse arrangement<br />
of crockery pictured below. Library Boy<br />
was impressed that his decaffeinated tea came<br />
with a hand-written label tied to the pot. And<br />
I was impressed by the waiting staff, who were<br />
friendly, polite and helpful. One of the children<br />
– no names, no pack-drill – knocked over their<br />
glass of milk, and within se<strong>co</strong>nds the waiter was<br />
mopping the floor. Unasked, he then brought us<br />
a replacement glass which we weren’t charged for.<br />
Later, when I inquired about the cupboard in the<br />
lounge, having been alerted by <strong>Viva</strong>’s editor that<br />
it housed something interesting, the young man<br />
sprang up to show us. All the children who’d lived<br />
in the house over the years – and adults too – had<br />
had their heights measured against the back of the<br />
door. The waiter pointed out some of the oldest<br />
ones from the 1850s, a piece of living history that<br />
fascinated my children; they stood against the<br />
door to match themselves against their long-ago<br />
<strong>co</strong>unterparts. We stayed lolling on the sofas after<br />
the last crumb had disappeared, feeling under no<br />
pressure to clear out. It was good to find that the<br />
slightly dreamy hanging-about vibe at The Shelleys<br />
was still there. Indeed, it seemed little had<br />
changed, apart from, dare I say, that the staff<br />
seemed less surprised to be running a hotel<br />
than previously. Beth Miller<br />
The Shelleys, afternoon tea 3-6pm every day.<br />
Morning <strong>co</strong>ffee, lunch and dinner also available<br />
to non-residents. Tel. 472361. the-shelleys.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong><br />
Photo by Chris Winterflood<br />
55
Photo: Xavi buendia<br />
gnocchi in braiSed oxtail ragù<br />
Having had several reports of how succulent the gnocchi in oxtail ragù is at Famiglia<br />
Lazzati, we asked new head chef Tom Griffiths to let us into his secret. Turns out to be<br />
fairly simple, if you’ve got a bit of time…<br />
This is an Italian dish, and like many, it’s fairly<br />
simple. The trick is to use good ingredients, and<br />
to <strong>co</strong>ok it for a long, long time, to bring the best<br />
out of those ingredients. Homemade gnocchi<br />
take a while to prepare, but it’s well worth it:<br />
they taste loads better than the vacuum-packed<br />
supermarket variety.<br />
Start with the sauce, because it’ll take at least<br />
three-to-four hours, for a four-portion batch.<br />
Put half a kilo of oxtail into a casserole dish,<br />
chopped into inch-thick hunks, then lob some<br />
rough-chopped vegetables on top - a <strong>co</strong>uple of<br />
stalks of celery, a <strong>co</strong>uple of banana shallots, a<br />
<strong>co</strong>uple of carrots, an onion, a garlic, a <strong>co</strong>uple of<br />
bay leaves, and a <strong>co</strong>uple of sprigs of fresh rosemary,<br />
too. I get my rosemary from the garden,<br />
because they charge silly prices at supermarkets.<br />
Just plant some in any sort of earth, and it<br />
grows like a weed. I’m a great believer in using<br />
seasonal food, where possible, and supporting<br />
our local farmers.<br />
I digress. Pour half a bottle of red wine into the<br />
dish, and enough water to <strong>co</strong>ver the ingredients.<br />
Seal the <strong>co</strong>ntainer in silver foil, carefully wrapping<br />
it round the edges and piercing it with the<br />
tip of a kitchen knife with holes small enough<br />
to let steam out, but not flavour. Then put it in<br />
medium hot oven, and relax.<br />
But leave at least half an hour to make the gnocchi,<br />
which are, basically, small balls of potato,<br />
egg yolk and flour, seasoned with a little salt.<br />
Peel three medium-sized potatoes, and chop<br />
them into the same sort of size as roast potatoes,<br />
then boil them, until they’re soft enough to<br />
mash. Don’t try and save time by cutting too<br />
small, or they’ll end up too watery. I then put<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
mine through a potato ricer; though a masher<br />
will do. Don’t use a blender as this would activate<br />
the starchiness of the potato.<br />
When it’s riced, leave it to <strong>co</strong>ol until fairly tepid.<br />
Knead and fold in some plain flour and a pinch<br />
of table salt, then make a well, and put in the<br />
yolk of an organic free-range egg. Here’s a bit<br />
of advice: never skimp on your eggs, because, as<br />
well as ethical <strong>co</strong>nsiderations, battery-farmed<br />
ones are far inferior in taste. Then carry on<br />
kneading and folding in flour (approx one part<br />
flour to two parts potato) until the mixture,<br />
while still firm, has a certain elasticity to it. Roll<br />
it into a sausage, and chop into small segments.<br />
Keeping your hands well floured, roll into marble-sized<br />
balls between the palms of your hands,<br />
and place in a <strong>co</strong>ntainer, making sure they don’t<br />
touch one another, <strong>co</strong>vering each layer with<br />
greaseproof paper, and laying more on top.<br />
Remove the ragù from the oven, and take out<br />
the meat and shallots. Blitz the remainder of the<br />
sauce in a blender, take the meat off the bone,<br />
and fold it, with the shallots, into the sauce<br />
again.<br />
Put the gnocchi into a pan of boiling water<br />
and remove when they rise to the surface. You<br />
can fry them in a little butter, if you want, but<br />
just boiled will do. Gently scatter the gnocchi<br />
around the edge of the plate, and ladle the<br />
ragù into the centre, crowned with fresh rocket<br />
or chard, and plenty of fresh Parmesan. Serve<br />
with a red wine: I suggest a Montepulciano<br />
D’Abruzzo, like La Regia Specula. Enjoy!<br />
If you like the sound of this dish, but can’t be<br />
bothered making it yourself, it’s often on the menu at<br />
Famiglia Lazzati on Market St, 479539<br />
Food<br />
57
Lola’s Rose Cakes<br />
Lola is really excited about this recipe, here’s why: “I made the cakes a few times before I<br />
worked out how to get the jam in the middle. When you make them for your mum she will be<br />
surprised when she bites them and finds jam inside. If you don’t have rose water you can add<br />
vanilla, but I think the cakes taste better with a rose flavour”.<br />
Makes: 24<br />
200g unsalted butter, 200g golden caster sugar, 1 teaspoon rose water, 4 free range eggs ,<br />
200g self raising flour, about 12 teaspoon raspberry jam<br />
for the butter icing:<br />
50g unsalted butter, 200g icing sugar, 1/2 teaspoon rose water, 1/2 1 teaspoon raspberry jam<br />
depending on how pink you want the icing! 24 wafer daisies or sweets, for the top of the cakes<br />
Turn the oven on to 180C/160 fan. Put 24 paper cases into fairy cake tins. Weigh all of the ingredients.Put<br />
the butter, sugar and rose water together in a bowl and mix really hard with a wooden spoon<br />
until your arm aches (or electric hand whisk) until pale in <strong>co</strong>lour and creamy. Crack an egg and add<br />
to the butter mixture, beat well to mix everything together. Add the other eggs one at a time, the<br />
last egg, add a spoonful of the flour. Then sieve the rest of the flour on top and fold together. Spoon<br />
the mixture into the paper cases - I find it easier to use 2 teaspoons to do this - scraping the mixture<br />
off the spoons as I move along the cases. Dollop about half a teaspoon of jam on the top of the cake<br />
mixture in each paper case. Bake for 10-13 minutes or until the cakes are <strong>co</strong>oked and the mixture has<br />
risen up. Carefully press a cake with a finger. It should spring back slightly. Leave the cakes to <strong>co</strong>ol<br />
and then put onto a <strong>co</strong>oling rack - don’t eat the cakes when they are still warm as the jam will be really<br />
HOT! Make the icing - put the butter, icing sugar, rose water and jam into a bowl and beat with a<br />
spoon until creamy. I love this bit - now you can either fill a piping bag or spoon the icing onto the<br />
cakes by hand. You can add more jam if you want your icing to be more pink. De<strong>co</strong>rate the cakes with<br />
sugar flowers or sweets.<br />
By Lola Mansell and Amanda Grant. Photos: Susan Bell<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
Kids’ Food<br />
59
Complete the details below and<br />
present this advert to one of the<br />
team when you arrive for your meal:<br />
Mr/Mrs/Ms<br />
Name:<br />
Surname:<br />
Email:<br />
*Valid until 31st March 2012, excludes 18th March. The voucher can only be redeemed<br />
against a meal at Famiglia and has no cash value. Subject to availability. Only one voucher<br />
can be used per table and cannot be used in <strong>co</strong>njunction with any other offer.
Photo by emma Chaplin<br />
mother’S ruin<br />
The nibbLeR<br />
It’s Mother’s Day on 18th March, so it seems fitting<br />
for the Nibbler to suggest a few places to buy the tipple<br />
beloved by the Queen Mother, and indeed one’s<br />
own dear mama; gin. For a noon pick-me-up, the QM<br />
drank two parts Dubonnet to one part gin. At ‘the<br />
magic hour’ of 6pm she was served a martini (gin and<br />
vermouth).<br />
Even Republican citizens of <strong>Lewes</strong> must share a<br />
fondness for Mother’s Ruin because both Hartley’s<br />
and Harveys keep a good selection of gin. Other<br />
than Gordon’s, they sell the delicious Tanqueray,<br />
elegant, smooth Bombay Sapphire and flavoursome<br />
Hendrick’s, for example. Harveys also sell Genever,<br />
the aromatic Dutch gin in a ceramic bottle. All good<br />
gin deserves a really decent quality tonic. Shun ‘low<br />
calorie’, given that aspartame truly is the work of the<br />
devil.<br />
As for other beverages that mothers enjoy, the Nibbler’s<br />
grandmother, a fine woman, believed stout to<br />
be a good fortifier of the blood for all ages, which<br />
made childhood visits fun.<br />
Superb quality sherry, a million miles from Hinge &<br />
Bracket’s Emva cream, is enjoying a revival, and so<br />
it should. A chilled fino, for example, makes a delicious<br />
aperitif, and the intensely sweet and rich Pedro<br />
Ximénez seems a popular choice amongst <strong>Lewes</strong>ian<br />
women: “a cuddle in a glass” say sources close at<br />
hand. Symposium now stock it.<br />
Ending with some good cheer, well done to Dark<br />
Star Brewery for winning the Best Drink Supplier<br />
category at the recent Sussex Food and Drink<br />
Awards, and to the High Weald Dairy for being<br />
named Best Food Producer.<br />
Food or drink news? Email thenibbler@vivalewes.<strong>co</strong>m
the way we work<br />
Photographs by Simon Crummay<br />
This month we’ve returned to our usual photographic format, and<br />
have chosen florists, who will be much in demand in the run-up to<br />
Mother’s Day on the 18th, as our subject, asking them the rather<br />
impertinent question: ‘What’s your favourite smell?’ Photographer<br />
Simon Crummay, whose excellently named website you can find at<br />
somebodyshootme.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong>, is the man behind the lens.<br />
Jenny slater, of Miss bloomsbury<br />
what’s your favourite smell? hyacinths.
The way we woRK<br />
Clare wilson, of Riverside<br />
what’s your favourite smell? Lily-of-the-valley. or vanilla.
64<br />
The way we woRK<br />
ana o’Kill, of <strong>Lewes</strong>iana<br />
what’s your favourite smell? Money. honestly.
The way we woRK<br />
ni<strong>co</strong>la Jackson, of Fleur de Thé<br />
what’s your favourite smell? Coffee in the morning.
’
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
my space: richie JarviS’ obServatory<br />
In the back garden of his house in South Chailey,<br />
amateur astronomer Richie Jarvis has his own<br />
observatory, where he takes photos of stars, planets<br />
and galaxies.<br />
It was my ex-wife’s fault I got into astronomy.<br />
She was doing an Open University <strong>co</strong>urse in science,<br />
part of it was in astronomy and I was interested from<br />
a kid, but I’d never even looked through a teles<strong>co</strong>pe.<br />
We went out and bought a teles<strong>co</strong>pe, one of the<br />
cheap little two-inch ones from one of those nature<br />
shops. Its tripod was so badly made I <strong>co</strong>uldn’t steadily<br />
see a planet, it would just wobble. But I looked at<br />
Saturn, and that was it. ‘I’ve got to get a bigger one’.<br />
As a divorce present, I bought an 8-inch teles<strong>co</strong>pe<br />
that I had absolutely no idea how to use.<br />
It would follow the sky, on an equatorial mount,<br />
which tracks the direction of the earth’s rotation,<br />
and <strong>co</strong>unteracts for it, so as the earth rotates the<br />
teles<strong>co</strong>pe stays still relative to the sky.<br />
My current teles<strong>co</strong>pe is <strong>co</strong>nnected to the <strong>co</strong>mputer.<br />
You fire up the Planetarium software, and just<br />
say ‘point to that star’. It knows exactly where that<br />
is, what time it is, and it knows the exact position of<br />
that teles<strong>co</strong>pe right now. Knowing that, and some<br />
<strong>co</strong>mpensation <strong>co</strong>-ordinates, I can tell it to look at<br />
anything.<br />
The moon is the biggest source of light pollution<br />
in the night sky. You can’t do deep-sky photography<br />
My wiLdLiFe sPaCe<br />
when the moon is full, because you’d need to leave<br />
the shutter open for 10-15 minutes, and the moon<br />
will just wash the picture out.<br />
When you see stars twinkling, that’s because<br />
the atmosphere is moving around, and diffracting<br />
all the light around, showing you rainbow <strong>co</strong>lours.<br />
That’s a real problem because it just blurs the image.<br />
You’re looking for a night when the atmosphere is<br />
very steady, and that’s when you take pictures of the<br />
Moon, and Jupiter and Saturn.<br />
When you’re using a camera, you’ll typically put<br />
the SLR directly on the teles<strong>co</strong>pe, which acts<br />
like a lens. My main imaging camera is monochrome,<br />
and I use filters to build up a <strong>co</strong>lour image.<br />
Hydrogen is the most <strong>co</strong>mmon element in the<br />
universe, and it glows red, so pictures end up too red<br />
otherwise.<br />
We’re very, very, very tiny. To map out the solar<br />
system with the Earth as a ping-pong ball, the sun<br />
would have to be about 4.5m in diameter. At the<br />
scale of a ping pong ball as the sun, it’s 129 metres<br />
to Neptune! Jupiter is the size of a pepper<strong>co</strong>rn, and<br />
Saturn is about the size of a small ball bearing. You<br />
cannot represent the rest of the planets in the Solar<br />
System, at that scale, because they’re too small.<br />
You’re not talking pinhead, you’re talking the sharp<br />
end of the pin. As told to Steve Ramsey<br />
You can see Richie’s photos on his website, nebul.ae<br />
67<br />
Photo montage by Katie Moorman
68<br />
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<strong>Viva</strong> <strong>Lewes</strong> Summer 2010 Campaign.indd 1 15/06/2010 14:04:55
Photo by Flo Flowers<br />
Glyndebourne’s wind turbine has generated reams of<br />
newspaper <strong>co</strong>verage, and had hacks scrambling for<br />
opera jokes. The Telegraph said: “It may add a surreal<br />
edge to performances of Don Quixote,” while The<br />
Mail referred to “disharmony in the wind section”.<br />
And when the turbine got the final go-ahead, a<br />
Guardian hack used this classic one-liner: “A battle<br />
was won at Glyndebourne yesterday, and not one<br />
involving Tatiana’s tortured emotions as she rejects<br />
Eugene Onegin in Tchaikovsky’s 1879 opera, which<br />
was performed there last night.”<br />
Even before Glyndebourne submitted its plans for<br />
a 70-metre wind turbine on Jan 18th, 2007, public<br />
opinion was ‘strongly polarised’ along the following<br />
lines: it’ll be big and noisy, but useful; it’ll spoil<br />
a nice area, but no-one lives there anyway; it might<br />
not produce much energy, but that’s Glyndebourne’s<br />
problem. Even the British Gliding Association got<br />
involved in the row, saying the “turbine will create a<br />
significant hazard to gliders in the area.” The <strong>co</strong>uncil<br />
dismissed this <strong>co</strong>ncern: “Gliders that are low should<br />
be able to use the ‘see and avoid’ principle…”<br />
Many other groups objected to the original application,<br />
and Council planning officers re<strong>co</strong>mmended<br />
refusal, saying the benefits “fail to sufficiently<br />
outweigh the disbenefits”. However, in July 2007 the<br />
planning <strong>co</strong>mmittee voted for the application, 6-4.<br />
The following March saw a public inquiry, held at<br />
the White Hart Hotel, after which Hazel Blears gave<br />
final permission, with a few <strong>co</strong>nditions. Glyndebourne<br />
had to take additional measures to cut its<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
Wind<br />
turbine<br />
glyndebourne in a spin<br />
bRiCKs and MoRTaR<br />
carbon footprint, like en<strong>co</strong>uraging <strong>co</strong>ach travel from<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> and banning guests from arriving by heli<strong>co</strong>pter.<br />
They also had to set up a weather mast on the<br />
site to gather 12 months of data on wind speed.<br />
The data suggested the turbine would produce a<br />
third less power than expected. Protestors argued<br />
that “<strong>co</strong>mmon sense should now prevail – the<br />
turbine should not be built.” By that point, though,<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> District Council was powerless to stop it.<br />
The public inquiry report had specifically said that,<br />
however disappointing wind levels turned out to be,<br />
the <strong>co</strong>uncil was not allowed to withdraw permission<br />
on efficiency grounds.<br />
On 11 October 2011, a five-vehicle <strong>co</strong>nvoy brought<br />
the £1.5m turbine, in pieces, to the site on Mill<br />
Plain, where it was built over the next three days.<br />
It was switched on at the start of December, and<br />
a fairly redundant ‘launch’ ceremony was held on<br />
Jan 20th. There were cheers, boos, and some <strong>co</strong>mic<br />
relief as David Attenborough, facing strong winds,<br />
battled with a pair of gigantic scissors, taking twelve<br />
snips to cut a huge piece of green ribbon.<br />
Attenborough called the turbine ‘beautiful’. That<br />
may be a little strong, but it does have a certain<br />
elegance, and doesn’t seem too noisy. When I visited,<br />
on a <strong>co</strong>ld and reasonably windy afternoon, it was<br />
clearly audible from 100 metres or so, but, as the<br />
Guardian might put it, nowhere near as loud as<br />
Tosca’s scream as she throws herself from the battlements<br />
of Castel Sant’Angelo.<br />
Steve Ramsey<br />
69
70<br />
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Church Street, Uckfield TN22 1BH<br />
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����
illustration by Mark gre<strong>co</strong><br />
The first sound that a newborn rook hears is other<br />
rooks. Lots of them. It’s a sound that will surround it<br />
every day for the rest of its life. Rooks are one of our<br />
most sociable birds. They’ll live, love, feed and fight<br />
together - team players from the rookery to the grave.<br />
During March, take a trip down to the bridge over<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> railway station and look up at the <strong>co</strong>mmunity<br />
of messy twig nests above - your local rookery.<br />
There’s a definite pleasure to be had from watching a<br />
rookery - the sort of pleasure you get from pulling up<br />
a deckchair and watching a neighbour hard at work.<br />
High in the trees the rooks are busy: carrying twigs<br />
back to their nests, building their nests, stealing twigs<br />
from their neighbour’s nest when he’s not looking,<br />
getting into a fight with the neighbour when they’re<br />
caught. It’s a tree-top soap opera.<br />
It can be easy to dismiss them as unattractive, plain<br />
black birds with a croaky call that sounds like Tom<br />
Waits <strong>co</strong>ughing up a hairball. But look closer and<br />
you’ll see the rook’s plumage <strong>co</strong>ntains a hidden<br />
beauty - an iridescent sheen which gives the bird a<br />
flash of exotic purple and green. Loose feathers hang<br />
low to their knees like a pair of baggy shorts, the sort<br />
favoured by teen skateboarders or men who listen to<br />
Foo Fighters.<br />
Sure, that rau<strong>co</strong>us ‘KAAH’ may not rival the nightingale’s<br />
song but the <strong>co</strong>mmunal ca<strong>co</strong>phony gives<br />
<strong>co</strong>nstant reassurance to every individual rook that it<br />
belongs within the team. That call also helps rooks<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
rookS<br />
The greatest team in the land (and sky)<br />
wiLdLiFe<br />
<strong>co</strong>mmunicate the best local areas for feeding; the<br />
dis<strong>co</strong>very of a worm-filled field is noisily shared to<br />
ensure that all can join in the feast.<br />
This teamwork is one way to tell them apart from<br />
their similar-looking but anti-social relative the carrion<br />
crow. Any rook on its own is a crow. If you see a<br />
group of crows they’re rooks.<br />
Outside the nesting season and away from the rookeries<br />
the birds gather each evening to roost. Rooks from<br />
all across the <strong>Lewes</strong> area travel over the landscape and<br />
<strong>co</strong>nverge to form a super-flock of hundreds or even<br />
thousands of birds. Jackdaws, their smaller relatives,<br />
join in the party and this black cloud whirls across the<br />
sky, a crazy, cackling, cawing celebration of all things<br />
crow. As winter draws to an end this nightly ritual<br />
dissipates and rooks return to the <strong>Lewes</strong> rookery, start<br />
<strong>co</strong>llecting (and stealing) twigs and prepare themselves<br />
for the arrival of another generation of <strong>co</strong>mrades in<br />
baggy shorts.<br />
And while you’re watching the <strong>Lewes</strong> rookery, look<br />
down from the railway bridge to platform two and<br />
you’ll see the crowd of <strong>co</strong>mmuters awaiting the London<br />
train. People all living similar lives but without<br />
any interaction whatsoever between them. Sometimes<br />
you’ll catch them looking up at the wonderful chaos<br />
of the rookery above and no doubt wondering what<br />
it’s like to never feel alone.<br />
Michael Blen<strong>co</strong>we, Sussex Wildlife Trust.<br />
leweswildlife.org.<strong>uk</strong><br />
71
High Street, Bar<strong>co</strong>mbe, Near <strong>Lewes</strong>, BN8 5DH. Telephone <strong>01273</strong> 401526<br />
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the Southover Shark<br />
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the altar<br />
Once upon a time (in the ninth century AD),<br />
Pope Nicholas I is said to have issued a decree:<br />
Every church in Christendom must attach the image<br />
of a <strong>co</strong>ckerel to its steeple. Why? To remind<br />
churchgoers how easy it is to sin.<br />
After all, even Peter, Christ’s doughtiest disciple,<br />
had been known to transgress. Three times in one<br />
night he was asked if he was a follower of Jesus.<br />
Three times he said no. But as dawn broke, and<br />
the <strong>co</strong>ckerel crowed, Peter realised his betrayal…<br />
A <strong>co</strong>ckerel was a graphic symbol of the weakness<br />
of the flesh and many churches, even now, have<br />
one as their weather vane. But not all. In 1813 the<br />
rector of St John the Baptist, Southover, broke<br />
with the rooster trend and <strong>co</strong>mmissioned an<br />
almighty fish for the top of his church tower. Not,<br />
as Gideon Mantell’s biographer Sydney Spokes<br />
believed, a salmon (see last month’s <strong>Viva</strong>), but a<br />
six-foot-six hollow <strong>co</strong>pper basking shark.<br />
But why did the Southover rector choose this<br />
plankton-munching giant of the seas as the model<br />
for his weather vane? Granted, a fish is a <strong>co</strong>mmon<br />
Christian symbol. Fish/ fishermen/ fishers of men<br />
are regularly mentioned in the Bible. But basking<br />
sharks themselves tend not to get much of a mention.<br />
The truth is that the choice wasn’t Biblically<br />
inspired. Instead it was prompted by an event that<br />
occurred in Brighton a few months earlier.<br />
On December 5th 1812 a Brighton fisherman<br />
called Collins made the catch of his life. He<br />
landed a gargantuan basking shark, measuring<br />
over 30 feet long – more than nine metres -<br />
from snout to tail. Stood on end it would have<br />
been higher than a two-storey house.<br />
The sight of it caused quite a stir as it was<br />
dragged up Brighton beach. Artists came to draw<br />
it, journalists to report it, and one entrepreneur<br />
bought the body for £600 (a small fortune) and<br />
whisked it off to be exhibited in London.<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> in 100 obJeCTs<br />
The eight-ton carcase was transported to Grosvenor<br />
Square on a carriage pulled by 12 horses.<br />
In London handbills were put up, exhorting the<br />
Great British Public to <strong>co</strong>me and see ‘This Astonishing<br />
Sea Monster!!!’. The price of admission was<br />
a shilling. Given the amount paid for the shark<br />
(not to mention the transportation and exhibition<br />
<strong>co</strong>sts) the organiser must have expected to attract<br />
viewings from well over 12,000 people.<br />
And why not? This basking shark had fired people’s<br />
imaginations. It had certainly inspired the<br />
Southover rector. His new weather vane would<br />
<strong>co</strong>mmemorate the huge fish. The creature of the<br />
depths would ascend to the skies.<br />
But not everyone was impressed. 174 years later,<br />
in 1987, the Great Storm blew the weather vane<br />
off its perch and down to the ground. When the<br />
then-Rector, Peter Markby, went to inspect it,<br />
he dis<strong>co</strong>vered that someone - at some point - had<br />
taken the odd pot shot at the shark. There were<br />
pellet holes in its flanks. The<br />
Victorian weather vane had<br />
be<strong>co</strong>me the holey basking<br />
shark of Southover.<br />
Katie Masters<br />
73<br />
Photo by Katie Masters
haStingS<br />
Oranges and Lemons
Photo by alex Leith<br />
The 9.44am Hastings train<br />
pulls out of the station and<br />
thus begins one of the nicest<br />
50-minute journeys you can<br />
make by rail from <strong>Lewes</strong>. And<br />
one which is almost guaranteed<br />
to be quicker than by car, as the<br />
A27 hits the Bexhill buffers.<br />
My journey is to a much<br />
mythologised and much<br />
misunderstood town, too far<br />
from London to be a <strong>co</strong>mmuter<br />
town. But close enough to have<br />
a familiar London overspill, for<br />
good and ill.<br />
Down the glen-like valley<br />
from <strong>Lewes</strong>, into and back<br />
out of Eastbourne, and as you<br />
hit the <strong>co</strong>ast, there <strong>co</strong>mes the<br />
hypnotic litany of stations made<br />
real: Hampden Park, Pevensey<br />
& Westham, Pevensey Bay,<br />
Normans Bay, Cooden Beach,<br />
Collington, Bexhill, St Leonards<br />
Warrior Square and Hastings.<br />
The many times I’ve been<br />
through by rail, I’ve never<br />
actually got off at St Leonards<br />
Warrior Square. But chatting to<br />
Juliet Harris, born and bred St<br />
Leonards resident, I dis<strong>co</strong>ver it<br />
deserves far more than being an<br />
overlooked adjunct to Hastings.<br />
“It’s like a teeny London<br />
borough, more diverse than<br />
Hastings proper”, and though<br />
not the new Notting Hill-on-<br />
Sea touted by some, it does<br />
indeed have a thriving arts<br />
<strong>co</strong>mmunity and a welter of<br />
se<strong>co</strong>nd-hand shops. Plus, she<br />
tells me, a Russian, an Armenian<br />
and an up<strong>co</strong>ming Transylvanian<br />
bar. And there are the kind of<br />
old-fashioned greengrocers,<br />
haberdashers and other stores<br />
that have been gently nudged<br />
out of <strong>Lewes</strong>. “Though every<br />
other person I meet does seem<br />
to be an aspiring artist.”<br />
To get a flavour, Juliet<br />
re<strong>co</strong>mmends a meander up from<br />
the faded 1930s grandeur of<br />
Marine Court (fondly known<br />
as the Marina), the Arts Forum<br />
and Bar Blah, and around the<br />
Norman Road, Kings Road,<br />
London Road nexus.<br />
There are some truly fine<br />
eateries, worth the journey<br />
time alone – the St Clement’s<br />
restaurant at the top of Norman<br />
Road, an excessively good<br />
French restaurant, more than<br />
matches anything <strong>Lewes</strong> can<br />
currently offer.<br />
St Leonards also does things<br />
differently in a way <strong>Lewes</strong>ians<br />
would applaud – such as the<br />
creation of the “Wonky WI”,<br />
which brings down speakers<br />
about Stitch and Bitch sessions,<br />
rarely makes jam, and certainly<br />
never sings Jerusalem.<br />
If I had got off, she also would<br />
have re<strong>co</strong>mmended a shufti at<br />
the Council-preserved Banksy<br />
scribed on the sea front in 2009,<br />
and a lunch at the Love Cafe,<br />
similarly endowed with a massive<br />
local Ben Eine-pixellated graffiti<br />
image of Prince Charles, that is<br />
now a local landmark.<br />
But I stay on the train, planning<br />
to return for St Leonards next<br />
time, and head down to Hastings<br />
Old Town via the modernity of<br />
the Priory Meadows shopping<br />
centre. Occupying what used<br />
to be the cricket ground in the<br />
heart of Hastings – with views<br />
up to the Castle that must<br />
have made for a fine place to<br />
while away a Sunday - now<br />
<strong>co</strong>mmemorated with a <strong>co</strong>pper<br />
cricketer, lofting a shot towards<br />
neighbouRs<br />
(yes, gaze jealously once more<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong>) M&S and Waterstones.<br />
The oldest parts of Hastings<br />
lie over to the east. Around the<br />
Rock-A-Nore there are of <strong>co</strong>urse<br />
the classic fish & chip shops, a<br />
fiercely fought <strong>co</strong>ntest between<br />
local fishmongers, and the<br />
largest beach-launched fishing<br />
fleets left in the <strong>co</strong>untry.<br />
And it’s here that new<br />
developments may draw more<br />
future <strong>Lewes</strong> footfall. The most<br />
<strong>co</strong>ntentious battle for years has<br />
been over the <strong>co</strong>nstruction of<br />
the new Jerwood Gallery on the<br />
Stade. A proposal that aroused<br />
strong passions – with local<br />
people firmly for or against –<br />
and a heady brew of <strong>co</strong>uncil<br />
politics, local business clashes,<br />
parking <strong>co</strong>ncerns and multimillion<br />
investments.<br />
But that is now behind them and<br />
with the opening scheduled for<br />
mid-March, the broad <strong>co</strong>nsensus<br />
is for it to succeed. Will it lead<br />
to the hoped for renaissance for<br />
the town?<br />
If people do make their first<br />
visit, drawn by the Jerwood,<br />
they will find some fine pubs<br />
in the Old Town – the Swan,<br />
the Jenny Lind and the First<br />
in Last Out – and a sauntering<br />
mix of se<strong>co</strong>nd-hand bookshops<br />
and cafés along George Street.<br />
Plus the eccentric and glorious<br />
Electric Palace Cinema, which<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong>ians can only look at with<br />
lust. As I wander back by the<br />
twittenesque pathways over West<br />
Hill and Hastings Castle, and<br />
gaze out over the sea and the<br />
glory of the mix of fun-fairs, fish<br />
& chips and history, I can’t help<br />
thinking: <strong>Viva</strong> Hastings. <strong>Viva</strong> St<br />
Leonards. Rob Read<br />
75
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Convenient free parking is available at our riverside office in the heart of <strong>Lewes</strong>.<br />
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sLow susseX<br />
the hardham Wall paintingS<br />
While researching my book Slow Sussex, one of many<br />
surprises was the number of churches with medieval<br />
wall paintings intact. That these anonymous works<br />
of art have survived is often due to zealous <strong>co</strong>vering<br />
over in subsequent centuries, which meant once they<br />
were again revealed they reappeared remarkably fresh.<br />
Southwest of Pulborough and well hidden on a loop of<br />
road away from the A29, Hardham’s modest-looking<br />
church is not the sort of place you’d chance across.<br />
Supposedly built from recycled Roman brick and<br />
tiles from a nearby military site, this Saxon building<br />
has the earliest near-<strong>co</strong>mplete set of medieval wall<br />
paintings of any English church. Dating from around<br />
1100 but <strong>co</strong>vered up some time after until redis<strong>co</strong>very<br />
in 1866, the depictions include the Torments of Hell<br />
on the west wall, the Nativity on the south wall and<br />
the Flight into Egypt on the north wall. Clearest of<br />
all are the strangely Picasso-esque Adam and Eve on<br />
the west wall of the chancel. If the fres<strong>co</strong>-seeking bug<br />
bites you, Clayton church has an impressive set, dating<br />
from the 11th century, and there’s more at the tiny,<br />
remote Norman church at Coombes, in a wonderful,<br />
sloping churchyard above Church Farm near Lancing.<br />
More Sussex pleasures in Tim Locke’s Slow Sussex,<br />
Guide Book of the Year Finalist in British Press<br />
Awards (£14.99 from Skylark, <strong>Lewes</strong> Tourist Information<br />
Centre and Barbican House). Visit facebook.<strong>co</strong>m/<br />
slowsussex for details of walks he’s doing.<br />
77<br />
Photo: Tim Locke
axter’S<br />
field<br />
green heart of <strong>Lewes</strong><br />
If a town has to have industry at<br />
its heart, then a brewery and a<br />
printing firm is not a bad <strong>co</strong>mbination.<br />
And between 1802 and<br />
1997 <strong>Lewes</strong> was lucky enough to<br />
have both. But while Harvey’s is<br />
still going strong, W.E. Baxter<br />
Ltd didn’t quite make it into the<br />
new century, and in 1997 it was<br />
bought out by Fulmar, a Croydon<br />
<strong>co</strong>mpany, supposedly for<br />
investment but in practice as an<br />
asset to be stripped right down.<br />
Soon there was nothing left but<br />
a metaphorical goldmine in the<br />
centre of town (the development<br />
which bears the Baxter’s name)<br />
and a field: the triangle of land<br />
forming the western end of the<br />
green valley still standing its<br />
ground in the middle of <strong>Lewes</strong>.<br />
This was W.E. Baxter’s sports<br />
field, a piece of land bought by<br />
the <strong>co</strong>mpany in 1923 along with<br />
a small area of <strong>co</strong>pse leased in<br />
1928 from St Anne’s Church. It<br />
was for the use of the <strong>co</strong>mpany’s<br />
employees, and there were<br />
tennis <strong>co</strong>urts, a bowling green,<br />
a cricket square, and pitches for<br />
soccer and rugby. And there<br />
was even a bit of infrastructure<br />
– a pavilion and two air-raid<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
Photo by simon goodman of phocuspocus.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong><br />
shelters – and a determined<br />
and eagle-eyed groundsman on<br />
hand to keep people out. But<br />
whenever the field was <strong>co</strong>vered<br />
in snow, the big wooden gates in<br />
Paddock Lane were flung open<br />
to allow children to sledge.<br />
The printing firm’s new owners<br />
would, I imagine, have been<br />
delighted to see the field sold<br />
for development along with the<br />
printworks, but a farsighted Mr<br />
H.J. Powell, in selling it to W.E.<br />
Baxter, had imposed a <strong>co</strong>venant:<br />
the field had to be kept as an<br />
open space (the <strong>co</strong>venant is<br />
set in stone – literally – in the<br />
vestry of St Anne’s), so this asset<br />
wasn’t quite what it might have<br />
been, and Fulmar abandoned<br />
the field to its own devices.<br />
A few murky years followed:<br />
the field was locked up, and<br />
nature took over. And, sadly, the<br />
pavilion was set on fire and, due<br />
to the exploding asbestos tiles,<br />
had to be entirely demolished.<br />
Order was only restored in<br />
2003 when two nearby residents<br />
decided enough was enough and<br />
took <strong>co</strong>ntrol. Volunteers then<br />
ouTdooRs<br />
undertook the mammoth task<br />
of clearing the field of brambles,<br />
rubbish, and the evidence of<br />
whatever shady activities had<br />
taken place there in the preceding<br />
few years.<br />
When Fulmar did put the field<br />
on the market, it seemed just<br />
a question of formalising the<br />
arrangement, and <strong>Lewes</strong>ians<br />
got together to buy the field for<br />
the asking price of £78,000 and<br />
take over the lease of the <strong>co</strong>pse.<br />
They had only six weeks to find<br />
the money but, in yet another<br />
case of <strong>Lewes</strong> ‘not being druv’,<br />
they raised it all.<br />
And since then Baxter’s Field<br />
has been for the use of everyone<br />
– and not only when it snows.<br />
The wide expanse of grass is<br />
still pretty much the perfect<br />
place to kick a football around,<br />
and last year three apple trees<br />
were planted to create the<br />
beginnings of a <strong>co</strong>mmunity<br />
orchard. But when the snow<br />
does arrive… Now that’s when<br />
Baxter’s Field – still – <strong>co</strong>mes<br />
into its own.<br />
Juliette Mitchell<br />
79
tea With<br />
mother<br />
Cake hotspots<br />
Where are some nice places to go on Mother’s<br />
Day (Sun 18th)? It depends on the weather, obviously,<br />
and the age of your kids, or your mother.<br />
But an outing to a <strong>co</strong>sy tearoom, for excessive<br />
amounts of delicious cake, works whatever the<br />
weather.<br />
Many places where you can go for a lovely walk<br />
also have access to hot drinks and fine baked<br />
goods. If it’s seaside air you’re after, mooch<br />
along the dramatic monochrome of the beach<br />
and rockpools at Birling Gap followed by a trip<br />
to the National Trust café on the cliff, with its<br />
amazing sea views (and, currently, pictures by<br />
our soon-to-be <strong>co</strong>ver artist, Keith Pettit).<br />
East Dean is a charming village with a lovely<br />
green in the middle. The Hiker’s Rest café<br />
runs along one side, and the Tiger Inn, which<br />
serves delicious food, runs along another. And if<br />
you go for a family walk along the meandering<br />
Cuckmere Haven, you can pop into the tearoom<br />
tucked away in the Seven Sisters Visitor Centre<br />
afterwards. Or, after a stroll around Stanmer<br />
Park, you can head to the village tearoom for a<br />
mug of tea and a toastie.<br />
Newhaven Fort is a place that always makes me<br />
thoughtful about mothers, in particular how<br />
stressful a time war must have been for them,<br />
with husbands and sons away, <strong>co</strong>ping with air<br />
raids, and their children being sent away as<br />
evacuees. The Fort is a terrific, thoughtfully created<br />
war museum, and it reopens on 1st March.<br />
In keeping with this <strong>co</strong>lumn’s tastebud-oriented<br />
theme, it also hosts the NAAFI-like Searchlight<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
MoTheR’s day<br />
Café, with great slabs of cake.<br />
For those who like taking tea in a more formal<br />
setting, with waitresses in white pinnies, a proper<br />
brew that requires a strainer and homemade<br />
cakes on doilies, there is the wonderful Hove<br />
Museum. They have a new exhibition opening<br />
this month called My Favourite Toy (10th March<br />
to 6th November, free entry).<br />
Garden lovers might enjoy the early-spring<br />
flowers in a formal garden. The National Trust’s<br />
Sheffield Park Gardens are always a pleasure to<br />
stroll around, looking at dramatic reflections<br />
of the yet-to-leaf trees in the lakes. And mums<br />
on Mother’s Day who book afternoon tea in the<br />
refurbished Coach House Tearoom (£8.95pp,<br />
01825 790231) get into the gardens free. Other<br />
glorious gardens with cafés include Wakehurst<br />
Place, Nyman’s and Borde Hill Gardens near<br />
Haywards Heath, home to Café Elvira, next to<br />
the delightful Jeremy’s restaurant.<br />
Finally, if you’d rather stay local, here are some<br />
thoughts. You might want to visit Spring Barn<br />
Farm, and partake of the special Mother’s Day<br />
menu in the restaurant (book on 488450), mums<br />
then get half-price entry to the Farm Park.<br />
In <strong>Lewes</strong> itself, you <strong>co</strong>uld try Mount Pleasant<br />
Stores, whose lemon polenta cake is se<strong>co</strong>nd to<br />
none. Or, on the Saturday, you <strong>co</strong>uld buy a superb<br />
Bakewell tart to eat at home on Mothering<br />
Sunday from Laporte’s, or the most delicate and<br />
pretty pastel <strong>co</strong>loured macaroons from <strong>Lewes</strong><br />
Patisserie (both closed Sundays).<br />
Emma Chaplin<br />
Photo by alex Leith<br />
81
cardio tenniS<br />
Anyone for bubbles?<br />
Until gout got the better of my knees around<br />
a year ago, I’d been playing a bit of tennis.<br />
However, after a gentle knock up ended up<br />
with a trip to A&E last February, I thought my<br />
tennis days were over. A year on however, my<br />
gout is under <strong>co</strong>ntrol and I’m back on the fitness<br />
trail. So far it’s only been the gym, but I’m still<br />
tempted by tennis, and I think I’ve found a<br />
solution. Down at the Southdown Club, they’ve<br />
<strong>co</strong>vered a <strong>co</strong>uple of <strong>co</strong>urts with a giant acrylic<br />
airdome - known universally as ‘the bubble’.<br />
From the outside, it looms menacingly over the<br />
clubhouse, but inside it’s a well-lit, element-free<br />
workspace, and today, four of us, including <strong>Viva</strong><br />
ad man Steve Watts, are going to try a cross between<br />
tennis and a gym session - cardio tennis.<br />
It’s billed as ‘fun, fast and, a full-body workout’.<br />
Sounds good, and I’m happy to be heading back<br />
on <strong>co</strong>urt.<br />
Our instructor is Josh, one of the tennis <strong>co</strong>aches<br />
working at the Southdown, and it’s <strong>co</strong>nducted,<br />
rather surreally, to high-energy 90s dance<br />
music. We start with a running warm-up, laps<br />
of the <strong>co</strong>urt, interspersed with side strides, leg<br />
kicks, and a <strong>co</strong>mbination of twists and turns.<br />
The last part of the warm-up involves jogging<br />
around in a circle, whilst throwing the ball in<br />
the opposite direction around the circle - a good<br />
test of <strong>co</strong>-ordination - and a challenge to Steve’s<br />
throwing skills. Happy we’re warmed up, Josh<br />
tells us to grab our rackets and we start on the<br />
tennis drills. The first one involves hitting two<br />
balls the length of the <strong>co</strong>urt, and then sprinting<br />
to <strong>co</strong>llect them, before returning them to<br />
the basket and re-joining the back of the line.<br />
Because there are only four of us (a normal<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
FiTness<br />
session is 10-12 people), we’re <strong>co</strong>nstantly on the<br />
move, as the drills switch to a series of cross<strong>co</strong>urt<br />
shots, and then volleys at the net. After<br />
each set, we run to the back of the <strong>co</strong>urt, <strong>co</strong>llect<br />
the balls and return to the back of the line. Our<br />
final drill of the day, involves Josh hitting the<br />
ball on the far side of the <strong>co</strong>urt, and one of us<br />
running around to hit it back to another player,<br />
and then to play out the point. As soon as the<br />
point is won, the loser goes to the back of the<br />
line and another player <strong>co</strong>mes on. It’s a fun twist<br />
on a normal rally and be<strong>co</strong>mes quite <strong>co</strong>mpetitive.<br />
The session then finishes with a <strong>co</strong>ol down,<br />
which involves throwing and then volleying<br />
the ball across the net, aiming to keep everyone<br />
moving right to the end. Time flies by and we<br />
all say we’ll back for the full session, which<br />
currently takes place at 7pm on Friday evenings.<br />
I may even dig out a <strong>co</strong>uple of long forgotten<br />
house music cds to take with me... Nick Williams<br />
Cardio Tennis with WM Tennis <strong>co</strong>sts £11 per one<br />
hour session (£7 for members) - book via <strong>01273</strong><br />
480630 or <strong>co</strong>ntact brett@wmtennis.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong><br />
83
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36721 January 2012 Campaign Adverts L.indd 1 06/12/2011 17:35
Photo: James boyes<br />
Simon Wormull was appointed as caretaker manager<br />
of <strong>Lewes</strong> FC in January, following the departure of<br />
Steve King. Simon’s previously played for <strong>Lewes</strong>,<br />
and <strong>co</strong>ached them too. <strong>Viva</strong> met him down the Pan<br />
on a bright, chilly day.<br />
Is this your first senior management role? A few<br />
years ago I was caretaker manager for Crawley for<br />
six weeks, which was great experience. I hope to be<br />
here for the foreseeable future, and I’ll do everything<br />
I can to take our plans forward.<br />
Are you juggling your new role with managing<br />
the under 18s? No, my <strong>co</strong>mmitment now is to the<br />
first team. I’m still overseeing the under 18s, but<br />
Nick Brown has taken over the management.<br />
Are you <strong>co</strong>mmitted to bringing younger players<br />
through? Absolutely. We’ve got some cracking 15<br />
and 16 year olds this year. We’ve excited about our<br />
plans for an Academy which we’re hoping will start<br />
in September, offering school-leavers the chance to<br />
experience what it’s like to be a full-time footballer.<br />
It’ll be a great way to bring more players through.<br />
Do you <strong>co</strong>nsider yourself a player-manager?<br />
Yes, I do still think of myself as a player. I’m not<br />
planning to put myself on regularly but I can if<br />
necessary. When I went on recently [against Canvey<br />
Island] I killed myself! I hadn’t really played for six<br />
months. It was a hard decision – you have to balance<br />
giving people the opportunity against choosing<br />
someone with the right experience. And I enjoyed<br />
it – it gave me a buzz.<br />
What’s it like to manage a club that has 750<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
FooTbaLL<br />
Simon Wormull<br />
Once more unto the breach<br />
owners? Amazing! I absolutely love the club, the<br />
way the <strong>co</strong>mmunity’s grabbed it. I haven’t used the<br />
Spend & Save Scheme yet - I live in Crawley, so I’m<br />
not here much outside of the football.<br />
What do you think of the current success of the<br />
ladies team? Fantastic; Jacquie’s done an amazing<br />
job. She’s shown everyone the quality of players we<br />
can attract. I saw the game where they won 8-1, a bit<br />
easy for them. Women’s football is clearly on the up,<br />
they deserve to get good crowds.<br />
What are your ambitions for the remainder of<br />
the season? To win the league, or get promotion..<br />
There are lots of good changes going on. We’re implementing<br />
a better training schedule. We’ve been<br />
through an unsettling time but I’m <strong>co</strong>nfident we’re<br />
<strong>co</strong>ming out of it now.<br />
What was your greatest ever <strong>Lewes</strong> FC moment?<br />
Obviously, winning the league in 2008. Even though<br />
I wasn’t playing – I was out injured. And beating<br />
Crawley in the FA Cup (2007). No-one expected us<br />
to win, so it was extremely satisfying [laughs].<br />
What would you say to <strong>co</strong>nvince non-attending<br />
owners to <strong>co</strong>me to games? Oh, it’s the whole aura<br />
of the place. We’ve got such fantastic fans, good<br />
football, and honest, creative players working very<br />
hard. We’re a <strong>co</strong>mmunity club – the more people we<br />
get <strong>co</strong>ming along the more we can do.<br />
Interview by Beth Miller<br />
March Home Fixtures: 10th v Carshalton Athletic,<br />
17th v Lowestoft, 31st v Hendon, all 3pm KO<br />
lewesfc.<strong>co</strong>m<br />
85
odd soCs<br />
the South doWnS Society<br />
What is the South Downs Society? We’re an<br />
environmental charity that helps to protect the<br />
beauty of the South Downs. We started in 1923 as<br />
a walking group which also campaigned against<br />
threats to the Downs. We still hold around 250<br />
walks a year though.<br />
Can you tell us a bit about the walks? Every<br />
walk is led by a volunteer, so they’re always different.<br />
We get a great mix of people to each walk, and<br />
as the South Downs run for over 100 miles there<br />
are always new faces. There’s a taster programme<br />
of walks that are shorter and more accessible for<br />
non-members.<br />
Are there other projects the Society runs? We<br />
run The Folk Songs Project, which has been sponsored<br />
by the Heritage Lottery Fund to the tune<br />
of £50,000, to resurrect some of the ancient South<br />
Downs folk songs. We also support the Mosaic<br />
Project, where we work to help black and minority<br />
ethnic <strong>co</strong>mmunities utilise the national parks.<br />
Do you do any campaigning? We fight potential<br />
threats to the beauty of the Downs. We also supported<br />
the South Downs National Park campaign<br />
- the inclusion of a big town [<strong>Lewes</strong>]was groundbreaking,<br />
and it means that we can help preserve<br />
the beauty and history of the town.<br />
How much does it <strong>co</strong>st to join? Annually, membership<br />
is £21 per person, £28 for joint membership/family.<br />
How can people find out more? Go to our website,<br />
southdownssociety.org or call 01798875073.<br />
Caitlin Hayward-Tapp<br />
M<br />
Y<br />
CM<br />
MY<br />
CY<br />
CMY<br />
K<br />
Photo by dick Peach C<br />
MUMABABY_1-4PAGE_VIVALEWESAD00.pdf 1 09/0<br />
In aid of The Pells Pool and The Oyster Project<br />
The Mayor of <strong>Lewes</strong> and<br />
Brass Fusion present<br />
BRASS FOR<br />
BRUNCH<br />
MUSIC TO MAKE SUNDAY<br />
GO WITH A SWING<br />
Latin, Swing and Blues from<br />
Sussex ensemble Brass Fusion<br />
free hot drink on arrival<br />
Brunch for sale<br />
Sunday papers<br />
Sunday 4 th March<br />
All Saints Centre, <strong>Lewes</strong><br />
Doors open 10.30 Music 11-1<br />
Tickets £5/3 on the door<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> Town Hall, <strong>Lewes</strong> Travel<br />
or <strong>01273</strong> 471469<br />
<strong>www</strong>.lewes-tc.gov.<strong>uk</strong> <strong>www</strong>.brassfusion.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong>
uy in the Sky<br />
shoPPing<br />
“Up, up and away,” I sang, channelling the old<br />
Nimble advert, “in my beautiful balloon.” My<br />
shopping mission, which had put the song in<br />
my head, was to find ‘things that go in the sky’<br />
(they’re a vague lot at <strong>Viva</strong>). I was spoilt for choice<br />
at Bright Ideas: gliders, a paper plane set with<br />
sixty planes, a bubble rocket and pocket kites,<br />
many at pocket-money prices.<br />
The Gift & Card Co. is the go-to place for balloons,<br />
starting with a basic helium one for £1.25.<br />
Pretty personalised foil ones are just £4.50. Or see<br />
if you can get airborne with their deal - twenty<br />
balloons for twenty quid – like the old guy in the<br />
movie Up, which should have had the Nimble ad<br />
as its theme tune.<br />
Skylark suggested “seeds to grow beans up to<br />
the sky” but I felt they were playing fast and<br />
loose with my theme. However they have, or can<br />
quickly get, some wonderful sky-related books<br />
such as the Cloudspotter’s Guide and the incredible<br />
Chasing the Sun: A History of the Star that Gives Us<br />
Life. For younger sky-watchers Bags of Books<br />
offer many options including, The Pop-up, Pull-out<br />
Space Book, and the beautiful picture-book, Louis<br />
Dream Plane.<br />
Pine Chest have a <strong>co</strong>vetable hot-air balloon paper<br />
lamp-shade for just £6.99. And Intersport have<br />
a whole ‘air’ section: space hoppers, archery sets,<br />
rockets you stomp on which shoot up huge distances,<br />
and blow pipes which, alarmingly, purport<br />
to be ‘or outdoor and indoor use.’ BM<br />
Photo: alex Leith<br />
87
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BD5 8LJ. Rates <strong>co</strong>rrect at 15/06/2011. YMA 3482 <strong>www</strong>.ybs.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong>
henty’S 20<br />
postcards from Angela Carter<br />
People often ask me why I <strong>co</strong>llect things and<br />
what I would re<strong>co</strong>mmend them to look out for.<br />
There’s one <strong>Lewes</strong> suggestion below, but, for the<br />
sake of simplicity, I usually offer this answer: ‘An<br />
elephant never tires of carrying his own trunk’.<br />
Actually, this came from a pack of prawn curry<br />
which I purchased recently in Cook on Cliffe but<br />
it sums things up nicely for me.<br />
Footballer Eric Cantona would have approved -<br />
bearing in mind his seminal statement in 1995;<br />
“When the seagulls follow the trawler, it’s because<br />
they think sardines will be thrown into the sea.”<br />
Nice one Eric.<br />
These surreal thoughts would also have appealed<br />
to an author <strong>co</strong>lleague of mine, Angela Carter,<br />
who was in her literary prime when she died 20<br />
years ago from lung cancer, at the age of 51. I read<br />
that her friend and literary executor, Susannah<br />
Clapp, has just written an intimate, insightful<br />
memoir of this remarkable woman, inspired by a<br />
series of postcards she received from Angela during<br />
the 1980s. You may have heard extracts from<br />
the book on Radio 4’s Book of the Week during the<br />
early part of February.<br />
Angela and I were reporters on the Croydon<br />
Advertiser group of newspapers in 1960 and in my<br />
autobiography I recalled that she was way ahead of<br />
her time. “She wore wild, ethnic gear... liberally<br />
used four-letter words to pep up her enthusiastic<br />
<strong>co</strong>nversation and she had what I can only describe<br />
as a wicked witch’s cackle of a laugh. She smoked<br />
‘roll yer own fags’ and ate lots of yoghurt.”<br />
We were all fond of ‘anarchic’ Angela in the<br />
reporter’s room and when she left the paper to<br />
study at Bristol University, we did our best to keep<br />
in touch with her and her first husband Paul. No<br />
emails, of <strong>co</strong>urse, but even then, zany postcards<br />
were her preferred means of <strong>co</strong>mmunication and<br />
you will see at the top of this page one such card<br />
which she sent to invite me and friends, Joe and<br />
Peter, to visit in November 1961.<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
anTiques<br />
Typically, she wrote: “Bring your hat, camera,<br />
dark glasses and <strong>co</strong>py of the Baltimore Sun”. That<br />
was our Angie and just imagine if I had decided,<br />
all those years ago, to bin the card rather than put<br />
it away carefully in an album of similar one-offs.<br />
It’s called ‘<strong>co</strong>llecting’ and thanks to a surprise<br />
Christmas present from my splendid granddaughter,<br />
Nina, I am now embarked on a new <strong>co</strong>llection.<br />
Apparently, she was insistent that Grandpa should<br />
be given a presentation pack of eight Harveys<br />
beers ranging from Armada to Bloomsbury<br />
Brown. Until this point I had always opted for<br />
Best Bitter when in a pub but now I may have to<br />
be weaned off the bottled stuff so to speak. I love<br />
the variety, flavours and textures and the bonus is<br />
that the empty bottles make an excellent display<br />
in the <strong>co</strong>llector room.<br />
In fact, the <strong>Viva</strong> S<strong>co</strong>re (£20) this month is going<br />
to purchase a further two packs, as I get 5p back<br />
for every empty bottle and a 5% Rooks membership<br />
dis<strong>co</strong>unt too. I told you <strong>co</strong>llecting was fun.<br />
Ardingly Fair 6th, 7th. Town Hall Tuesday Market<br />
6th, 13th. Gorringes, North Street 21st, 22nd.<br />
A Card From Angela Carter by Susannah Clapp<br />
is published by Bloomsbury, £10, available from<br />
Skylark.<br />
89
New Life<br />
at Middle Farm Photograph<br />
Real farm animals...<br />
and cho<strong>co</strong>late ones too!<br />
Middle Farm, Firle, <strong>Lewes</strong>, East Sussex BN8 6LJ<br />
01323 811411 info@middlefarm.<strong>co</strong>m <strong>www</strong>.middlefarm.<strong>co</strong>m<br />
by Vicky Wise
eth miller<br />
If I ruled the world, every day would be the first day of spring<br />
I have broken Rule 243 of parenting. (For a <strong>co</strong>py of the <strong>co</strong>mplete rulebook send £14.99 to the<br />
usual address.)<br />
“For the last time, I don’t care what they say, March 1st is NOT the First Day of Spring!”<br />
“But Mummy! The teacher SAID!”<br />
Rule 243 states: ‘Thou Shalt Not Disagree with Things Primary Teachers Have Told Your<br />
Child.’ There’s a clause which lists exceptional circumstances around creationism and sexism and<br />
whatnot but we rarely need to invoke this in <strong>Lewes</strong>.<br />
Thing One’s nearly in tears, for I have brought Doubt and Confusion to her small teeming mind.<br />
I force a smile and mutter, “We’ll have to agree to disagree won’t we,” (which I <strong>co</strong>mpletely don’t<br />
agree with), before I break rank and shout, “But everyone knows it’s the 21st March.”<br />
Once Crèche Manager has arbitrated, rather poorly in my opinion, by telling me to grow up<br />
and by letting Thing One watch four episodes back-to-back of Chop Socky Chooks, I sneak off to<br />
<strong>co</strong>nfirm that I am <strong>co</strong>rrect. But Google is a horrible let-down. Apparently the 1st/21st argument<br />
isn’t new; as far back as 2006 Nicholas Winterton, Tory MP for Macclesfield, was taking up the<br />
cudgels in this debate. To my chagrin I realise I am on the same side as Winterton, and that it is<br />
the Met Office who have designated 1st March as Officially Spring. I frantically search for evidence<br />
that Winterton might know more about these matters than the Met. Is he perhaps a secret<br />
climatologist? But in amongst all his jolly activities such as supporting Section 28 and capital<br />
punishment, there is no mention that he likes to send up weather balloons, or even that he hangs<br />
seaweed from his window.<br />
As penance I offer to take Thing One on a walk so she can be knowledgeable about the Signs<br />
of Spring and impress her teacher in a way that my playground ranting might have failed to do.<br />
There are many signs: the ducks are back on the Winterbourne Stream, there are purple crocuses<br />
most everywhere, and some trees have sprouted brave blossoms. Someone walks past with a<br />
plastic daffodil on their lapel and I try and engage them in Welsh<br />
but they hasten quickly away. Thing One rolls her eyes<br />
at me, a Sign of Teenhood I wasn’t expecting to see<br />
for a few years.<br />
We go through the Grange: catkins, green leaves,<br />
mating frogs, (“Come ON, Thing One!” “But<br />
Mummy this is interesting.”). Then into town:<br />
Priory schoolgirls with bare legs, the road being<br />
dug up, Easter eggs in Waitrose.<br />
“There,” I say magnanimously. “You and your<br />
teacher are right. It is Spring after all.”<br />
But Thing One scrunches up her brow, clearly<br />
struggling to <strong>co</strong>mprehend the bewildering nature of<br />
evidence versus anecdotal report. “Mum, if it’s spring<br />
why is it still freezing?”<br />
“Well sweetie,” I say, failing to hide my glee, “That’s something<br />
you’re going to have to ask your teacher.”<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
CoLuMn<br />
91
92<br />
We get grubby now.<br />
You get bubbly all summer.<br />
It’s miserable in the garden at this time of year. Soggy. Muddy. Grey. Dreary.<br />
Even if you bother to venture out – you’ll soon be hot, itchy and snorting hard<br />
because you’re wearing half a wardrobe and can’t find the secateurs.<br />
But we love this time of year. It’s when we do some of our best work.<br />
NOW is the ideal time to get us in to do any landscaping - when you<br />
DON’T want to be out there. That way, the garden gets a new look for<br />
summer when you can enjoy it properly – ideally with a glass of chilled bubbly!<br />
And if you’re planning to sell your home or upgrade the garden as an<br />
investment, NOW is the time to make any smart changes - before the real<br />
selling season begins.<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> Landscapers are honest, friendly, green-fingered experts who don’t<br />
put huge mark-ups on materials and laugh heartily at hefty tasks. Whether it’s<br />
creating a new sunken patio with steps or cutting back a giant tree or two. We<br />
stick to deadlines and budgets and we don’t skip merrily off to other jobs half<br />
way through your project.<br />
Quotes are free plus we’ll match any written quote you have this year<br />
and give you 10% back - whatever size the job is.<br />
Call Arran on 07956 020710.<br />
LEWES LANDSCAPERS<br />
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362_OFS_VL_QP_Sept11*.indd 1 17/08/2011 20:26
THE<br />
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LEWES<br />
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in the heart of <strong>Lewes</strong><br />
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66 High Street<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong><br />
BN7 1XG<br />
Tel: 07846 554316
david Jarman<br />
Dickens and <strong>Lewes</strong><br />
If you google ‘Dickens and <strong>Lewes</strong>’, you will draw a<br />
<strong>co</strong>mplete blank. But although I am loath to undermine<br />
anyone’s touching faith in the omniscience of<br />
search engines, there are a <strong>co</strong>uple of <strong>co</strong>nnections,<br />
albeit fairly tenuous ones.<br />
Charles Dickens married Catherine Hogarth on<br />
2nd April, 1836 at St L<strong>uk</strong>e’s in Chelsea. His initial<br />
choice of best man was John Macrone, the publisher<br />
of Sketches by Boz. But wiser <strong>co</strong>unsels prevailed and<br />
Dickens was obliged to write to Macrone,‘The<br />
unanimous voice of the ladies, <strong>co</strong>nfirms the authority<br />
of Mrs Macrone. They say, with her, that I must<br />
be attended to the place of execution, by a single<br />
man: I have therefore engaged a substitute.’<br />
The ‘substitute’ was Thomas Beard. He and Macrone<br />
were the only wedding guests not related to<br />
the happy <strong>co</strong>uple in what, as Beard later recalled, was<br />
‘altogether a very quiet piece of business’.<br />
Thomas Beard (1807-91) came of an old Sussex<br />
family, who for some generations had been brewers.<br />
His father, Nathaniel (1776-1855) was born at Rottingdean,<br />
where he inherited <strong>co</strong>nsiderable property.<br />
In 1806 he married Catherine Charlotte, daughter<br />
of Sir Thomas Carr, of Cobb Place, Beddingham,<br />
sometime High Sheriff of Sussex. When Nathaniel<br />
moved his family, circa 1832, to London, Thomas<br />
became a journalist on the Morning Herald. It was<br />
while he was there that he first met Dickens. They<br />
subsequently worked together on the Morning<br />
Chronicle.<br />
Beard became a lifelong friend. The letters of<br />
Dickens are full of dinner invitations to Beard and<br />
entreaties to join him on long walks in the<br />
Gadshill area. Always a wel<strong>co</strong>me house guest, Beard<br />
joined the Dickens family, in villeggiatura, in Broadstairs,<br />
Bonchurch, Boulogne and elsewhere.<br />
While not following his father into brewing, it<br />
would seem that Thomas was something of a bon<br />
vivant. Dickens often entices him to dinner with<br />
the prospect of a tasty haunch of venison or an assurance<br />
that the ‘best wine on the premises is to be<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
CoLuMn<br />
broached on the occasion’.<br />
There’s a long-standing joke in the letters referring<br />
to Beard’s fondness for ‘curaçao and biscuits’.<br />
Only one of the four Beard brothers, William (1812-<br />
1905), went into the family business at the Star Lane<br />
Brewery, later be<strong>co</strong>ming a partner in Windus, Beard<br />
and Co, wine and spirit merchants trading from<br />
Steward’s Inn Lane. I take him to be the W. Beard<br />
listed as resident of 16, High Street, Southover until<br />
the 1906 Kelly’s Directory.<br />
Another of the brothers, Francis Carr Beard (1814-<br />
93), became a doctor. In a letter dated 14th February,<br />
1859, Dickens writes to appoint him as his personal<br />
physician. Thereafter letters to Thomas are progressively<br />
outnumbered by those to Francis on medical<br />
matters.<br />
Alas, I can find no evidence that Dickens ever came<br />
to <strong>Lewes</strong> himself. The best I can offer is a letter<br />
from Dickens to Thomas Beard in July, 1843 that<br />
was forwarded to <strong>Lewes</strong> where Thomas was staying.<br />
And on 14th October, 1867 he writes to his doctor,<br />
‘My dear Frank Beard, I have your letter from<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong>...’<br />
None of this, I readily <strong>co</strong>ncede, warrants an immediate,<br />
revised edition of Colin Brent’s exemplary<br />
guidebook to <strong>Lewes</strong>. (to be <strong>co</strong>ntinued)<br />
95
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norman baker<br />
To live without my music would be impossible<br />
to do, but in this world of trouble my music<br />
pulls me through. Words from a John Miles<br />
single from 1976. OK, they are bit over the top<br />
and the single doesn’t date well, but actually I<br />
know what he meant, because music has been<br />
important to me all my life, and perhaps sometimes<br />
pulled me through as well. It may have<br />
been submerged beneath my politics, but it’s<br />
always been close to the surface.<br />
In particular, I have derived such tremendous<br />
pleasure over the years from the Beatles. I tried<br />
to tell Paul McCartney this once when we met,<br />
but I suppose many people do, for he barely registered<br />
it and was keener instead to talk about<br />
animal welfare.<br />
After I left university, I had no real idea what I<br />
wanted to do, so I got a job in a re<strong>co</strong>rd shop on<br />
Tottenham Court Road. The <strong>co</strong>mpany, Our<br />
Price, was expanding fast, and within about<br />
three years, I was regional director, managing<br />
26 shops and over 100 staff, but I think my<br />
happiest time there was managing the branch<br />
in Leicester Square. It was a wonderfully<br />
vibrant place, and <strong>co</strong>unted amongst its staff Ian<br />
Johnston, the son of Brian, the BBC cricket<br />
<strong>co</strong>mmentator, Will Parnell, the son of band<br />
leader Jack, and Peter Vaughan Clarke, known<br />
affectionately as PVC, who was a star of the<br />
children’s TV series The Tomorrow People.<br />
That period also saw my first public appearance<br />
on stage singing with a band, when I guested<br />
one night with an outfit called The Stripes at a<br />
pub in St Albans. I drank a few pints for Dutch<br />
<strong>co</strong>urage before bravely launching into Twist and<br />
Shout and Dizzy Miss Lizzy. I don’t recall much<br />
else, except that the barmaid asked me for my<br />
phone number.<br />
In the mid 1980s, I also re<strong>co</strong>rded a <strong>co</strong>uple of<br />
Twists and shouts<br />
numbers with a band called The Entire Population<br />
of China. I dug them out and listened to<br />
them the other day for the first time in ages and<br />
if I say so myself, they’re not too bad. In fact,<br />
I’ve been inspired to hook up again with one<br />
of the guys to write some new songs, a process<br />
now under way.<br />
There was a period when some of us thought<br />
it might be fun to play regularly, so we set up<br />
The Reform Club, and between about 1992<br />
and 1998 played clubs, pubs like the Six Bells at<br />
Chiddingly, and private functions. It was great<br />
fun, and unlike politics where it is <strong>co</strong>mmon<br />
to play safe in the middle, on stage you either<br />
cut it or you don’t. The audience can be hugely<br />
enthusiastic or walk out. I’ve had both!<br />
When I was elected to Parliament in 1997, it<br />
became difficult to keep the band going. People<br />
wouldn’t accept that this was just a hobby, and<br />
kept trying to ascribe ulterior motives to what<br />
was just a bit of fun, so since then my stage<br />
appearances have been somewhat random, the<br />
most recent being just before<br />
Christmas when I was asked if I<br />
would sing a number on stage<br />
with Noddy Holder. Would<br />
I? You bet!<br />
Now, my music is generally<br />
limited to presenting my<br />
regular Sunday morning<br />
radio show Anything Goes –<br />
10am to noon on Seahaven<br />
FM 96.3 – and being a<br />
semi-regular customer at<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong>’s excellent outlets,<br />
Octave and Si’s Sounds.<br />
I have a feeling that long after<br />
the politics has gone, the<br />
music will still be there.<br />
CoLuMn<br />
97
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<strong>Lewes</strong> Garage Services<br />
Hewden Hire<br />
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Photo by alex Leith<br />
trade secrets CHOCOLATIER, SANDy LEWSEy<br />
You recently set up <strong>Lewes</strong> Cho<strong>co</strong>late Company<br />
on Station Street. Yes, with Ginny Skeet. I make the<br />
cho<strong>co</strong>late, she takes care of the business side. And eats<br />
the cho<strong>co</strong>late. We both do that.<br />
What’s the story behind <strong>Lewes</strong> Cho<strong>co</strong>late Company?<br />
Cho<strong>co</strong>late has been a lifelong passion for me.<br />
My father worked for Rowntree all his working life<br />
and used to bring new products home. We would try<br />
them, then fill out a form saying what we thought. I<br />
remember loving Yorkie bars. Later, I trained as a pastry<br />
chef and I’ve worked in Spain, Holland and London.<br />
Then I came to <strong>Lewes</strong>, and, when my children<br />
were young, I met Ginny through playgroup where we<br />
later worked together. We’ve been friends ever since.<br />
Where do your supplies <strong>co</strong>me from? Belgium and,<br />
increasingly, Italy. Interesting things are <strong>co</strong>ming from<br />
Italy. Tiramisu and Panna<strong>co</strong>tta creams.<br />
What is the cho<strong>co</strong>latier’s enemy? Damp and heat.<br />
British weather, basically. And staff members who eat<br />
the profits.<br />
What are the more unusual cho<strong>co</strong>lates you make?<br />
Lots of them relate to our family members in some<br />
way. Auntie May’s Sherry Trifle (which <strong>co</strong>ntains an<br />
entire trifle in a truffle). White cho<strong>co</strong>late and lavender<br />
honey fudge in dark cho<strong>co</strong>late. And Clifford’s Salty<br />
Seadog caramels. They’re like the crack <strong>co</strong>caine of<br />
the cho<strong>co</strong>late world. There’s no having just one, then<br />
walking away.<br />
Any special plans for Mother’s Day? I’m going to<br />
<strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM<br />
be making a hydrangea cake. Triple cho<strong>co</strong>late inside,<br />
<strong>co</strong>vered in white cho<strong>co</strong>late flowers.<br />
What is the best time of year for you? Christmas.<br />
Do you like your work? We love it. Selling cho<strong>co</strong>late<br />
is a happy job. The nice thing is that most people that<br />
<strong>co</strong>me in here are in a jolly mood. They’re either buying<br />
something for themselves as a treat or looking for<br />
a present for someone.<br />
Do <strong>Lewes</strong>ians have a particular taste in cho<strong>co</strong>late?<br />
Lots of dark cho<strong>co</strong>late seems to sell well here.<br />
What’s your favourite? Bombay Sapphire dark<br />
cho<strong>co</strong>late truffles.<br />
What al<strong>co</strong>holic beverage will stand up to being<br />
drunk with cho<strong>co</strong>late? Pink champagne with pink<br />
champagne truffles.<br />
What makes you stand out from other cho<strong>co</strong>late<br />
shops? We’re the only shop in <strong>Lewes</strong> where we<br />
make our own cho<strong>co</strong>lates. We have a hot cho<strong>co</strong>late<br />
machine. We make specialist cho<strong>co</strong>late cakes in the<br />
shape people want. A tower of cho<strong>co</strong>late flowers, for<br />
example. We also offer cho<strong>co</strong>late parties for children<br />
or adults.<br />
Should cho<strong>co</strong>late be shared? Well, we share. But<br />
then we’ve been through thick and thin.<br />
Is there anything you always get asked in the<br />
shop? “Do you get sick of cho<strong>co</strong>late?” To which we<br />
reply: “No! Never. It’s good for you.”<br />
Share a ‘top tip’. Don’t store cho<strong>co</strong>late in the fridge.<br />
It’s too damp. It needs a <strong>co</strong>ol, dark place. EC<br />
99<br />
99
Staying in the black<br />
President of <strong>Lewes</strong> Chamber of Commerce,<br />
David Quinn<br />
More than 50 people attended the first of the<br />
Chamber’s new business networking events last<br />
month. Online trading proved a popular subject,<br />
but if there’s one thing more appealing than<br />
e-<strong>co</strong>mmerce it’s a healthy balance sheet. This is<br />
where our next event <strong>co</strong>mes in.<br />
On 21st March the Chamber’s networking<br />
breakfast is themed around the eternally important<br />
subject of financial management.<br />
The first speaker will be Chris Ketley of<br />
ac<strong>co</strong>untants Knill James. He’ll talk about<br />
managing ac<strong>co</strong>unts to protect cash flow and enable<br />
<strong>co</strong>mmercial success.<br />
A crucial part of <strong>co</strong>ntrolling in<strong>co</strong>me and<br />
expenditure is getting invoices paid on time. When<br />
a client proves immune to the very best ac<strong>co</strong>unt<br />
management techniques, debt re<strong>co</strong>very <strong>co</strong>mes<br />
into play. Lucy Tarrant of solicitors Mayo Wynne<br />
Baxter will explain the legal options.<br />
Both Lucy and Chris will take questions and<br />
there will be time for networking over <strong>co</strong>ffee and<br />
croissants.<br />
Staying in the Black is at Knill James’ office, 1<br />
Bell Lane, <strong>Lewes</strong> from 8.15am till 10am on 21st<br />
March. Book your free place at stayingintheblack.<br />
eventbrite.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong>.<br />
Shape the Chamber’s future<br />
This month we’re also holding an open meeting<br />
on the Chamber’s future direction. We want to<br />
hear about issues affecting local businesses and<br />
discuss what support would be most useful. We<br />
wel<strong>co</strong>me everyone involved in doing business<br />
in <strong>Lewes</strong> to <strong>co</strong>me along and help us shape the<br />
Chamber’s 2012 programme.<br />
Representatives of two local businesses will explain<br />
what they get out of Chamber membership and<br />
Executive Committee members will outline some<br />
of their plans.<br />
52 High Street, <strong>Lewes</strong>, East Sussex, BN7 1XE<br />
<strong>01273</strong> 473400<br />
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uSINESS NEWS<br />
gaRdens<br />
New to town this month is Mimi who have opened their<br />
sparkly new ladies’ clothes and accessories shop in the space<br />
recently vacated by the wedding shop. There are also stirrings<br />
at the Needlemakers, where both Rehab and the Patchwork<br />
Dog & Basket are expanding. The Patchwork expansion is<br />
the creation of a new <strong>co</strong>mpany called Made in <strong>Lewes</strong>. They<br />
took over the space most recently used as the Christmas<br />
card shop, and which they describe as a ‘creative workshop<br />
workspace’. It will be run by Jill’s daughter Josie. The Rehab<br />
Dress Agency, meanwhile, has more than doubled the size<br />
of its shop, by taking over the unit next to it. Owner Marilyn French, tells us that she is delighted to now be<br />
able to offer a much wider range of stock for her valued existing and new customers alike.<br />
On the children’s front, we’ve recently heard that much loved Bar<strong>co</strong>mbe institution - the Eliza Brown<br />
shoe shop - are shortly going to be moving their operation into <strong>Lewes</strong>. We’re also pleased to wel<strong>co</strong>me the<br />
MumaBaby Sanctuary to town. Describing itself as a ‘Beautiful Haven’ it will shortly be offering a range of<br />
workshops, classes, <strong>co</strong>mplementary treatments and support groups. If you like the sound of this, and want to<br />
learn more about how it will be ‘supporting a <strong>co</strong>nscious approach to family well-being’ then visit to its new<br />
base at 32 Cliffe High Street. Meanwhile at 33a, Billie has opened Leadbetter & Good, a gardening shop<br />
she describes as ‘an homage to The Good Life’ in what was Gardener & Cook. Nick Williams<br />
101
DIRECTORY<br />
Please note that though we aim to only take advertising from reputable businesses, we cannot guarantee<br />
the quality of any work undertaken, and accept no responsibility or liability for any issues arising.<br />
To advertise in <strong>Viva</strong><strong>Lewes</strong> please call Steve on <strong>01273</strong> 434567 or email steve@vivalewes.<strong>co</strong>m<br />
LEWES<br />
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Sussex Building Consultancy<br />
ARCHITECTURAL SERVICES<br />
Extensions / Renovations / Improvements<br />
Listed Buildings / New Build<br />
Party Wall Agreements<br />
Planning / Building Regulations<br />
Planning Supervision / Project Management<br />
Jack Plane Carpenter<br />
Nice work, fair price,<br />
totally reliable.<br />
<strong>www</strong>.jackplanecarpentry.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong><br />
<strong>01273</strong> 483339 / 07887 993396<br />
CALL 477088<br />
FREE Initial Consultation<br />
south downs sweeps<br />
ob Mortimer<br />
ewes <strong>01273</strong> 470202 07788 675264<br />
j.mortimer@yahoo.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong> fully certificated & insured<br />
Rob Mortimer<br />
south downs sweeps<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> <strong>01273</strong> 470202 07788 675264<br />
rj.mortimer@yahoo.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong> fully certificated & insured<br />
104<br />
stylish log holders and<br />
bespoke metalwork<br />
<strong>01273</strong> 517333<br />
info@pmfdesigns.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong><br />
<strong>www</strong>.pmfdesigns.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong>
hoMe
Lantern Ad2009 <strong>Viva</strong> 18/3/09 17:44 Page 1<br />
hoMe<br />
simply stunning<br />
roof lanterns<br />
Want to transform a dark<br />
and gloomy space in your home?<br />
The design solution <strong>co</strong>uld be a roof lantern from<br />
Parsons Joinery. To create a room which is bathed in<br />
natural light whilst providing a stunning architectural<br />
feature and dramatic views of the sky above…<br />
call us on <strong>01273</strong> 814870<br />
<strong>www</strong>.parsonsjoinery.<strong>co</strong>m<br />
Parsons Joinery are now FENSA registered.<br />
Please refer to our website or call us for<br />
further information.<br />
Qs Electricalþ<br />
24/7 fair price emergency serviceþ<br />
Lighting <strong>co</strong>nsultation & designþ<br />
Rewires and upgradesþ<br />
Testing and inspectionþ<br />
Small jobs with pleasureþ<br />
Free energy efficiency adviceþ<br />
& dis<strong>co</strong>unts on installationþ<br />
Kevin Moore 07837814235þ<br />
Member of the National Association�<br />
of Professional Testers and Inspectors�
CP <strong>Viva</strong> <strong>Lewes</strong> Ad (Qtr Pg)_62 x 94mm 18/02/2011 17:<br />
Colin Poulter<br />
Plastering<br />
Professional Plasterer<br />
Over 25 years experience<br />
All types of plastering work<br />
and finishes undertaken<br />
FREE estimates<br />
Telephone <strong>01273</strong> 472 836<br />
Mobile 07974 752 491<br />
Email cdpoulter@btinternet.<strong>co</strong>m<br />
southdown<br />
sash window<br />
services<br />
hoMe<br />
• Draught proofing<br />
• Double glazed units<br />
• Restoration<br />
• Entire box sash replacements<br />
For a free quotation call:<br />
Landline 01903 813882<br />
Mobile 07907 114178<br />
<strong>www</strong>.southdownsashservices.<strong>co</strong>m
hoMe<br />
108<br />
Suppliers of high quality, custom-built bifolding doors<br />
Call: <strong>01273</strong> 473 775<br />
Unit 5, The Mallings,<br />
112 Mallings Street, <strong>Lewes</strong>,<br />
East Sussex, BN7 2RG<br />
ww.henryjamesdoors.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong><br />
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hoMe<br />
110
hoMe
CaRs
oTheR seRviCes<br />
Tattoos, Piercing,<br />
Jewellery, Clothing & Gifts<br />
206 High Street, <strong>Lewes</strong><br />
<strong>01273</strong> 477279<br />
<strong>www</strong>.tizzs.<strong>co</strong>m<br />
JONATHAN BASSETT PHOTOGRAPHY<br />
photographer of art, objects and interiors -<br />
specializing in painting, sculpture, ceramics and<br />
installation images for website, archive and<br />
promotional use<br />
<strong>www</strong>.jonathanbassett.<strong>co</strong>m<br />
info@jonathanbassett.<strong>co</strong>m<br />
07791781258/<br />
<strong>01273</strong> 476609
heaLTh and weLLbeing
<strong>Lewes</strong> High Street Dental Practice offers a personalised<br />
approach to modern dentistry using the latest equipment<br />
in a relaxed environment.<br />
Whether you are looking for a simple check-up<br />
or to improve your smile through <strong>co</strong>smetic<br />
dentistry & tooth whitening, we are here to help.<br />
The whole team is dedicated to the provision of high quality<br />
dentistry in a caring and gentle way using the very latest dental<br />
techniques including dental implants.<br />
Please quote “viva lewes” when you speak to us.<br />
Steven Kell<br />
BDS (U.Lond) MFGDP RCS (UK) DPDS (U.Brist)<br />
Current chairman of British Dental Association local branch<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> High Street Dental Practice, 60 High Street, <strong>Lewes</strong>, East Sussex, BN7 1XG<br />
Tel: <strong>01273</strong> 478240 Email: info@lewesdental.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong> Web: <strong>www</strong>.lewesdental.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong><br />
heaLTh and weLLbeing<br />
Evening & Saturday appointments available<br />
115
heaLTh & weLLbeing<br />
Early EvEning yoga<br />
Drop-in on Tuesdays from 5.45 - 6.45<br />
Subud Centre, 26a Station Street, <strong>Lewes</strong><br />
For information on other classes<br />
& physiotherapy home visits<br />
call me on 07903 877 988<br />
or go to:<br />
<strong>www</strong>.TabithaYoga.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong><br />
Tabitha Tarran<br />
Chartered Physiotherapist - Member of the Health Professions Council - Vajrasati trained yoga Teacher<br />
AYURVEDIC<br />
enjoy the healing traditions<br />
of india in central lewes<br />
Marma Massage & Chavutti Thirumal<br />
featuring warm tridoshic oils, Tibetan<br />
singing bowls and purifying homemade<br />
Ayurvedic tea<br />
10% off<br />
your first treatment<br />
66 High Street | <strong>Lewes</strong> | BN7 1XG<br />
<strong>www</strong>.massagelewes.<strong>co</strong>m<br />
<strong>01273</strong> 474527
Restore natural balance<br />
to your life<br />
Naturally healthy drug-free treatments,<br />
<strong>co</strong>urses & workshops:<br />
Acupuncture Allergy Testing Animal Healing<br />
Aromatherapy Chinese Herbs Cranio-sacral Therapy<br />
Feldenkrais Homeopathy Hypnotherapy Life Coaching<br />
NLP Massage (Deep Tissue, Holistic, Hot Stone, Indian<br />
Head, Pregnancy, Baby, Sports, Thai, Ayurvedic) Nutrition<br />
Organic Facials Reflexology Shiatsu Shamanic & Spiritual<br />
Counselling Yoga Pilates Reiki Tai Chi<br />
...Gift Vouchers & Pamper Days too!<br />
<strong>01273</strong> 470955<br />
16 Station Street, <strong>Lewes</strong> BN7 2DB<br />
<strong>www</strong>.equilibrium-clinic.<strong>co</strong>m<br />
EQ_<strong>Viva</strong><strong>Lewes</strong>_FP_ad_AW.indd 1 19/5/10 20:00:15<br />
heaLTh & weLLbeing<br />
BACK PAIN!<br />
Chiropractic relieves back pain, and can also<br />
help osteoarthristis of the hip and knee, muscular<br />
aches and pains, neck pain, neck related headaches,<br />
shoulder and elbow pain.<br />
FREE SCREENING.<br />
If you are unsure whether Chiropractic is for you.<br />
This is a no-obligation visit where we will advise<br />
you whether Chiropractic treatment may be<br />
helpful for your <strong>co</strong>ndition.<br />
There is onsite X-ray<br />
facilities at the clinic.<br />
<strong>01273</strong> 473473<br />
New website: <strong>www</strong>.back-in-motion.<strong>co</strong>m<br />
33 West Street, <strong>Lewes</strong>, East Sussex BN7 2NZ<br />
117
heaLTh and weLLbeing<br />
Learn how to practice the movements of this medical<br />
chi-gung, to maintain health, rebalance the body mentally<br />
and physically, or regain vitality after illness. Individual or<br />
small group tuition. m 07971489696 lynda@chi-arts.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong><br />
neck or back pain?<br />
Lin Peters & Beth Hazelwood<br />
VALENCE ROAD OSTEOPATHS<br />
for the treatment of:<br />
neck or low back pain • sports injuries • rheumatic<br />
arthritic symptoms • pulled muscles • joint pain<br />
stiffness • sciatica - trapped nerves • slipped discs<br />
tension • frozen shoulders • cranial osteopathy<br />
pre and post natal<br />
<strong>www</strong>.lewesosteopath.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong><br />
20 Valence Road <strong>Lewes</strong> <strong>01273</strong> 476371<br />
<strong>Viva</strong> <strong>Lewes</strong> 45highx62wide.indd 1 16/11/2010 20:45
Whether you have a<br />
small garden or a larger<br />
project to undertake, we<br />
offer fully trained,<br />
experienced and<br />
insured Arborists to carry<br />
out a range of tree and<br />
hedge cutting services.<br />
Iain Palmer RFS Cert.Arb.<br />
07727 678040<br />
<strong>01273</strong> 275726<br />
thearborbarber.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong><br />
info@thearborbarber.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong><br />
Free advice<br />
Free quotation<br />
The Arbor Barber<br />
Professional Tree care<br />
Global<br />
Gardens<br />
Design,<br />
Restoration &<br />
Landscaping<br />
gaRden<br />
Mobile 07941 057337<br />
Phone <strong>01273</strong> 488261<br />
12 Priory Street, <strong>Lewes</strong>, BN7 1HH<br />
info@ globalgardens.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong><br />
<strong>www</strong>.globalgardens.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong><br />
GGS1.001_QuarterPage_Ad_01.indd 1 12/11/10 18:24:51
Lessons and CouRses<br />
120<br />
Featherbed Barn<br />
Helping you to make things you love<br />
One day workshops in the heart<br />
of the Sussex <strong>co</strong>untryside. Traditional crafts<br />
with a <strong>co</strong>ntemporary twist.<br />
Dis<strong>co</strong>ver more at<br />
<strong>www</strong>.featherbedbarn.<strong>co</strong>.<strong>uk</strong><br />
0845 4677705
ADVERTISE IN THE DIRECTORy<br />
fOR AS LITTLE AS £22 A MONTH<br />
Call Steve on 07833 231 785<br />
Lessons and CouRses
inside LeFT<br />
AERIAL pERSpECTIVE<br />
We were sent this aerial shot of <strong>Lewes</strong>, taken in 1957, by Kingsley Roger-Jones, who has worked at Clifford<br />
Dann for over forty years. He assumes the <strong>co</strong>mpany must have acquired the picture, taken by an RAF re<strong>co</strong>nnaissance<br />
plane, to research a planning development they were involved in. Comparing the photograph with<br />
the 1957 Kelly’s Directory, it’s interesting to see what’s there, and what’s not, though we’d advise anyone<br />
keen to look closely to use a magnifying glass. Pre-Phoenix Causeway, you can see how Cliffe is joined to the<br />
rest of <strong>Lewes</strong> only via Cliffe Bridge; also how the old Tunbridge Wells railway line passes over what is now<br />
Cliffe Precinct before crossing the river south of what is now Malling Field. The eagle-eyed will also be able<br />
to spot the following: the cattle market, Brack Mount, the Pells Pool, the South Street gasworks. Companies<br />
trading when the photograph was taken, apart from Clifford Dann (listed, interestingly as Dann Clifford in<br />
Kelly’s) are WE Clark (jeweller’s), Wyborns (chemist’s), Reeves (photography) and Richard’s (butcher’s).<br />
But the similarities are outweighed by the differences: there were no fewer than three brewers in <strong>Lewes</strong> at the<br />
time, as well as 11 butchers, 7 fishmongers, 16 greengrocers and 32 public houses. RIP The Bell, The Blacksmith’s,<br />
The Castle, The Dolphin, The Fountain, The Fruiterer’s, The Jolly Friars, The King’s Arms, The<br />
New Station Inn, The Prince of Wales, The Railway, The Red, White and Blue, The Rifleman, The Thatched<br />
House, The Wheatsheaf and The Windmill. Anyone remember them?<br />
122