Giant Maize Maze opens mid July! camping ed food ... - Viva Lewes

Children’s Triathlon
Series 2010
Swim, Bike, Run... have fun
Open to 8-14 year olds
Lewes Children’s Triathlon
20th June
Ringmer Children’s Triathlon
21st August
For more information please visit our website
Seaford Children’s Aquathlon
12th September
Ringmer Children’s Aquathlon
31st October
w w w . w a v e l e i s u r e . c o . u k
Wave Leisure is a not for profi t charitable trust

6. Tony Benn. Everyone’s favourite
leftie, shortly Lewes-bound, talks to
us about his great hero, Tom Paine
17. My Lewes. ‘Tom Paine’ sculptor
Marcus Cornish
19. Photo of the Month. Daisy
Martin’s remarkable clouds
20. Lewes in History. Lewes market’s
latest reincarnation
23. Art. From watercolours to geometric
abstraction
25. Art. Focus on... Russian sculptor
Svetlana K-Lie’s ‘Feathers’
27. Art. Lewes Artists, United in
support of Lewes Community FC
29. Art. Focus on... Marco Crivello’s
uncategorisable ‘Approach’.
31. Film. Mick Hawksworth’s thoroughly
modern Tommy
33. Pells Pool Party. Groovy glam
rock for all the family
35. Skinny-dipping. At the Pells
Pool. Legally
The Team
Issue 46. July 2010.
V I V A L E W E S contents
37. Theatre. An exciting pro-am
summer series at the Little Theatre
39. Soundwave. Local literature
and music festival
41. Cinema. Ken Loach is Looking
for Eric, with Artists United
43. Diary Dates. We’re spoilt for
al-fresco-Shakespeare choice
46. Gig guide. Who’s on stage, when
49. Day Out. We visit ‘God’s waiting
room’ in search of ice cream
51. Food. Al fresco fish at the Cock
53. Food. Baltica Café brightens up
the bottleneck
54. Food. Bill Collison looks to the
sky and plans a sumptuous picnic
57. Nibbler. Al fresco food and
drink options in and around town
59. Kids Kitchen. Amanda Grant’s
tasty Italian tarts
61. Shopping. Garden furniture
for those lazy summer afternoons
63. Bricks and Mortar. The Foun-
EDITOR: Alex Leith alex@vivalewes.com
DEPUTY EDITOR: Emma Chaplin emmachaplin@vivalewes.com
SUB-EDITOR: David Jarman
DESIGNER: Katie Moorman katie@vivalewes.com
ADVERTISING MANAGER: Steve Watts steve@vivalewes.com
ADVERTISING SALES: Lisa Bullen lisa@vivalewes.com
PUBLISHER: Nick Williams nick@vivalewes.com.
Viva Lewes is based at Pipe Passage, 151b High Street, Lewes, BN7 1XU
dry: symptomatic of Lewes’ change
65. Viva Villages. Saltdean, and its
beautiful under-threat Lido
67. Nature. Adonis Blue madness
69. Sport. We try out… cricket.
71. We try out... Stoolball. Sporty
Emma C hits the wicket
73. Football. A new season... and
perhaps a new dawn for Lewes FC
75. Viva Kids. They can’t get bored
in Borde Hill. Can they?
77. Fashion. Shades: Are you Top
Gun, or Blues Brothers?
79. Antiques. John Henty, and his
magic twenty (pound note)
81. Literary Sussex. EF Benson:
don’t accept the invite
83. Column. Beth Miller
85. Column. Norman Baker
91. Trade Secrets. John Syrett’s
home-made ice cream
106. Inside Left. Non-conformist
stoolball at the Dripping Pan
For information about advertising or events you would like to see publicised, call 01273 488882 or e-mail info@vivalewes.com
Every care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of our content. The Viva Lewes Handbook cannot be held responsible for any
omissions, errors or alterations.
3

4
EDITORIAL
July 4th, of course, is a great day of celebration in
the United States, marking as it does the Declaration
of Independence in 1776.
Which makes it an important day in the Lewes
calendar, as this is the town where Tom Paine - so
instrumental in the outcome and philosophy of the
American Revolution – honed his theories.
So it’s July 4th that has been chosen for the unveiling
of a statue of Paine, outside Lewes Library, by
another great figure of the left, Tony Benn. We
were delighted when Mr Benn agreed to an interview
with Viva Lewes on what Paine means to him,
which you can see on the next page.
Paine, of course, was a man of many talents, and his
enthusiasm as a member of the Lewes bowling club
is well recorded. He would presumably have attended
cricket matches at the Dripping Pan, on his rare
days of leisure. Were Paine alive today, we believe,
he would have been very supportive of what’s afoot
THIS MONTH’S COVER
at the ancient sporting arena this summer - the idea
of turning Lewes’ biggest sporting institution into a
community-run club.
We’re referring to the proposed transition of Lewes
FC to Lewes Community FC, which is still under
negotiation as we go to press, which we mention
throughout the magazine, in one form or another.
Lewes is a town of many hues, and we are delighted
that many of the top locally based artists have supported
this revolutionary
footballing transition
by combining their work
in an exhibition – Artists
United – at the Foundry
Gallery, from July 8th-
11th. Viva those artists,
then, Viva Paine, and,
above all, Viva Lewes. Enjoy
the month…
We are helping to organise what we hope will
be the art event of the year, Artists United, at
the Foundry between July 8th and 11th, to
raise funds for the possible transition of Lewes
FC into a community-run club. So we contacted
David Shephard, a Lewes-based illustrator,
to pick his brains. Could he come up with an
image which would, using the famous redand-black
colours of the Rooks, incorporate
two cultures that were very different from one
another – art, and football? We would use the
image as the event logo and, to help publicise
it, as the cover of this magazine, too. David
went off for a couple of days, and came back
with what you can see on the left, a paintbrush
creating a classic 70s football (and not, we hasten
to add, a Jabulani) in a broad, confident
stroke. An image, he tells us, which was influenced
by the poster for the Mexico ’70 World
Cup, when England players were truly lionhearted,
the balls were orange, and Pelé was
king. We love it, and hope you agree. You can
see more of David’s splendid illustrations and
designs on his website, at daveshephard.com.

6
TONY BENN ON TOM PAINE
You are the Vice-Chairman
of the Tom Paine Society.
Why do you rate him
so highly? Paine is important
not only because of what
he did, but because of what
he said. He had tremendous
ideas, and a tremendous
turn of phrase. “My country
is the world, my religion is
to do good,” for example.
That’s about the most useful
thing anyone could say
about the world, and it applies
as much as ever today.
He anticipated the political
development of the world,
and the welfare state. What
he said was very interesting
and far-sighted. He really
did add to the public debate.
Tom Paine was way ahead
of his time. Yet when it was
first published his book,
Rights of Man was banned,
and even burnt at the stake
by the public executioner, I
believe.
We like to think Paine’s
time in Lewes was significant
to the development
of his political philosophy.
Do you agree? Whenever
I think of Lewes, I think of
Tom Paine, and whenever I
think of Tom Paine, I think
of Lewes. I was honoured
some years ago to speak
at the society he was part
of, the Headstrong Club,
where he developed a lot of
his ideas.
The average man in the
street in this country has
never heard of Paine. Do
you think this will ever change? I wouldn’t know whether Paine was
widely known about or not here. But I do know that whether people know
about him or not, his writings have helped shape a lot of people’s thinking.
If he were a British politician now, which party do you believe Paine
would be part of? I would be extremely disappointed if he were not a
supporter of the Labour Party, because I think his political instincts would
be Labour. But I think he would be a critic of many of the current Labour
Party’s policies.
What sort of issues would Paine be addressing today? He would certainly
be addressing the problems of the Middle East, and the Afghan War.
He’d be interested in finding a solution for the Palestinian conflict. He
would be worried about the development of nuclear weapons, and the
threat they pose to the human race. And the gap between the rich and the
poor in the world. On the other hand, he would be pleased about many
political developments since his day, and the fact that women had the vote.
Where do your opinions differ from those of Tom Paine? I’m a very
minor figure in comparison, and two centuries beyond Paine, so we’re from
very different backgrounds. But I’ve found his work extremely useful and
formative: I would like to be thought of as a Paineite.
You’ve been to Lewes a few times before. What do you like about the town?
Lewes is Tom Paine’s town. David Powell has invited me down more than
once to Tom Paine celebrations, and I’ve always enjoyed participating in
such events. I’m very honoured to be invited again. Interview by Alex Leith
Tony Benn will unveil the statue of Tom Paine at 11am, July 4th, Lewes Library

YOU’RE SO VANE #6
When I first started writing
about weathervanes, it became
clear that few people notice
them, and my father-in-law
quoted Baden-Powell to me:
“Man is the only animal who
never looks up.” Well, oddly, for
this month, we are featuring a weathervane you need to look
down to see. It was spotted in a front garden in Landport, that
of Sarah Seelis I discover when I ring on the bell. It transpires
that this unusual ornament, a painted weathervane featuring
three geese and an oddly proportioned terrier, was discovered
by her amongst a pile of junk when they moved in three years
ago “and we decided to make it into a garden feature”. Obviously,
landlocked as it is, it doesn’t actually function to indicate
wind direction. The previous owner was “a lady who liked
collecting things she found”. I wonder which roof it was on
originally. EC, Photo by Joe Knight
WHERE DID YOU GET THAT HAT? #4
REAL ALE
Nancy Lodder and Lila
Meiland.
Lewes High Street, Thursday
17th June.
“I got mine in Accessorise
and Lila’s is from Next”
CAMRA has designated July ‘Independents Month’ in celebration
of Britain’s brewers. It’s also the month when Independence
Day, the Fourth of July, is celebrated in America, a holiday commemorating
the adoption of the Declaration of Independence
from Britain in 1776.
So it’s apt enough that the Harvey’s seasonal ale on draught for
July is Tom Paine Ale, a premium dry-hopped bitter in honour
of the celebrated radical and one-time Lewes resident. We suspect
a number of people will be supping the brew to the great
man’s posthumous health around the time his statue is unveiled
outside the library, on July 4th, by Tony Benn.
b i t s a n d b o b s
WHAT’LL WE DO TONIGHT?
We try our damnedest to get all the interesting
events going on in and around
town into this handbook, but inevitably
some are announced after we go to press.
For a more comprehensive week-by-week
listings guide, plus photos, columns, local
issues and news, check out our awardwinning
(elder) sister publication, www.
vivalewes.com, now in its 207th edition...
and counting.
LEWES IN QUOTES
Food for thought for the new Parliamentary
Under-Secretary for Transport.
“Speculation on the rather sluggish
economic and demographic growth of
Lewes in the Victorian period must remain
tentative. Some contemporaries blamed
the advent of the railway system. Lewes
quickly became an important junction.
Lines were opened to Brighton and St.
Leonards in 1846, to Keymer Junction and
Newhaven Harbour in 1847, to Uckfield
and Tunbridge Wells in 1848, and to East
Grinstead in 1882. Yet local businessmen
blamed rail transport for weakening the
town’s role as a distributive centre for groceries,
ironmongery and other commodities,
previously brought into Newhaven by
sea. Others complained that rural customers
now had rapid and convenient rail
access to the ampler retailing resources of
Brighton.” Victorian Lewes, by Colin Brent
and William Rector (Chichester 1980)
7

IN SEASON NOW: Strawberries
b i t s a n d b o b s
The strawberry is the true herald of summer and no self-respecting English
garden party or summer fete would be quite the same without them. There
are over 40 recorded varieties of wild strawberry, the most common being
Fragaria vesca. A delight to discover, the French call them fraise de bois and
although delicious in their own right, it does takes quite a lot of them to
make a bowlful. The French still grow them on a minor commercial scale
but for the most part it is a more recent cultivar, the Pineapple Strawberry
or Fragaria ananassa that grace our market stalls. This is the result of crossing
two varieties of American strawberry, the North American Virginian
strawberry and the South American Pine or Sand strawberry. This particular
union became official somewhere in France in the mid 18th century.
Griddled Strawberries with Chocolate Balsamic Vinegar
Take enough strawberries for 4 people, washed and capped and left whole
1 tbsp caster sugar, 4 tsp Stratta Chocolate Balsamic Vinegar, tin foil
Mix the strawberries and sugar in a bowl and leave to sit for 10 minutes to get the strawberry juice flowing.
Make 4 parcels out of foil and divide the strawberry mix, sprinkle with chocolate balsamic (or maybe a sprinkle of
rum, Cointreau or Pimms!) and gather up the foil edges to seal. Place the foil cases on the barbeque at the end of
the evening (ie not when it’s roaring!) and cook for 15 – 20 mins. Carefully unwrap and transfer the strawberries
and juices to plates, where they can be eaten as they are, or else blobbed with crème fraîche or ice cream.
Vanessa Langley - Lewes Farmers’ Market Coordinator. Next markets Saturday July 3rd & Saturday August 7th.
DAVID SHEPHARD BOOK REVIEW
Up to which
point is the River
Ouse tidal?
On the flanks of
which hill near
Seaford will you
see a white horse
carved into the turf? Which notorious
Sussex businessman changed his
name by deed poll to Adolph von
Hessen in July, 2009? Which East
Sussex coastal town was once known
as ‘Meeching’? 400 questions, in sections
of ten, most of them fiendishly
difficult, have been set by local historian
David Arscott, in his latest publication
The Sussex Pub Quiz Book.
It’s published by Pomegranate Press,
costs £7.50, and is on sale in Tourist
Information and Skylark.
9

1 0

LEWES STREET NAMES #24
b i t s a n d b o b s
Evelyn Road on Landport is named after
diarist, John Evelyn, who was sent to Lewes
in 1625 at the age of five to live with his
step-grandfather, a prominent citizen of
the Cliffe, John Stansfield. After his grandfather’s
death, Evelyn resided at Southover
Grange following his grandmother’s second
marriage to William Newton. Evelyn
received his early education at Mr Potts’
school in the Cliffe before attending the Lewes Grammar School.
Evelyn lived in momentous times and his diary is a valuable guide to the history and customs of the 17th century.
He was also a friend to Samuel Pepys, who mentions him in his diary.
Evelyn was also an author of some repute, and his book Sylva was a best-seller. It featured constructive proposals
on afforestation to meet the acute problem of the destruction of woodlands to feed the furnaces of the iron
and glass industries which greatly influenced the character of the English landscape in following generations.
During his boyhood in Lewes, Evelyn laid the foundation stone of the present South Malling Church, rebuilt
in 1627 by the efforts and munificence of his grandfather.
From L.S. Davey’s The Street Names of Lewes, revised by Kim Clark. Photo by Joe Knight.
SAVE SALTDEAN LIDO CAMPAIGN UPDATE
MOVING ON 2010
The Save Saltdean Lido Campaign (see page 64), who are trying to stop the remarkable
art deco pool being concreted in by developers, have acquired high-profile support
in the form of Sir Terence Conran’s architectural practice. Brighton based Conran &
Partners have gone into partnership with the campaign, and are helping to develop
alternative ideas for the regeneration of the site. Conran & Partners director, Paul Zara,
tells me he was ‘born and bred’ in Lewes, and the Saltdean Lido is a ‘great building’ he
has known all his life, “It’s an icon for Saltdean, at the very heart of the community. It
deserves to be preserved and enhanced and we will do all we can to stop the developers
and their wrecking balls.”
It’s nearly time for Patina, that colourful, exuberant ‘moving on’ parade of all the year
6 kids celebrating their rite of passage to secondary school. 15 schools are taking part
this year, each creating their own costumes and papier-mâché monsters: the theme
is: Junglemania. Of course all this needs money, and the organisers have asked many
of Lewes’ artists and shopkeepers to donate items which can be auctioned off at the
launch of the event, on July 2nd, at the All Saints, between 5.30 and 6.30pm. There
will be refreshments and live music, too: everyone’s welcome.
NOTES & CORRECTIONS
Apologises for not mentioning current skittles champions The DCC in the list of teams that have ‘dominated’
the tournament in recent years. As team leader Ben Ward writes: “2nd, 2nd, 1st, 5th, 1st in the last five years. If
anyone’s dominating the competition, it’s us!”
1 1

For more details please follow the link on our website.
24/25 Cliffe High Street, Lewes BN7 2AH
Telephone: 01273 480303
www.spectrumeyecare.co.uk
Wimbledon 2010
There’s a certain mildness in the air, so hopefully at last we can say goodbye to that
dreadful winter and hello spring! Whilst looking forward to some early sun, remember
it’s the same UVA & UVB rays that give us a tan, that can damage our eyes, but unlike
sunburn, the effect on our eyes isn’t immediately
obvious. Fortunately, the solution’s simple, just
make it a habit of wearing sunglasses or
protective lenses in any sunlight.
W I M B L E D O N We are the official stockists of the
S U N G L A S S E S Wimbledon Sunglass Collection, which
just gets better every year. They are
available from just £99*, so give yourself a head
start by preparing for the sun with a pair today.
Spectrum Specialities
KIDS Collection
Fortunately specs are now seriously fashionable, which is great for our kids.
We have casual, funky and a new range of robust, colourful, strong lightweight Titanium -
ask to see the New KIDS Collection.
To give you as much reassurance as we can that your eyes
are healthy, we have made considerable investment in our
practice to bring you the latest in eye care technology. This
includes the latest instruments available for the eye exam,
contact lenses and frame and lens dispensing.
Training and enthusiasm of course is the key and everyone
here has embraced these innovations to bring you the
highest standards available.
Here are a few reminders of what you can experience at
Spectrum Eyecare:-
Individualised Practice of the Year
Optomap - retinal wide view
HRT3 - early Glaucoma detection
Tom Davis Bespoke – tailor made frames
Optiplan - for up to 40% discount
Ortho K contact lenses – no contacts or specs
needed in the day
Photo Booth & Activisu - to see how frames look on you.
Sports Eyewear - to your prescription – rx swim goggles
Gotti - the latest addition to our frame family.
A beautifully crafted Swiss range from the house of Gotti.
Be inspired.

BOOK REVIEW - GROW IT, COOK IT WITH KIDS BY AMANDA GRANT
b i t s a n d b o b s
Amanda Grant is a Lewes-based food writer, and author of several
books, including Healthy Lunchboxes for Kids. She is also a mum
and regular Viva Lewes contributor of recipes for children. She has
just brought out a new book, Grow It, Cook It With Kids (Ryland
Peters & Small), aimed at getting children under eleven growing
their own food, then cooking with it. There are sections including
herbs, beans and peas, onions and carrots and soft fruits, all stunningly
photographed by Tara Fisher. The recipes are of the very
Lewes-parent friendly variety, such as pesto, carrot muffins and
couscous salad.
Normal price £14.99, but Bags of Books and Wickle are offering a
15% discount to anyone who mentions this review. Viva Lewes are also giving away two copies. Amanda will
pick at random from the names of children we hear from who either grow their own veg locally, and/or have
made any of her recipes. Send your name, age, contact details and a bit about whether you are a keen cook
and/or gardener to: info@vivalewes.com.
BOOK REVIEW - A BRIEf HISTORY Of NAKEDNESS BY PHILIP CARR-GOMM
ALfRESCO THEATRE
This book opens with the words ‘stop reading and start taking off your clothes’.
I’m not going to admit whether I did or not, but artist and sexologist Annie
Sprinkle says reading it made her ‘want to rip off my clothes for a good cause immediately’,
so make sure you’re in a safe place when you start reading it (or take
it along to the Pells Pool Skinny-dip, page 35). Philip is a familiar local figure,
albeit normally seen clothed, and is a writer, druid and psychotherapist. His book
explores our complicated relationships with both our own bodies and those of
others, and looks at changing cultural attitudes to public nudity, from the Venus
of Willendorf, Lady Godiva and streakers, encompassing nudity in art and
culture, in films like The Full Monty. On sale in Sky-lark in The Needlemakers,
published by Reaktion Books, £19.95.
There is a plethora of outdoor theatre to be seen in Lewes in July, so dig out
your picnic hamper and blanket, and seek out some Rude Mechanicals, or
take your choice between (coinciding) productions of Shakespearian comedy
and tragedy. The Synergy Theatre’s production of Twelfth Night takes place
in the Grange Gardens and the Brighton Little Theatre’s Romeo and Juliet
is in the Gun Garden of Lewes Castle, on the evenings of 20th-24th July (see
Diary Dates, page 43, for more details). The Rude Mechanicals are putting
on the challengingly titled Ik ‘r’ us Inc at Lewes Castle on 31st July and 1st Aug, 7.30pm. Set in Dreamville
USA, 1955, Ik ‘r’ us Inc is the story of Daedalus H. Gildersleeves, a travelling salesman who has progressed
from selling vacuum cleaners to encyclopaedias and finally to selling dreams. For more details call 01323
501260 or see the Rudes’ website.
1 3

GET LOST!
this summer
at
Spring Barn
Farm Park
Lewes
Giant
Maize Maze
opens mid
July!
Four seasons of fun on the Farm
Fabulous home-cooked food
Good old-fashioned camping
And soon - the Farm Shop!
Kingston Road, Lewes 01273 488450
www.springbarnfarmpark.co.uk

OffHAM CHURCH fESTIVAL
Offham Church is celebrating its 150th anniversary
in mid July, in a very colourful manner. The Victorian
church, with its striking tower, its wonderfully picturesque
downsland setting, and its fine stained glass, is well worth
a look whatever the occasion, but between 16th and 18th
there’s even more reason to visit. Vicar Derek Bastide and
his team have organised a three-day Festival of Flowers
(9.30-5.30pm, starting Friday), which will be opened by
the Lord Lieutenant of Sussex. Saturday sees a traditional
fete with stalls and games in the afternoon; on Sunday
morning (10.30am) there will be a visit from the Bishop of
Chichester. The whole affair is rounded off the following
weekend (25th, 6pm), with a Victorian Songs of Praise,
where the congregation are invited to dress (if they want
to) in period costume, and (sponsored) hymns from the
period will be sung. Of course, there will be refreshments
served throughout the festival.
HUSH HUSH CINEMA
b i t s a n d b o b s
LEWES TALKING NEWSPAPER
Lewes Talking Newspaper is celebrating 30
years of creating a weekly volunteer-driven
audio magazine with local stories and news
items aimed at people who are visually impaired
or otherwise find difficulty in reading
texts. 100 regular customers receive their
audio cassette through the post, with the
PO offering free delivery. For more details
(whether you want to receive a copy, know
someone who would, or want to volunteer)
call Joyce Hancock on 813459 or e-mail
Rosemary at r.harris121@btinternet.com.
LOCAL AUTHOR
A Plague of Sinners
The second novel in the Harry Lytle
series, published by Beautiful-Books,
takes us to London in 1665. The Stuart
detective unwittingly gets involved in another
grisly murder case, as if life in 17th
century Britain wasn’t gruesome enough
as it was, with rats underfoot and plague
victims dropping like flies. The author,
Paul Lawrence, is a Lewesian exile, who
now lives in Australia. More info at www.
beautiful-books.co.uk.
Normally, when we announce an event, we let you know the
venue, and what sort of show you’re likely to see. Not with Hushhush
Cinema, though, because that would be completely counter
productive. The very nature of this new venture, organised by
Lewes Film Club’s Carmen Slijpen, is that spectators DON’T
know what film they’re going to see, or what other events have
been organised around it (which might include special guests, performers,
interactive elements and an after-party) . They don’t even
know where it’s going to be screened. All you know is the time (7 for 7.30pm) and the date (July 3rd). ‘The
carefully selected films will cover the entire cinema gamut, from new classics to old cult favourites’ promise
the organisers. Tickets must be bought in advance from Laporte’s: leave your mobile number and an e-mail
address, and you will be notified of the venue in advance.
1 5

MYLEWES MarcuS corniSh
Profession: sculptor.
You designed the statue of Tom Paine that’s about
to be unveiled outside the library. Can you tell us
about that? It was commissioned by someone who
lives in the town, who’s followed my work since I had an
exhibition in the Star Gallery in 2002. She’s very active
and switched onto issues and the arts, and she felt that
the town needed a sculpture of Tom Paine, so she asked
me if I would do it. She’s a remarkable and inspiring
woman, who wishes to remain anonymous.
I understood that the local artist Dom Ramos posed
for the painting of Tom Paine in the Market Tower, so
I asked him to pose for the statue, too. He was the right
size, but because clay shrinks by 10% when it’s fired
I needed a larger body cast, too, and Ollie from Hesketh’s
did that, as well as providing much of the clay.
There was input from all sorts of local people: Catherine
Darcy of Vintage Clothing kindly supplied the period
costume; David Powell, Paine’s biographer, filled
me in on a lot of background information; Mohammed
Hamid fired parts of the sculpture; and Joe Tomlinson
helped at every stage.
What do your critics generally moan about? They
say I’m anachronistic. I say life’s a lot richer than what’s
going on just at this moment in time.
Are you from Lewes? I’m from Streatham, in South
London. I met my wife, Mary Anne (Aytoun-Ellis, the
painter) at the Royal College of Art in the early 90s.
Part of the deal of getting married was that we had to
Photo: Alex Leith
come to Lewes to look after her grandmother, who
brought her up. I’ve never regretted the move.
What do you like about Lewes? So many things. I
used to live in Peckham, so I love the fact that on the
way to work I say hello to five or six people I know,
which didn’t happen in London, where you get from
A-B with your head down. I’m amazed by the variety of
people who live in Lewes – it seems to attract so many
people who have influences and interests that stretch
far beyond the town. And I love the air here: when I
come back from trips to London (I teach drawing in
Shoreditch) I’m sure I can smell the sea. To quote my
mother-in-law: “It’s nice to leave Lewes, but it’s even
better to get back”.
Anything that irritates you about the place? All the
real shops that close down. It’s so sad. I used to love
going to that greengrocer in Fisher Street. Oh, and
also the Serco vans which transport the prisoners to
and from the court, who block up Castle Ditch Lane,
where I have a studio. I know they’ve got an important
job to do, but they think they own the place.
What’s your favourite pub? I don’t go a lot, but when
I do it’s the Lewes Arms. I swear some of the people
have been sat at their chairs at least a decade, and I like
the fact there are so many different sections to it. While
I’m there, I’ll drink a pint of Harveys.
What did you have for breakfast this morning? Porridge
with banana. You put it in the range overnight in
foil and in the morning it tastes superb.
1 7

“A superb outfit”
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Viva Lewes Summer 2010 Campaign.indd 1 15/06/2010 14:04:55

GOLDEN LININGS
p h o t o o f t h e m o n t h
Two days before our deadline to choose this month’s photo, 16-year-old Daisy Martin sent in a few pictures,
which went straight onto the shortlist. After quite a bit of debate, we finally chose this one as the winner
because of the amazing colour of the sky and the sunset-tinged clouds.
“I took it from my back garden in East Chiltington,” she told us, after we informed her of her success. The
date was the 11th of June: which means while England’s footballers were failing to beat the USA, Daisy was
out snapping the sky above Black Cap. “This was one of the best photos I’d taken all week,” she says. “I was
amazed by the colour of the clouds – and they weren’t just normal clouds.”
Daisy’s just finished her photography GCSE, and is going to study the subject at A-Level. She took the picture
on auto, with a point-and-shoot Kodak. “I edited a bit afterwards on the computer,” she says. “I increased the
colour temperature, and darkened it a little.”
She’s now hoping to save up for a new camera ‘with focus’ (and more settings, presumably).We hope the £20
she wins for getting her picture published helps towards the cost a little.
Send your pictures to info@vivalewes.com. We publish the best in our ‘photo of the week’ column in www.vivalewes.com,
and choose our favourite in this slot, which wins the photographer £20. Unless otherwise arranged we reserve the right to
use all pictures received in future Viva Magazines Ltd publications.
1 9

THREE TIMES A MARKET
The Market Tower lives up to its name… again
The Market Tower, that ornately fronted shortcut
from School Hill to the Needlemakers, is
going to host a weekly Friday-morning produce
market from the 9th July.
You might surmise from the building’s name
that it was originally built as a marketplace. To
be precise, it was a multi-purpose development,
completed in 1792, after much discussion from
the Borough authorities, who used it to simultaneously
solve a number of headaches.
Until its demolition in around 1761 the squareshaped
St Nicholas Church stood more or less
where the War Memorial now is. The building,
known as ‘The Broken Church’, had for centuries
been derelict, but until that date still housed the
town bell, ‘Gabriel’, and the town clock. It was
also the site of one end of Lewes’ twice-weekly
produce market, a noisy, sprawling affair which
filled the High Street on Tuesdays and Saturdays,
up to Westgate, blocking traffic and drawing repeated
complaints from residents who had to put
up with the noise and the smell.
When the church was pulled down, the borough
had to put the bell (the biggest in Sussex) and the
clock in storage. This was not an ideal situation,
partly because they both served an important
purpose. Markets were very strictly regulated in
the 18th century, and transactions could only be
conducted on the allotted days, between the allotted
times, signalled by the chiming of ‘Gabriel’.
It took them thirty years to finalise a project to
kill four birds with one stone: a building which
housed the bell and the clock, and created an
enclosed space where the market could be contained.
The ‘Town Tower’ as it was then known,
even had room for the town jail, on the first floor.
This fine arrangement lasted for just over 100
years. The agricultural recession around the turn
of the last century led to a dwindling of stalls –
the last to go was Chailey resident Richard Pannett’s
flower stall, which was there until around
1897, eventually being booted out by the rifle
volunteers, who were renting the space.
The aftermath of the First World War led to a
surplus of small-time growers looking for an
outlet for their wares, and a newly founded organisation,
committed to creating co-operative
opportunities for the community, decided that
Lewes was the ideal place to conduct a pioneering
enterprise.
The Women’s Institute exploded into life in Britain
during the First World War, and the tightly

photos of the first Wi market courtesy of Reeves
knit co-operative nature of the new organisation
was utilised by the government to help organise
the ‘dig for victory’ campaign that helped feed
the nation while the conflict raged across the
channel and beyond. In 1918 a National Federation
of WIs was formed, and financed by the
government to continue its work in peacetime.
Lewes, a natural and historic market town, able
to draw customers and producers from a large
number of surrounding villages, was chosen as
the venue for the first-ever WI produce market
in England, and the now-empty Market Tower
was the ideal location for the enterprise. The
first market took place on December 14th, 1919,
selling the wares of 12 local WIs. Lady Monk
Bretton was president of the enterprise: the WI
paid the Corporation of Lewes five shillings a
week for rent of the space. Each contributor had
to pay a penny of every shilling earned to the
Sussex Federation of the WI, which more than
covered costs. There were certain principles the
market followed: the sale of goods was directly
to the public; all the workers were voluntary; the
producers became shareholders; and the market
was open to everyone, however little they had
brought to sell.
L e w e s I N h I s t o r y
The scope of the enterprise soon grew, and soon
non-WI smallholders, including a number of exservicemen,
were bringing produce to market.
The idea took a while to catch on elsewhere, but
catch on it did – by 1939 there were 70 WI markets
in Britain; by 1944, when Britain was facing
another food production crisis – there were 320.
Today there are over 500 in operation.
Lewes’ WI market ceased trading in the Market
Tower in December 1991, due to a number of
factors including high rent demands, a lack of
new producers and the shift downhill of Lewes
shopping centre after the construction of the
Precinct. A new home for the market was found
in 1992 in Thomas a Becket Hall, and the market
takes place every Friday, at 11am, selling the sort
of wares we have come to associate with the WI:
home-made cakes, jams, knitted garments.
The Market Tower ground floor space has been
little more than a pedestrian thoroughfare since
1991, guarded by the watchful eye of Julian Bell’s
painting of Tom Paine. It will be refreshing to
witness it bursting once more with the colourful
hubbub of a produce market, organised by Transition
Town Lewes. The first market will take
place between 9am and 1pm, Friday 9th July. AL
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Images (left to right): Lindy Dunbar; Joseph Davey; Fiona Morrison
Last month we told you about the blurry Polaroid
world of Mike Hoban at Pelham House: until
August 24th he will be sharing the walls of the upmarket
hotel with a very different type of artist,
Aberdonian Jonathan Smith, whose work rarely
reflects the modern ravages of the 21st century.
Jonathan was part-brought up in the Hebrides, and
the rugged seascapes that formed the backdrop
to much of his childhood are reflected in much of
his choice of subject matter –all waves crashing on
jagged rocks, you-lookin’-at-me sheep, and sinewy
fishermen in sou’wester hats. He’s a Lewes resident
now, though, and the rather gentler landscapes of
the south get a look-in, too. We recommend you
pop into the hotel, if just to browse his work.
There are a couple of collaborations at the Hop
Gallery this month, starting off with mother and
son duo Lindy Dunbar and Joseph Davey from
3rd-15th. You might well have seen Lindy’s work
before with the long-established Star Group: she
depicts the human form in pen, ink and watercolour
with very sure line strokes which suggests the slight
movement of the life model during the sketch, and
brings them alive. Joseph is based in Sweden; he
works in oils playing with light and form, producing
atmospheric landscapes.
Next up in the gallery (17th-25th) is a collaboration
between two Sussex artists, Jackie Hurwood and
Janet Reddon. Jackie predominantly works in
w w w. V I VA L e w e s . C o M
art &ABOUT
watercolours, producing traditional street scenes
and landscapes. She sometimes takes you abroad;
to Venice, for example, or New Orleans, though
you don’t feel threatened by the journey. Janet is
a watercolourist, too, who does still lifes as well as
landscapes.
The month ends (July 31st-Aug 12th) with an
exhibition by Paul Bartholomew, who paints
colourful geometrical forms on large canvases:
his work adorns the walls of the Levy Centre, in
Hackney. Mondrian, in the post-Letraset age,
perhaps. More on him next month.
We’ve featured Svetlana K-Lie’s sculpture
‘Feathers’ on page 25. Her exhibition in Lewes
Little Theatre continues into July, and is well
worth catching. Svetlana is a Lewes resident who
divides her time between here, Paris (where she is
an artist-in-residence at the Cité des Arts) and her
native Moscow (where in 2004 she was awarded the
Russian Sculptor Prize).
Finally, we’ve been rather neglecting our friends at
the Chalk Gallery recently. They’ve updated both
their website and their modus operandi recently,
inviting in guest artists and giving their ‘featured
artists’ more time on the walls. This month the
spotlight in the latter category falls on the work of
Fiona Morrison, a perspective-skewing landscape
artist who applies a lovely patchwork quality to
much of her work.
A r t
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presents a play by
William Shakespeare
20–24 July 2010, 19:30
Southover Grange Gardens, Lewes
Tickets £10 and £8 (concessions) from
www.thesynergytheatre.co.uk, Lewes Tourist
Information Centre, or call 01273 479497

What’s it made of? Bronze and glass.
How much is it going for? £24,000.
Can you tell us about the inspiration behind the piece? I was in Kurdish Iraq in a town called Arbil
and I was told about their religion which involved a holy bird – the peacock. I’ve always liked that
beautiful creature, so I played around with a lot of ideas for this sculpture. In the end I used these glass
juicy fruits to represent the eyes in the feathers of the bird.
Where did you create the piece? I do all my sculpture in Moscow, though I live in Lewes. I had it
transported here in a lorry, via Paris, where I have another studio – I’m an artist-in-residence in the Cité
des Arts. The French are crazy about art, and they support it in a lot of different ways.
How long did it take to complete? About six months. Sculpture involves a lot of technical processes,
which take a lot of time, like casting, and polishing.
What do you wear when you’re working? A bikini. When I’m working I work in complete solitude and
really become fully immersed in the activity. I want my body to become at one with the spirituality of the
process: the smells, the textures, the form, the shapes. It’s important not to wear any clothes.
What other artists have influenced this piece? None. I come from a poor background in Russia
where I didn’t learn a lot about art. When I won the Best Russian Sculptor award there in 2004, people
kept saying “it looks like a Giacometti!” I kept asking myself ‘who is this Giacometti?’ I decided that the
first thing I would do with my prize money was get a flight to Paris and find out. I like his stuff: it’s very
spiritual and deep. But it didn’t influence my work. It all comes from within myself.
What’s your favourite gallery? It’s the same story with galleries. I haven’t much experience of them. I’m
too busy cooking, or making sculptures.
What picture would you hang from a desert island palm tree? A very minimalist calligraphic design.
A single black line on a white background. Something simple which would give space to my imagination.
Svetlana’s Feathers will be exhibited at Artists United, The Foundry, 9th-11th July
w w w. V I VA L e w e s . C o M
focus on...
Svetlana K-Lie’s ‘feathers’ (1.2 by 1.17 metres)
A r t
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Images (left to right): Lucinka soucek; trish Macourt; Peter Chasseaud; David Lucas;
Football and art make strange bedfellows, but
these two different ends of Lewes’ cultural
spectrum have got it together for a cracking
weekend of activities.
Lewes is well known to be full of high-level
artists, and the organisers of the festival asked
40 top-notch painters, printers, photographers,
illustrators and sculptors to provide a work of art,
to be exhibited in The Foundry Gallery, between
July 9th and 11th (the weekend of the climax of
the World Cup). The money raised by the event
will go to a new venture: Lewes Community
Football Club, a plan to turn our local football
club into a sustainable, transparent, communityrun
organization.
Not wanting to put the artists in a difficult space,
the organisers (including Viva Lewes) didn’t ask
for a donated work. To ensure a high level of entry,
they made sure those offering artworks would
receive the sort of return on any sale they might
expect from a gallery.
The entries have been spectacular, with some fine
pieces brought in by the aristocracy of the local
scene: the likes of Peter Messer, Julian Bell, Roger
(‘Yes’) Dean, Tom Hammick, Marco Crivello,
Nick Bodimeade and Svetlana K-Lie have all
contributed, among far too many other names to
list here.
Of course, this has led to a wide diversity of work:
from thick-brushed impressionism to minimalist
naïve, from turquoise fields to arctic pianos, from
w w w. V I VA L e w e s . C o M
ARTISTS UNITED
Beautiful art meets the beautiful game
A r t & F o o t b A L L
stormy seascapes to colourful robots. If there’s a
connecting theme it’s ‘community’, as the artists
have all shown their community spirit to join in a
cause which is aimed at turning the football club
into a community-owned entity.
There’s a wide diversity of prices, too, for those
wishing to purchase something (understanding
45% of the sale, after admin costs, will go to the
football venture). Certain limited-edition prints
are selling for as little as £25; the biggest sculpture
in the show, by Svetlana K-Lie, is going for a
rather more wallet-lightening £24,000. (As with all
such exhibitions, of course, there is absolutely no
obligation to buy).
There will also be plenty of information on the
details of this new initiative for Lewes FC, as
well as a display of archive material to put the
proposed 2010 version of the club on the historical
map. There will be Rooks merchandise and other
paraphernalia for sale, too, and plenty of activities
for every age, including a kids’ art workshop
on Saturday afternoon, and a screening of Ken
Loach’s ‘Looking For Eric’ on Friday night (see
page 41). Also exhibiting will be Young Artists
United, the creative responses of young people to
the artists living in their community. The art event
of the year? You bet. Not to be missed.
Artists United, Foundry Gallery, open to the public
Friday 9th (10-5pm) Sat 10th (10-5pm) and Sun 11th
(11-3pm). Free entry.
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focus on...
Marco Crivello’s
‘Approach’
(16.5cm x 16.5cm)
Media… Oils and Dutch gold
leaf on board.
How long did it take to paint
it? The pieces are all improvised,
which mean they evolve out of an
accumulation of processes, which
goes on for months often with
the pieces hovering around the
periphery of my vision waiting,
as it were, for their moment. I speak about this in more detail in a short film that was made about my
working processes on the website (marcocrivello.co.uk).
What’s it going for? £950.
Is it ‘abstract’? I’m fascinated by what paint does, the juxtaposition of formal elements, a thick impasto
brushmark against a pool of thinned colour, in that sense the job of painting is essentially abstract. But,
importantly for the viewer, does calling it abstract or figurative significantly alter their response? If so
why? That’s a much more interesting line of enquiry to me.
Did you have a good idea of what it was going to look like when you first started working on it?
Not a clue.
Is that real gold? No, Dutch gold leaf, a copper – tin amalgam that oxidises and patinates.
Which artists are your major influences? Turner and Rembrandt.
What would a detractor say about this piece? Lazy.
And a fan? Inspired.
What do you wear to paint? The same clothes for too long.
Where do you work? Station Street.
What’s the biggest pain about being an artist? Painting yourself into a corner.
And the greatest joy? Letting go and flying out of that corner.
What do you think of the Turner Prize? They derided Turner as a madman, time’s the best judge.
What’s your favourite gallery? Four Square Fine Arts – my wife’s gallery, of course.
Which painting would you hang from your desert island palm tree? Rembrandt’s last self portrait.
Marco’s ‘Approach’ will be exhibited at Artists United, The Foundry, 9th-11th July
w w w. V I VA L e w e s . C o M
A r t
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TOM PAINE: THE MOVIE
Martin Scorcese’s missed a trick
Photos: Christine hall
On July 4th, American Independence Day, a statue
of Tom Paine by Marcus Cornish will be unveiled
outside Lewes library (see page 17). This will
be followed by a screening of a new film about
Tom Paine’s time in Lewes. I meet director, Mick
Hawksworth, and the person playing Tom Paine,
Simon Hellyer, in the Lewes Arms to ask how the
film came about.
The film, I’m told, is the legacy of the Chief
Executive of Lewes District, John Crawford, who is
about to retire. Crawford commissioned Christine
Hall of Artemis Arts and Mick to make a film about
Tom Paine in Lewes, to accompany the statue
unveiling. “I didn’t want to make a stills-driven
documentary so I wrote a screenplay and got local
people to act in it,” he tells me.
The film begins with Paine’s arrival in Lewes in
1768 and covers the period when he wrote and
distributed his first political work, The Case of the
Officer of Excise, a pamphlet printed in an edition
of 4,000. We see him getting married to Elizabeth
Ollive and writing satirical pieces for the local paper.
Then it all goes wrong, Elizabeth is unhappy, as are
the wealthy people he is satirising. “In short,” says
Mick “the man was a professional pisser-offer.”
So how have they managed to represent late 18th
century Lewes? “We haven’t,” Mick replies. “The
costumes and settings are contemporary. It opens
with Tom stepping off the train at Lewes Station!”
Mick went along to see She Stoops to Conquer at
the Lewes Little Theatre. “I saw Simon,” Mick says,
“and thought he would make a great Tom Paine.”
w w w. V I VA L e w e s . C o M
t o M PA I N e
It so happens Simon and I are friends from our
university days. Although his day job is clinical
psychologist, he was once the unassuming star
of DramSoc, and I later saw him in an Oscarnominated
short, It’s Good to Talk, alongside
Martin Clunes and Steven Mackintosh.
We go along to Mick’s office in the Star Brewery to
see a rough cut of the film, which is around 15/20
minutes long. “We had to shoot it in two days,”
Mick tells me. Simon is a splendid Tom Paine, and
the wonderfully cast double-act of Julian Bell and
Merlin Milner, playing spies, is excellent. Lots of
other familiar faces can be spotted, both acting and
in crowd scenes, including Miles Jenner and Paul
Myles. John Crawford gets a line too.
Bull House interiors are shot in Mick’s house, and
the Lewes Arms, White Hart and 197 are also
used to good effect. It’s fun spotting local Lewes
characters in situ. There are also many familiar
external locations, such as Pells Pond, the Castle
Bowling Green, Harveys Brewery and St Michael’s
Church (used to show Paine’s wedding). They were
clearly lucky, weatherwise.
There is one intriguing story about Paine’s time in
Lewes that didn’t make it into the film – the rumour
that in order to get divorced from Elizabeth, Paine
may have been forced to prove his impotence by
looking at Chinese porn in a basement in the High
Street. “It’s a great tale, but just too complicated for
us to drop in,” Mick tells me. Emma Chaplin
Tom Paine in Lewes will premier at the All Saints
Centre, Friar’s Walk, Sunday 4th July, around 2pm.
3 1

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photo: alex Leith
PELLS POOL PARTY
Groovy times are here again
P o o L PA r t y
The glam rock cover band Tongue and Groove, featuring stunttastic
frontman Phil Rhodes, are returning to the Pells Pool to
headline another family-friendly charity bash.
Tongue and Groove have to be seen to be believed, and even then
you won’t believe it. All five band members are dressed to the
nines, but it’s Rhodes who grabs most of the attention: tottering
onto the stage in platform heels, wearing a glitter suit and an
enormous orange wig, he sexpots his way through an uninhibited
singalong repertoire of classic groove-tinged numbers from the
60s to the noughties (Honky Tonk Women, I’m a Believer, Jean Genie, I Predict a Riot). Then, usually,
he does something even more daftly gape-causing: last year he finished off his last song swimming a
length of the pool, which he’d just dived into, wig, suit, boots and all.
There’s a bar and a burger bar, the kids can swim in the pool (and the adults too, if that’s their wont), and
there’s plenty more to keep you entertained, besides. Or, as the T&G blurb has it: family, fun, frolics, bar,
bathing, BBQ. Rhodes promises, if you’ve seen it all before, ‘a fresh new funky ska twist’ to his set. We’re
helping to arrange this event, and we warn you, if last year is anything to go by, tickets will sell out fast.
All profits go to a brilliant cause: the Pells Pool itself. See you there?
July 17th, Pells Pool, 7pm, Tickets £5 adults, £2 kids, £12 2-adult-2-kid combo, in advance from Laporte’s
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2ND PELLS POOL
MIDSUMMER SKINNY-DIP
Steve Watts bares all
N A K e D
Changing tent courtesy of Gardener & Cook
I’ve swum naked plenty of times before,
mostly on holiday and in the sea, and really
enjoy the feeling of water against my skin. So
when I heard about the first Pells skinny-dip
last year, my girlfriend and I decided to go
along to support the event. We needed a bit of
Dutch courage, so we had a drink beforehand,
and we took along a picnic and some wine. It
was a sunny evening, but a bit chilly. Quite a
few people turned up, some families, mostly
adults, and I’d say a lot of them were seasoned
naturists. You could tell because they didn’t have
a problem with not knowing where to look,
unlike Phil the (clothed) pool manager who kept
his eyes determinedly up at all times. I started
off feeling self-conscious, especially around
other men, but it eventually felt normal. The
nudity wasn’t erotic. I kept my shorts on until
we went into the pool. The only funny thing
was the guys who lit the barbecue naked, which
looked dangerous to me. Overall, it was an
enjoyable thing to do, and definitely a different
kind of Saturday night!
Clothes-optional outdoor swim and picnic, Sat
3rd July 7.30-10.30pm, Pells Pool, Brook Street.
Tickets £5 on door, £3 in advance from Laporte’s.
Enquiries: skinny_dip_pells@onetel.com. Bring
your own drink and food to barbeque. Alcohol
permitted. Proceeds to Brighton Naked Bike Ride
and related events. No photography.
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LEWES LIVE
The Little Theatre goes pro (am)
You might remember the play In Lambeth
put on at the Little Theatre during the Tom
Paine Festival. It was written by actor Jack
Shepherd (best known for his 90s TV role as
the lugubrious Cornish detective Wycliffe)
and the production was the result of a
successful collaboration between Shepherd,
Neil Sheppeck, and LLT artistic director,
Victoria Thompson.
Shepherd has recently been back to the
theatre offering acting workshops, and this
summer, all three are going to work together
again for ‘Lewes Live’, a trio of plays using
a mixture of both professional and amateur
actors and backstage staff.
Director Neil Sheppeck gets things going
with A Taste of Honey, and also oversees
the last of the three plays, The Picture of
Dorian Gray, in August. In between, Victoria
Thompson is directing an Edward Albee play,
The Lady from Dubuque (pronounced to
rhyme with ‘rebuke’ I’m told).
I speak to Neil, who describes working
with the Little Theatre amateurs as a ‘very
exciting and enjoyable’ process. His Love and
Madness theatre company recently toured
with a successful production of this play, and
he is using the same lead actor, Sarah Jane
Holt, to play Jo.
A Taste of Honey was written by Shelagh
Delaney at the age of 19. Set in Salford in the
1950s, it tells the story of a seventeen-yearold
working-class girl, Jo and her difficult
relationship with her mother, Helen, who
is sexually indiscriminate and neglectful of
her daughter. Jo befriends Jimmy, a black
sailor, played in Neil Sheppeck’s production
by professional actor Sibusiso Mamba. Their
w w w. V I VA L e w e s . C o M
t h e At r e
‘taste of honey’ leads to more problems than it might do
today.
First produced in 1958, the play addressed hitherto
unacknowledged issues of class, race, gender and sexuality,
becoming part of the realist ‘kitchen sink’ genre that
revolutionised British theatre. A Taste of Honey was
adapted into an award-winning film of the same title in
1961, and Morrissey was later a fan of the story. The Smiths
used Delaney’s photo on the album cover artwork for
Louder Than Bombs.
For the Lewes Little Theatre production, Neil tells me he’s
employed a professional local set designer, and she has put
a rake on the stage. He explains: “the stage rises up at the
back, creating an appropriately claustrophobic atmosphere,
since the play is set inside a flat.” He wasn’t sure how the
Little Theatre set builders would feel about being asked
to do this, as well as creating walls that angle inwards, but
he tells me “they were great. And having different levels
works well in all three plays, as the attic in Dorian Gray for
example.”
For the first time, tickets for all the plays can be purchased
directly by members of the public; you no longer have to
buy them via a theatre member. Emma Chaplin
Lewes Little Theatre, Lancaster Street, Taste of Honey,
8-17 July. The Lady from Dubuque 23-31 July. Evening
performances 7.45pm. Sat matinees start 2.45pm. Tickets £10.
Box office: 01273 474826
3 7

3 8
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SOUNDWAVE
Tune in to the youth of today
F e s t I VA L
The week-long fifth Lewes District Council
audio arts festival, Soundwave 2010, has a
change of focus this year. In previous editions,
the emphasis has been on music, but this year
there is a shift to the spoken word.
Organiser Steve Franklin tells us that, for the
next three years, Soundwave is being run by
the Youth Development Service and the target
audience is now 13-19 year olds. There are
four concerts, including the grand opening at
Newhaven Fort on July 24th (7-9.30pm), and
the alternative Leftfield Night at the All Saints
Centre, on Friday 30th July (7.30pm to 10pm).
Lots of local young bands will be playing,
including Prince Harry, Unstable, The Offbeats,
Ruby Rose, Nameless Dreams, Stormbird,
Sweet Addiction, and Hamilton Yarns. The
festival also includes numerous workshops.
Mark Hewitt of Lewes Live Lit is also putting
on a two day writing workshop at the Bus
Garage. Musician/songwriter Sam Walker (son
of Lewes artist, Tom Walker) is leading a music/
storytelling workshop.
Other workshops include: drums, guitar, band,
samba, sound engineering, radio presenting,
beat-boxing and drama. Most take place in
Priory School, and the cost is £2 (samba and
banner-making are free). Recordings of the
radio plays, concerts and workshop interviews
will be broadcast over the internet during a
48-hour Soundwave Special on Jellyfish Radio
7th/8th August.
A brochure together with booking details is
available online at the connexions360 site (www.
connexions360.org/soundwave).
3 9

Living, learning, fun
Summer
at Middle Farm
Monkey and ‘raffe are happy because they went to Middle Farm.
Bear is cross because he didn’t. Cheer up Ted…we’re open every
day with lots of cows and sheep and goats and llamas and horses
and chickens and stuff, and there’s always loads to do. Come to
Middle Farm and make your bear smile.
Open Farm admission: still only £3 per person with under 3’s free
We are situated on the main A27 Lewes to Eastbourne road,
Between the villages of Firle and Selmeston.
MIDDLE FARM FIRLE, LEWES, EAST SUSSEX, BN8 6LJ
telephone 01323 811411 www.middlefarm.com

LooKinG
For Eric
Loach and Cantona
- what a team
The four-day festival of football and culture at the
Foundry, Artists United (see page 27) includes a
screening of one of the best football-related films
ever made, Ken Loach’s Looking For Eric (8pm,
Friday July 9th).
The festival aims to raise funds for Lewes
Community Football Club, the group which
is planning to redirect the emphasis of the
management of Lewes FC, whereby it becomes a
community-run entity.
The film has been carefully selected because Loach
is a supporter of Bath City, a club who started last
season in the same league as Lewes FC, and the
director recently spoke at the Supporters’ Direct
Annual Conference, an organization which endorses
this revolutionary manner of running football teams.
The Artists United organizers are hoping Loach will
appear at the event, to partake in a question-andanswer
session, before the screening: we’ll let you
know if this is firmed up in our sister publication
www.vivalewes.com.
Loach the director is in much lighter mood than
normal with this sweet-side-of-bittersweet drama.
Eric Bishop (Steve Evets) is a Man-Unitedsupporting
postman in the depths of a mid-life
crisis. Twice divorced, still in love with his first wife,
and hooked on too much marijuana for his own
good, he needs some help. And, just-comme-ça, it
arrives – in the shape of his hero, Eric Cantona, the
former United forward (nicknamed ‘God’ in his
w w w. V I VA L e w e s . C o M
C I N e M A
time at Old Trafford) who arrives on the scene to do
a bit of life-coaching. Cantona, played by lui-même
(Loach’s joke not ours) helps his awe-struck fan back
on track by teaching him trumpet, divulging plenty
of homespun philosophy, and influencing him to
drink red wine instead of strong lager.
It’s a curious concept, but one that has, by and
large, gone down well with critics. Most films which
cover football don’t work, because a scripted drama
can rarely produce the sort of unplanned thrills
and spills a contest between two teams throws up.
Football is, per se, unscripted, so ‘football films’
which work are generally those which don’t take
you pitchside, or if they do, not as a central part of
the plot.
The film, of course, has been specially tailored
for its main star, and Cantona – one of the most
extraordinary, eccentric, and unpredictable
characters to grace the modern game - plays
himself quite beautifully. Which is to say, quite
enigmatically. When the seagulls follow a trawler,
after all, it is because they think sardines will be
thrown into the sea. Unfortunately there are no
plans for the Frenchman to attend the screening in
the former ironworks, but there’s plenty more offscreen
events for film-goers to enjoy, including an
art exhibition featuring 40 of the very best locally
based artists, information about Lewes FC’s history
and the transition bid, and a bar serving wine,
Harveys and soft drinks. Alex Leith
4 1

HIGHLIGHTS
D I A r y D At e s
Fri 2nd and Sat 3rd. Theatre – Swinging Sixties. Derek Watts and James Firth take you back for a
singalong of songs from the period between the lifting of the Chatterley ban and the Beatles’ last LP.
Lewes Little Theatre, 474826 for more details
Sat 3rd. Open Garden. Ringmer Park opens up its six-acre garden to the public to raise funds for the
League of Friends of Victoria Hospital. There’s a hot garden, a rose garden, and a rose-covered pergola.
2-5pm, £5, U-12 kids free
Sat 3rd. Hollywood Red Carpet. The Eastgate extravaganza – an evening of burlesque and cabaret, including
trapeze, fire-eating, unicycle and live rock. Not to forget a very special appearance from the latest
007: ‘the grey’ Bond, pole-dancing in a tuxedo, surrounded by the usual bevy of scantily clad lovelies.
All in a new venue – the Bus Station Garage, opposite Waitrose. 7.30pm, £17 on night or £15 (including
free cocktail) in advance from various outlets including Laporte’s
Sat 3rd, Sun 4th. Or, if you’d rather, it’s the Kingston WI’s 90th anniversary and they’re celebrating
with a two-day flower festival in the village’s lovely Norman church. There might be a cake or two for
sale, too. There’s a gala concert by the Ashdown Singers at 7.30pm on the Saturday.
Sun 4th. An unmissable event in Lewes’ summer social calendar as Tony Benn unveils Marcus Cornish’s
statue of Tom Paine. There’s a mummers’ play, and a 20-minute film about Paine’s time in Lewes. 11am,
Lewes Library
Tues 6th. Knots of May. Lewes’ all-woman morris team do their clogs-and-garland thang at the John
Harvey Tavern. 8pm
Thurs 8th. Cheese and wine do. A new-start get-together for the over 50s. Ringmer Village, 8pm, £5 –
ring Dee (07703106646) or Emma (07939595071) for more information
Sat 10th. Starfish in the Park. The big one, for the dynamic Lewes District youth music group, a fab
festival where over 20 bands will be playing live in the Paddock. (473388)

JULY
4
11 STEFAN LINDON
BOOGIE WOOGIE PIANO
TAB HUNTER BEN PALEY
18
25
Acoustic Sunday’s
@ The Con Club
RAY OWEN
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� Half day/Whole day packages
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1 High Street, Lewes BN7 2AD
01273 487333
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HIGHLIGHTS
D I A r y D At e s
Sat 17th. Lewes Societies Fair. Check out potential extra-curricular hobbies. 40-odd societies are
represented covering crafts, music, history, sport and much more. Alas no Doll’s House or Conan Doyle
Society this time, but plenty more from the quirky to the downright how-could-we-do-without-them.
Any donations to the League of Friends of Lewes Victoria Hospital. Town Hall, 10am-2pm, free
Sat 17th. Live Swing Jazz. Brighton boogie play Glenn Miller and other classics from the wartime era.
Won’t you choo-choo me home? Newhaven Fort, 7.30pm, £9.00 from Fort shop or call 01273 517622
to book
Sat 17th. Rail Trail Walk. The Lewes-Uckfield line’s been closed for decades, but you can walk much
of the old track. Meet 10.30am at Uckfield station for a 10-mile, six-and-a-half-hour walk, with a lunch
break at Isfield. Donations welcome
Sat 17th. Lewes Sings Gospel. Karen Gibson, winner of a recent Songs of Praise gospel competition,
directs this choir (‘who aren’t necessarily all Christians’) in Southover Church every week, and here’s
the fruit of her efforts. The first concert in the Town Hall saw over 200 get through the snow and ice
for their performance. Southover Church, 7.30pm, £7 (inc drink) from 470447
Sun 18th. Catch as Catch Can. Early-music graduates play Renaissance harp, flute, lute and voice
performing Giovanni Bassano, etc. All Saints (small hall), £5 from Laporte’s or 07972-591802
Tue 20th-Sat 24th. Twelfth Night. Synergy Theatre perform Shakespeare’s comedy, with the Grange
Gardens doubling up as Illyria for the night. If music… and all that jazz. 7.30pm, £10/£8 from Tourist
Info/or call 479497
Wed 21st-Sat 24th. Theatre: Romeo and Juliet. The Brighton Little Theatre lot do their annual
alfresco show. Where? The Gun Garden, in front of the castle keep. Wherefore? Just because. Gates
open 6.15pm for picnics, with performances starting at 7.15pm. £12/£10 from Castle or 01273 777748
Sat 24th. Pells Pool Party. Southover Bonfire Society’s annual fundraising bash, with music from The
Contenders and the Kondoms

G I G G u I D e
jULY DAY-BY-DAY LISTINGS
THUR 1ST
Bayou Seco. New Mexicans with a Cajun twang.
Royal Oak. 8pm, £6.00
David Celia Band. Canadian singer/songwriter on
a UK tour. Snowdrop, 9pm, free
Dunia Duo. Arabic and Gypsy flamenco. Pelham
Arms, 8.30pm, free
FRI 2ND
The Big Blue. London-based Blues. Con Club,
8pm, £3 non members
Rubber Band, Powerhouse female vocals and tasteful
sax. Volunteer, 9pm, free
John-Paul Miller. Acoustic pop. John Harvey
Tavern, 9pm, free
SAT 3RD
Dates. Boring Bob (from the Piranhas) with The
Orphans and DJ Digitalis. Con Club, 8pm, £4 non
members
Chicken Shed Zeppelin. Bluegrass with attitude.
Snowdrop, 9pm, free
Band of 2. Good-time Celtic music. John Harvey
Tavern, 9pm, free
SUN 4TH
Ray Owen. Covers. Con Club, 3pm, free
Chris Dollimore. Singer/songwriter from Kent.
Volunteer, 4pm, free
MON 5TH
Heaseman, Seabrook and Eberhard. Jazz at the
Snowdrop, 9pm, free
TUES 6TH
Folk music group. Tba. John Harvey Tavern, 9pm
free
WED 7TH
Ben Paley & Tab Hunter. Folk, acoustic and roots.
Snowdrop, 9pm, free
Jazz in the John Harvey Tavern. 9pm free
THUR 8TH
Reg Meuross. The remarkable singer/songwriter,
last seen with Hank Wangford. Royal Oak, 8pm,
£6.00
Ultraswing Duo. Reinhardt-infused gypsy swing.
Pelham Arms, 8.30pm, free
FRI 9TH
Turncoat + Anagrams + Spoken Spires, The Con
Club, £3 non members
Nigel Bagge. Hard-hitting blues. Volunteer, 9pm,
free
SAT 10TH
The Djangonauts. Gypsy jazz. Snowdrop, 9pm,
free
Alter Ego. Covers. John Harvey Tavern, 9pm, free
SUN 11TH
Stefan Lindon. Eclectic ragtime pianist. Con Club,
3pm, free
Pinch of Salt. Volunteer, 4pm, free
Harmony Glen. ‘Dutch courage’ Irish music. John
Harvey Tavern, 9pm, free
MON 12TH
Jazz: Brian Tewson (harmonica) with Terry Seabrook
(piano). Snowdrop, 9pm, free
WED 14TH
Ben Paley & Tab Hunter. Snowdrop, 9pm, free
Jazz at the John Harvey Tavern. 9pm free
THUR 15TH
The Other Band. Marilyn, Iris and Gary. Royal
Oak, 8pm, £6.00
Tudo Bem! From Bossa Nova to Samba Funk.
Pelham Arms, 8.30pm, free
FRI 16TH
Touchstone. Female-fronted folk/rock band. Con
Club, 8pm £tba
Shauna Parker. Laid-back country. Volunteer, 9pm,
free
SAT 17TH
Toby Barelli aka King Size Slim. Fat Roots, Boogie
Blues. Snowdrop, 9pm, free
Moonshine. Sultry blues to rock ‘n’ roll. John
Harvey Tavern, 9pm, free
SUN 18TH
Tab Hunter and Ben Paley, Red hot trad fiddle and
guitar. Con Club, 3pm, free
Priory St Stardust. Volunteer, 4pm, free
MON 19TH
Tony Lewis (singer/guitarist) with Ian Price (sax)
and Nigel Thomas (bass). Snowdrop, 9pm, free
WED 21ST
Ben Paley & Tab Hunter. Snowdrop, 9pm, free
Jazz at the John Harvey Tavern. 9pm free
THUR 22ND
Karen Ryan, Pete Quinn and Brona McVittie on
fiddle, harp and piano. Royal Oak, 8pm, £6.00
Four Legs Good. Fiddle and accordion. Pelham
Arms, 8.30pm, free
>>>

jULY DAY-BY-DAY LISTINGS
FRI 23RD
Hartless a rip roaring tribute to Thin Lizzy and
Gary Moore, The Con Club, £tba
Full House, Rock covers band. Volunteer, 9pm,
free
SAT 24TH
The Straw Dogs. Celtic folk rock. The Snowdrop,
9pm, free
SUN 25TH
Hanna and the Angels of Elsewhere, Brighton
songstress and supporting musicians. The Con
Club, from 3pm, free
John Crampton, Slide guitar and mouth harp oneman
whirlwind. Volunteer, 4pm, free
MON 26TH
Jazz: Julian Nicholas (sax) with Terry Seabrook
(piano). The Snowdrop, 9pm, free
WED 28TH
Folk, acoustic & roots session with Ben Paley &
Tab Hunter. The Snowdrop, 9pm, free
Jazz at the John Harvey Tavern. 9pm free
G I G G u I D e
THUR 29TH
Folk at the Royal Oak end of season open night.
All performers welcome, Royal Oak, 8pm, free
Harry’s Tricks. Vintage swing with rat-scat vocals
and jitterbug guitar. Pelham Arms, 8.30pm, free
FRI 30TH
Ray Owens Juicy Lucy + Support, Con Club, 8pm,
£tba.
Blues Deluxe, Powerful R&B with harmonica. Volunteer,
9pm, free
Starfish/Soundwave youth music – full details tba.
All Saints Centre.
SAT 31ST
The Contenders. More-salt-than-pepper blues.
Snowdrop, 9pm, free
Thanks to Francesco Andreoli, whose Lewes
gig videos can be seen at www.youtube.com/
user/LewesMusic and Graham Denman.

Viva Lewes 2 Course Set Lunch for £12.50
Available Monday-Friday throughout July
No Voucher Necessary - booking advisable
Afternoon teas and all day lighter bite menu also available
Please visit our website @ www.pelhamhouse.com for further details

w w w. V I VA L e w e s . C o M
EASTBOURNE
David jarman enjoys an ice cream, but little gaiety
Eastbourne, most patrician of watering places, was
developed by the principal landowner, the Duke of
Devonshire, after 1851. By 1868 Murray’s Guide was
cautioning, ‘For those who seek rational recreation
and health-giving pleasure, Eastbourne is altogether
a very enjoyable place, but they who expect bustle
and gaiety must go elsewhere.’ Lewis Carroll was
one of those attracted by the town’s sedate virtues,
taking lodgings at 7, Lushington Road almost every
year from 1876 onwards. He wrote, ‘I go down every
summer to Eastbourne and still make friends with
children on the beach’.
One of these friends, Isa Bowman, penned an
affectionate memoir of Carroll, dwelling on his
punctilious attentions to cleanliness, typified by his
insistence on daily visits to the dentist.
A girl not likely to appeal to Carroll is Georgia
Nicolson, teenage heroine of Louise Rennison’s
exuberantly written books, that are set in
Eastbourne. In the film of the books, Angus, Thongs
and Perfect Snogging, the town is described as
‘God’s Waiting Room’. Visiting on a sunny day in
June, the seafront still comprehensively mothballed,
it was difficult to disagree.
My promenade began promisingly enough at
Fusciardi’s, named as one of the ‘Top Five Retro Ice
Cream Parlours’ in Time Out’s excellent book Great
Days out from London. Those eating in can choose
from sundaes with engagingly daft names such as
‘Mintnight Express’. I took a delicious chocolate and
cherry cone onto an almost deserted beach.
Venturing onto the pier, I found Sugar Rush.
Nothing to do with Julie Burchill, they would have
sold me doughnuts, rock and candy floss if they
hadn’t been closed. The Camera Obscura, ‘open
May to September’ was cordoned off. Fishing rods
for hire and tide charts were only available from
July. A booth offering ‘1-2-1 Psychic Readings’ was
padlocked, and one would have needed a crystal
ball of one’s own to discover when the ‘The Lady of
Light’ was likely to return.
Further along the seafront, the bandstand celebrates
its 75th birthday on 28th July. Regular entertainment
D Ay o u t
includes Gilbert and Sullivan and tribute bands
and nights when you are urged to ‘wave your flag
to all the traditional proms sing-a-longs’. Our
own Proms in the Paddock happens once a year.
In Eastbourne, ‘band concerts culminating in a
spectacular fireworks display to the 1812 overture’,
take place every Wednesday! But on the afternoon I
visited, the bandstand was like a morgue. Suddenly
a nearby boutique hotel (one of a chain owned by
John Malkovich), called ‘The Big Sleep’, Raymond
Chandler’s metaphor for death, did not seem quite
so infelicitously named.
Even the wonderful Dotto train, ferrying passengers
the length of the seafront, seemed less regular
than I remembered. Eventually I tracked it down
at Holywell. With the driver parping his horn and
waving at passers-by, who all seemed ridiculously
pleased to see the train, it reminded me of the
friendly firemen in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet,
waving at the residents of Lumberton.
I disembarked at The Wish Tower. This Martello
Tower was the subject of a 1944 article in the Sussex
County Magazine written by Lieutenant-Colonel F.
S. Garwood. A joint exhibition devoted to his son-inlaw,
Eric, and grandson, James Ravilious opens at the
Towner Art Gallery on 3rd July.
4 9

There was fair bit of smirking when I mentioned
that Viva’s designer Katie and I were going to the
Cock for lunch. Actually, for all those sniggering
at the back, the pretty, white 16th century pub was
once a coaching inn, and the name comes from the
practice of keeping an extra ‘cock’ horse at the foot
of steep hills to assist with hauling up heavy loads
(as in the nursery rhyme ‘ride a cock horse’ – which
relates to the incident when Queen Elizabeth’s
carriage wheel broke, and she had to ride the white
‘cock’ horse up the hill into Banbury).
The Cock is located just off the A26 near Ringmer,
close to Goldcliff Nurseries, and we arrive there by
car on a gorgeous sunny lunchtime to find a pretty
white pub with a pleasant garden in several sections.
We decide to eat outside on the patio area, which
has views over the Downs, when you’re standing up
at least. Although we’re early, quite a few tables are
already occupied; it’s clearly a popular place to eat.
Because there are so many shrubs and old trees, you
don’t feel too close to the main road, but you do still
hear traffic noise. We head inside to order at the bar.
With an inglenook fireplace and regulars around the
bar, this isn’t a gastropub, it’s a proper, traditional
pubby sort of pub, the sort my dad sought out
whenever he went on long walks. And indeed,
there is a popular walk that ends up here (you
can find details by googling ‘Wellingham walk’).
I notice a pleasant dining area along the corridor.
Once a Watney’s Pub, now a freehouse, The Cock
is featured in the recent issue of the Good Pub
w w w. V I VA L e w e s . C o M
THE COCK INN
Zingy marlin just off the A26
F o o D
Photo: Katie Moorman
Guide, and I notice several fine ales, including Dark
Star and Harveys, on tap, as well as the excellent
Weston’s cider.
We scan a somewhat overwhelming list of dishes on
a blackboard, in addition to an extensive bar menu.
Options include: Sussex lamb chops, steak and
kidney pie, liver and bacon, ham, egg and chips and
various sandwiches. I decide on the daily fish special
from the blackboard: marlin with citrus and chilli
(£10.95), and choose salad and chips to go with it.
Katie orders a steak sandwich from the bar menu
(£6.50), which also comes with chips. We both have
glasses of sparkling elderflower (£1.95). We put the
umbrella up for shade over our table and sip the
refreshing elderflower fizz as we wait for the food,
which arrives promptly. On top of my marlin steak
is chopped parsley, lemon peel and chilli. It’s zingy
and tasty, the chips are crisp and the salad is nicely
dressed. Katie’s steak is fine, but ‘a little on the
chewy side’, she says. We finish by sharing an Eton
Mess (£4.95), which is the best dish of all. It comes
in a sundae glass, and is red and white striped like
a barber’s sign. We dig our long spoons deep into a
concoction of whipped cream, crushed meringue,
chopped fresh strawberries and strawberry coulis.
Sweet, creamy and delicious; it’s a perfect summer
pudding. Emma Chaplin
Dogs welcome. Roasts on Sundays. Booking advisable
for the restaurant. The Cock Inn, Uckfield Road,
Ringmer, 01273 812040. www.cockpub.co.uk
5 1

5 2
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offer
BALTICA
Polish soup in a Polish pot
F o o D
photo: Rob Read
Baltica at the Westgate bottleneck is just a short
sidefoot pass from the Viva offices. We wonder if it
could be set to become a regular temptation.
145 has been through a number of incarnations that
have never quite hit the spot since its successful
Circa days. But it may now have found the right new
inhabitant.
Baltica is a combined café and Polish pottery shop.
The curving white rear space displays the pottery
wares beautifully. Lloyd-Loom style seating and
polished wood tables mark out the window-front café
area.
For lunch, entertaining an experienced café habitué,
we faced a well-considered soup, sandwich and salad
menu which brought to mind our flâneur days at the
University of California, Berkeley. With two soups
of the day on offer I plumped for Polish spring green
with dill, which offered delicate and earthy flavours
and wheatmeal breads. Ms Experience the quiche
with salads - which hits the spot.
All food is served in the Polish pottery. And fittingly
excellent coffee and properly displayed homemade
cakes are on offer.
Some say the acoustics are too lively as the coffee
machine steams and the chatter bounces off the
wall. But to us this is a sign of bustling popularity. If
we’d stumbled across this place in the backstreets of
Berkeley then we’d have thought it was a really nice
find. This time we think 145 has a keeper. Rob Read
Baltica, 145 High Street (483449). Open Mon-Fri 8.30-
5pm, Sun 11-4pm. Wi-fi connected.
5 3

GRAB AND GO
The summer months are the time for picnics and you want no-nonsense dishes that
are easy to prepare and eat, says Bill Collison.
Let’s work on the positive – though risky –
assumption that we are having a very good summer
and that we’re all taking advantage of it and eating
outside as often as possible.
Sometimes, this might mean just taking our plate
and fork and heading out into the garden, other
times it could be a trip to the Grange or up on the
Downs or the beach. The point is, we’re looking
for grab and go food that can quickly be slipped on
to a plate or into a few bags and off and out of the
house in no time.
Sandwiches are the obvious choice – good bread
sliced, filled and wrapped in minutes. Big salads are
another good call, especially when you’re covering
all the essentials in one dish that can easily be
spooned into bowls – like a chicken Caesar salad
or, say, a blue cheese, walnuts and figs combination.
Plenty of healthy and fresh ingredients in one
container is what you want, rather than lots of
fiddly plastic tubs of different bits and pieces.
A very good dish for picnics – and not an obvious
one – is frittata. Or omelette. Or tortilla. Oddly,
there isn’t an English term, but no matter – a fried
(or, in this case, baked) egg-based dish is what I’m
talking about. Tortilla di patate, the classic Spanish
tapas dish of eggs, potatoes and onions, is a good
example, as it holds its shape well and is just as
tasty cold as warm and doesn’t mind sitting around
for a bit. It’s very good between slices of bread for
children who have been running around all day
and are beginning to flag.
This recipe for Scalpaccia was given to me by my
good friend Carrie Whyte and it’s such a quick and
easy, healthy and flavoursome summery dish. Plus,
w w w. V I VA L e w e s . C o M
it’s also a very good way of using up courgettes
when they start taking over the vegetable plot.
It’s one of those recipes that has been on a proper
journey - given to Carrie by her mother, who in
turn picked it up from a friend in Tuscany. Carrie
says with a big green salad, it’s a gorgeous and
perfect ladies’ lunch. And I can see that it would
be. It is also, though, good picnic food as it holds
its shape. All you need to go with it is a big salad
and, if you like, some chutney.
F o o D
Scalpaccia
14oz courgettes, cut into chunks
3 large spring onions, roughly chopped
1 clove of garlic, crushed
½ cup of milk and water
4 tbsps plain flour
2 eggs
4 tbsps Parmesan, grated
salt and pepper
olive oil
Preheat the oven to 200°c. Put courgettes, spring
onions and garlic into the blender and blitz briefly
just to break them down a bit. Beat the eggs, flour,
milk and water to a smooth batter. Add to the
blender with ¾ of the Parmesan. Blitz again ‘till the
mixture looks grainy. Lightly oil a 20cm flan dish (or
thereabouts) and pour in the mixture. Scatter the
remaining Parmesan across the top and drizzle with a
tablespoonful of olive oil. Bake in the oven for about
30 minutes, until the dish is set and golden.
Picture by Lucy Mountain
5 5

5 6
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Y-feni(mustard)
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Lighter cheeses
Feta
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Sister Sarah
Rosary goat
We also have a
selection of
chutneys and
marinades for
all types of
dishes.
46 Hight Street, Lewes, East Sussex. BN7 2DD. 01273 481048
www.cheesepleaseonline.co.uk/cheeseplease@btconnect.com
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145 HIGH STREET
LEWES
BN7 1XT
01273 483449
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Centre of Ripe Village, Near Lewes BN8 6AS
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fresh meat ❋ fresh vegetables ❋ fresh fish ❋ local
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meals ❋ bread ❋ milk ❋ deli counter ❋ dry cleaning ❋
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items ❋ stationery
Shop Hours: Monday to Friday 9am to 1pm and 4pm to 6pm. Saturday 9am to 1pm
Tel: 01323 811118 or 811811
www.kudosfoods.co.uk

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5 STATION STREET, LEWES
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22 Malling Street, Lewes BN7 2RD
01273 474823 • www.thedorsetlewes.com
t h e N I b b L e r
photo: Katie moorman
BLUE SKY EATING
Plein-air eateries in and around town
Eating outside can be a delightful experience. Even if
it starts raining, or you get dive-bombed by midges,
it’s fun to enjoy the light summer evenings in the
beautiful surroundings of our town, so here’s a roundup
of places with good outdoor space. The terrace at
Pelham House (above) is particularly fine, and once
you’ve entered that walled garden, it feels like being
on holiday. You get fantastic views down towards
Newhaven, and as the sun, and a few cocktails,
slip down, expect to be startled by some weird and
wonderful sculpture lurking in the undergrowth.
The White Hart terrace has even more stunning
views of the sunset. Lincoln’s have made their
upstairs terrace a smart, central (yet hidden) suntrap,
with views up to Brack Mount. Shelleys garden is
lush and secluded, and outdoor space at The Swan
is great. On Station Street, Lewes Patisserie has a
pretty courtyard out back, as does the Garden Room
Café. Famiglia Lazzati’s have a pleasant covered
patio area. In Cliffe, you’re almost overlooking the
river outside the John Harvey Tavern, but you have
to venture into the Argos carpark if you really want
to smell the Ouse. Then there’s the deck at the Real
Eating Co, the brick courtyard at The Dorset
and the quirky garden below the white cliffs at the
Snowdrop. The Chalkpit also has a very good, childfriendly
garden. Other pub news: congratulations
to The Blacksmiths Arms in Offham for recently
being Highly Commended by the AA for their food,
as well as having their four black stars made into gold
ones. Finally, The Pelham Arms (which itself offers
an outside terrace) have a new chef on board. Happy
al fresco nibbling.
Food news? Email thenibbler@vivalewes.com
5 7

5 8
BARCOMBE
NURSERIES UK5 G2272
VEGETABLE GROWERS
LOCAL ORGANIC BOX SCHEME
free delivery to your door
Mill Lane, Barcombe, Nr Lewes, BN8 5TH.
Telephone: 01273 400011
www.barcombenurseries.com
barcombenurseries@tiscali.co.uk
Visit our friendly, oak-beamed
Free House just down the
road in beautiful Rodmell.
Why not enjoy a delicious meal
before or after a lovely circular
South Downs or river walk?
Children and dogs welcome.
Real Ale, Pretty Patio, Sunday
Roasts, Daily Papers, Wii, TV,
Table Football, Monthly Quiz.
www.abergavennyarms.com
01273 472416
Open all day, every day

photo: tara fisher
Easy pizza tarts
Amanda Grant jazzes up a classic Italian staple
K I D s ’ K I t C h e N
Have you grown some tomato plants this year? If the answer is yes, you might have some ripe juicy
tomatoes on the plant ready for picking to make these tarts. If you haven’t grown your own, choose some
sweet cherry tomatoes from the greengrocer. Vera often has some lovely ones at the top of town.
If you like Pizza Margherita you will probably agree that tomatoes, a little cheese and some fresh basil is a
really good combination of flavours. This is why these tarts taste so good.
However, once you have mastered the art of making these pizza tarts you may like to experiment with
other toppings like tomatoes, cheese and olives with ham or tuna. You could also make sweet tarts instead
of savoury. My children like spreading the pastry with jam and then covering with slices of fresh fruit like
peaches or apples.
Makes: 4 tarts | Preparation time: 20 minutes | Cooking time: 15 minutes
a little plain flour, 375g puff pastry sheet or block of puff pastry, 4 tbsp sundried tomato paste or olive
tapenade , 20 ripe cherry tomatoes, 1 ball mozzarella cheese or Parmesan, handful basil leaves for the top.
Turn the oven on to 200 C / 400 F / gas mark 7. Sprinkle some flour on a work surface. Cut the pastry
sheet into 6 squares, or you may prefer to cut out circles. If you have bought a block of pastry you will
need to roll it until it is about the same thickness as a pound coin.
Grease a baking tray or cut some baking paper to fit the tray. Put the pastry squares or circles onto the
tray.
Spread a little sundried tomato pesto or olive tapenade over the pastry just like you would spread butter
on to toast.
Slice the tomatoes into thin slices and scatter over the pastry in a layer.
Tear the mozzarella cheese into small pieces and scatter over the tomatoes.
Using oven gloves, put the tray into the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes until the pastry has puffed up
and is golden and the cheese has melted. The, again using oven gloves take the tray out of the oven and
sprinkle with fresh basil leaves.
Adapted from a recipe in Amanda’s recent book, Grow it, Cook it, reviewed in this issue.
5 9

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SUMMER fURNITURE
Sun yourself in comfort
s h o P P I N G
photo : Katie moorman
The idea of relaxing in a deckchair with a glass
of Pimm’s is most appealing, although it’s hard
to get up without chucking ice-cubes down
your cleavage. But where can you buy stylish
garden furniture in Lewes now that Parterre
and Elphick’s are no more? Argos, Homebase
and the Lewes Garden Centre are the obvious
places. But Kings Framers have gorgeous, striped
canvas folding stools and you can order deck
chairs and windbreaks to match. Gardener &
Cook stock both vintage garden furniture and
new items, like their painted metal Montpelier
bench (pictured). The Pine Chest on Market
Street have a small collapsible teak table set
with two chairs, and they sell rope ladders and
tree swings too. There are possibilities in places
you might not have thought of: Bunce’s will
get garden furniture in for you if you order it,
and Percy’s Fishing Tackle sell camping chairs.
But if you don’t mind old items for your garden,
it’s worth mooching around the quirky depths
of the many antique shops in Lewes. You could
spend a good part of a day looking around Cliffe
Antiques Centre, Pastorale Antiques, Lewes
Flea Market, Church Hill Antique Centre or
downstairs in Fur, Feather and Fins. Gorringes
weekly Monday Garden Street auction often
has garden objects such as statues. But the
ultimate garden accessory would have to be a
custom-made tree house by Viva’s Pipe Passage
neighbour, Russell Harvey of Treetops (07771
762342). One of his commissions is a tree house
with a platform that extends over a river, for a
grandmother who sometimes sleeps in it.
Emma Chaplin
6 1

51 High Street Lewes
East Sussex BN7 1XE
tel: 01273 477255
128 South Road
Haywards Heath
West Sussex RH16 4LT
tel: 01444 454888
e: david@davidsmithjewellery.com
www.davidsmithjewellery.com
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Also available are sack trolleys & ratchet straps for hire
Tel: (01273) 833154
Newhouse Farm, Cuckfield Road, Hurstpierpoint, Sussex BN6 9LL
www.vht-rentals.co.uk
David Smith Jewellery
Rubelite Tourmaline
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Upstairs at Riverside
haberdashery, fabric
and knitting yarns
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patterns, gifts & kits
ideas, inspiration and
craft books
12-14 Riverside, Cliffe Bridge,
High Street, Lewes, BN7 2RE
01273 473 577

THE
fOUNDRY
GALLERY
From heavy metal, to fine art
w w w. V I VA L e w e s . C o M
b r I C K s A N D M o r tA r
I lived on North Street as a child
and often passed the Artemis Arts’
Foundry Gallery, then Morris Road
Garage, on my way to the ducks
or the dentist. I tell this to Wenda
Bradley – who runs the venue with that were moved from terraces that stood where the car park is. The
Christine Hall – and she smiles, globe-shaped marker has also disappeared. Wenda tells me it was
“So you know the place well then!” seen bundled into a white van, and was never returned.
But when I recall what Mum called Occasionally, workers were recruited on release from Lewes Prison,
the “ass-end” of town, I feel mildly but many left when they found the heated conditions too tough.
apologetic. In those days, the shops The building caught fire regularly, hence the name, and would
in Lewes mostly sold boring stuff. flood, forcing employees to guess the locations of treacherous pits.
The space has been managed by Sarah Hitchings is the curator of an oral history of the Phoenix
Artemis Arts, a Heritage Lottery in collaboration with Artemis Arts. She was told by one former
funded charity, since 2006, but this employee that you had to, “Be on your toes every second of every
is the first time I’ve been inside. The minute of every hour of the days you were there”.
building is, as a friend described, Today there is nothing to be fearful of, merely a semi-circle of
“like a Manhattan loft”. It’s vast and plastic chairs and a mingling rehearsal cast. The group are preparing
shabby, adorned with red, metal for next summer’s Phoenix Cantata, a choral work composed by
remnants of an industrial past. Helen Glavin, inspired by the Ironworks’ history and spiced with
The Foundry Gallery was once the folklore. Wenda introduces me to the legend of Gil the Giant
fabricating shop of the immense who hurled an iron hammer from Mount Caburn, and I am again
Phoenix Iron and Steel Works that reminded that I am not in a London squat or New York loft.
stretched from North Street to the Artemis Arts’ goal is to bring art, culture and heritage to ‘new
tree that had pigeons in, by Waitrose. audiences’. They took over the space while controversial plans for
The Ironworks was founded by John the now-defunct Phoenix Quarter housing and retail development
Every in 1832, and was run by four were debated. They will remain until the site’s future is decided,
generations of his family until it was and, it’s to be hoped, beyond. The venue’s current incarnation has
asset stripped in 1978. Its vast output growing support, a diverse schedule and complements the fully used
included the railings for St Paul’s Town Hall and Priory School facilities. Project Officer, Chris Ient
Cathedral and structural metalwork says, “We have shown that there’s a need.”
for Brighton Pier and Lewes Station. “History shows Lewes in a different light,” Chris continues, and in
The Meridian Marker was made respect of the Phoenix it is hard to disagree. As Kay Walton says in
there as a gift from Henry Every at her poem Still Standing, “Once the workhorse, now the muse.”
the opening of Landport Estate in Chloë King
1938. Landport housed many families From July 9-11, The Foundry hosts Artists United, see page 27
6 3

SALTDEAN
Take me to your lido

poster designed by ever Creative
Saltdean has row after row of
hillside bungalows that are
pleasant enough, and enjoy
stunning views, but the impression
most people get driving through
the place on the coast road,
is of a blur of houses linking
historic Rottingdean and modern
Telscombe Cliffs.
To some extent, it is also a
community divided by its main
shopping street. Anything west
of Longridge Avenue lies in
Brighton and Hove, anything
east, in Lewes District Council.
The one stunning landmark
which marks Saltdean out as
being distinct is the art deco lido
on the seafront, with its curved,
white poolhouse built to look like
the prow of a ship. So perhaps
it’s not surprising that the threat,
by Buckinghamshire-based
leaseholder Dennis Audley, to
concrete it in and build 102 flats,
recently brought together the
people from both sides of Saltdean
to vociferously object.
It’s curious that Saltdean should
have such a stunning lido in the
first place. On this matter, I speak
to local residents Liz Kempshall
and Sandra Turvey, and consult
Douglas d’Enno, author of The
Saltdean Story. I discover that
the area once comprised little
more than farmland and a few
coastguard cottages. The name
denotes ‘valley of salt’.
In 1914, Charles Neville, later
founder of Peacehaven, bought
up large tracts of downland and
developed the Saltdean portion
under the name of the Saltdean
Estate Company. By 1938, there
were 802 houses. Concern about
over-development was voiced by
the Residents’ Association, with
the Brighton Gazette fearing it
would become a ‘bungalow town’.
The Association successfully
campaigned for better amenities
from the Estate Company, such as
a telephone kiosk, better lighting
and proper roads.
Neville commissioned architect
RWH Jones to design the
elegant Ocean Hotel, as well as
the Saltdean Lido. The hotel
complex, built in 1938, had its own
swimming pool, 426 bedrooms
with central heating, and a
fashionable American-style bar.
The ballroom floor was reputedly
‘the finest in England’.
The Lido was designed to
accommodate 500 bathers. There
was a fountain, a three-tier diving
board, separate paddling pool
and a boating lake, all floodlit at
night. The October 1938 issue of
the Building journal described it
as ‘certainly one of the few really
first-class designs of its type in the
country’.
WW2 soon put a rude stop to
Saltdean’s development as a wellheeled
resort. The hotel was taken
over by Butlin’s in 1952, becoming
their high-end ‘honeymoon hotel’,
but this fell into decline over
the decades, and although the
magnificent frontage is still intact,
it has been converted into flats.
The lido became derelict and
was used by local children to
play in, even to skate on one year
when it froze over. In July 1964,
it reopened, after restoration by
Brighton Council.
I recently became aware of the
pool’s fight for survival after
spotting the striking campaign
poster for the Save Saltdean Lido
campaign, designed by Dave
Marcar of the Ever Creative ad
V I VA V I L L A G e s
agency, which we’ve used to
illustrate this piece. Campaign
chief Rebecca Crook filled me
in on what’s been going on. In
March 2010, Audley put forward
his proposals to close the lido,
at a public meeting, attended by
more than five hundred local
people. Audley claims the pool is
not profitable, but Rebecca says
he has made little effort to make
it so. Audley later re-submitted
his plans, to keep the pool and
have fewer units, but Rebecca
now says the aim of the campaign
is ‘for a community-based group
to operate the site investing all
profits back into the building.’
As well as a lot of support from
local residents, the campaign
has the backing of Rottingdean
Coastal Council. Rebecca
explained that they are seeking
to get the Lido’s grade 2 listing
changed to grade 2*, working with
Conran & Partners architects, as
well as talking to other successful
lidos in the UK, like Brockwell.
I feel it’s appropriate, since I’m
writing about the lido, to swim
there. I visit on a glorious sunny
morning. The young lifeguard
taking the £4 entrance fee sits at
a plastic table by the entrance.
There is no information anywhere
about opening times. Despite a
slight air of neglect, it is amazing,
like a 1930s Hollywood movie
set. The water is cold of course,
but as a Pells regular I’m used to
that. There is something magical
about swimming in a pool so
close to the sea, with water the
vivid, shimmering turquoise of a
Hockney painting. I hope Saltdean
residents win their battle and keep
their beautiful pool. Emma C
www.saltdeanlidocampaign.org
6 5

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‘adonis blue mating fight’ by Crispin holloway
BUTTERfLY WALK
Climate-change barometers, fluttering by
Every week from the beginning of April to the end
of September, Crispin Holloway follows the same
circuitous 2.5km walk around a section of Malling
Down, logging the species of every butterfly he
sees, relating information into a Dictaphone.
This time, on a lovely mid-June morning, I’m
tagging along, to see what it is all about.
“Entering section one,” he records, as we start our
patrol, having parked in a layby on the Ringmer
Road, and walked to the start of his ‘transect’
among the other-worldly craters and hillocks left
by WW2 mortar and grenade practice. “10.10am.
Sixteen degrees Celsius.” And then we’re off. “Male
Common Blue,” he says, spotting a sky-coloured
fluttering of wings to his right. “One male Adonis
Blue. One Small Heath.”
This may seem like trainspotter-like behaviour,
but there’s more than meets the eye to butterflymonitoring.
“My father took over the Malling
transect in 1986, followed by me in 1996,” he says.
“It’s one of 1465 in the country. This consistent
method of recording over the years identifies the
decline and rise of different butterfly species.”
He shows me pages full of graphs, showing the
prevalence of 30-odd different types of butterfly
between 1984 and 2009. Butterflies, he tells
me, are easy to record, and have specific habitat
requirements. Malling Down, maintained by the
Sussex Wildlife Trust, is one of the best sites in the
UK for very rare species such as Adonis Blue and
Silver-spotted Skipper. It is carefully managed by
w w w. V I VA L e w e s . C o M
N At u r e
the charity as ancient chalk grassland. Trust-owned
sheep, along with rabbits, graze the turf to a perfect
length to provide right-temperature shelter for the
butterflies’ needs, and the multi-species ecosystem
allows for a rich variety of different types. “I’ve
seen 34 different species of butterfly in this area,”
says Crispin. “But of course that allows for a few
freak vagrants.”
“You could say that butterflies are like canaries in a
coal mine,” he continues, as we move into Section
3 of our walk. “The abundance or rarity of species
are good indicators of the state of the environment,
allowing us to assess the impact of climate change
and government policy initiatives… Two male
Adonis Blue”.
It’s fascinating seeing this familiar habitat through
the expert eyes of someone who can classify every
species of grass we tread on, from bushy Yorkshire
fog, to spiky Sheep’s Fescue, via worryingly large
patches of invasive Tor-grass. At one point Crispin
spots a damaged male Adonis Blue on the ground
and we get down close to examine its wings, frayed,
most probably, from fighting other butterflies while
mating. While we’re down there, he points out the
rich micro-system on the same patch of ground,
including a number of spiders, who can feed on
such weakened butterflies.
The most exciting moment comes on Section 6 of
the transect, on the slope of the combe overlooking
the bottom-hugging allotments. “Isn’t that…” says
Crispin, and he charges up the steep slope. I follow
a little behind, caught up in this sudden increase in
enthusiasm. “One Small Tortoiseshell,” he rejoices,
into his Dictaphone, adding, to me, “that’s the first
summer-generation Small Tortoiseshell I’ve seen
this year.” Mine too, I guess. I tell Crispin that a
walk on the Downs will never be quite the same for
me again, and I mean it. Alex Leith
For details of a guided Malling Down walk by Crispin
at 10am on Aug 8th, call 07760 237859
6 7

I didn’t play much cricket at school. Partly because
I was half-decent at tennis, but also because during
my first session in the nets, a cricket ball smashed
into my nose, resulting in blood-splattered pads.
My lasting memory, as I was helped off towards to
the medical room, was the sports master shouting
“Williams, you’ll pay for those pads if the blood
doesn’t come out”. Part of the joy of a 1970s
Grammar School education I guess.
However, having recently watched a Lewes
Cricket Academy session at Western Road School,
it appears that schools coaching is a much more
positive affair nowadays - not least that they
practice with the ‘Incrediball’. It looks like a
real cricket ball, with a seam and everything, but
crucially, it’s a lot softer and unlikely to fracture
facial bones. I decide to arrange a session.
I’m greeted at the playing fields by Kevin
Allosbrook who’s kindly agreed to teach me the
basics of cricket after running a cricket club for an
eager bunch of year 5/6 kids. We start with batting
- and though it’s dawned on me that I’ll be using
the nose-splitting hard ball, I press on. I’m dressed
up in pads, and a helmet - and feel comparatively
comfortable as Kevin starts to bowl at me. I hit a
few with the meat of the bat, but as many skew off
to the sides and we accept I need a lot of practice
on my technique. We try fielding and I’m a fairly
decent catcher - happily diving to the side for my
‘slip’ catches, and relatively competent under the
high ball.
w w w. V I VA L e w e s . C o M
CRICKET
Nick Williams bowls a doosra
h e A L t h & F I t N e s s
photos: Katie moorman
Finally, we switch to bowling, and I announce
that the editor of Viva Lewes has challenged me
to bowl a googly. Kevin explains that, as I’m
left-handed, it’s not actually possible, because the
equivalent of a googly from a left-handed bowler
is called a chinaman or doosra (from the Hindi
and Urdu word for ‘second’ or ‘other’). Confused,
but not daunted, I press on with the task. To be
honest, bowling it in a straight line is hard enough,
so trying to release the ball out of the back of
my hand at the top of the flight, appears virtually
impossible. Most of my efforts go aimlessly wide,
but then suddenly one comes out of my hand in a
completely different way, heads skywards, pitches
on a length and cuts viciously to one side. Kevin
gets his bat on it and the ball spins crazily off it
in to the slip area. I feel fantastic, even after the
next attempt goes about seven yards wide. For
the rest of the session I practice line and length,
and different finger positions on the ball, trying
to impart differing degrees of spin on the ball. I
get nowhere repeating my “ball of the century”,
but now I know it’s in there, I’ll be trying to find it
again real soon…
Lewes Cricket Academy is a joint venture schools
coaching programme run by Lewes Priory and
Lewes St Michael’s Cricket Clubs, Adult sessions
are available every Thursday evening at the Stanley
Turner Ground. For more information, contact:
mike.bonsor@lewescricketacademy.co.uk phil.lucas@
lewescricketacademy.co.uk
6 9

STOOLBALL
Emma Chaplin bowls ‘em over
There is little that gets me worked up into a sweat
these days, and I say that with some regret. But
that certainly changed when I went along with
Viva’s Katie to the Convent Fields behind the
Dripping Pan assuming we were going to watch
an East Sussex County Council League stoolball
match. We spot my contact, Barbara Arnold,
banging in one of the wickets and go over to say
hello. At which point the nature of the assignment
changes dramatically.
“We need one of you to play, we’re a woman
short”. Theirs is a mixed team of eleven players,
and you need at least two women. “And I can’t
bowl, so whoever plays will need to bowl every
other over.” Katie mutters something about
needing to catch a train. Down to me then. I
feel nervous, having never played before, but
it’s a lovely summer evening and the team, who
call themselves Looney District Council, don’t
look like they’ll bite if it all goes horribly wrong.
“Perhaps you’d better explain the rules,” I say.
I know stoolball is a very old Sussex game, and
is alluded to in Shakespeare and Fletcher’s Two
Noble Kinsmen. Also, that it may have originally
been played by milkmaids using their milking
stools as wickets. “It’s like cricket but with the
wicket up on a pole. Why not give it a go?”
Barbara says, and hands me a bat with a round,
flat end. The ball is small and hard, and you bowl
underarm, aiming for the high square metal
w w w. V I VA L e w e s . C o M
s P o r t
photo by Katie moorman
wicket. I’m better at it than I feared.
The game begins, with the opposing ‘May Gurney’
team batting first. Katie tries to take photos
without getting hit by a ball. The men in my
team are spread out around the pitch as fielders.
Barbara is wicket keeper. I throw from a standstill
from one of two white lines in centre of the green.
Between each of my eight-ball overs, I field. At one
point, my ball connects with the target and I take
a wicket.
Although competitive, it’s friendly too, with
everyone being encouraging. May Gurney finish
with a total of 117 runs. It’s our turn to bat, and I
end up being partnered with Dave, who is good
at getting runs. Which is fine when it goes over
the boundary, but for the ones, twos and threes,
of which there are many, it becomes exhausting,
since I haven’t run that fast or frequently for years.
But I’m not disgracing myself and manage six runs
of my own. Finally, and frankly with some relief,
I am run out, and need to head home. The next
day, aching and sore, especially my left shoulder,
I check in with Barbara to see how we did. “We
won!” she says. “We overtook their total. It’s our
first win of the season, so you’re got the job if you
want it.” Stranger things have happened, and there
really was something special about playing such a
wonderful old game on a warm summer evening
against the beautiful backdrop of Lewes.
www.stoolball.org.uk/lewes
7 1

photo: James boyes
‘ERE WE GO AGAIN
A new season for the Rooks - under new management?
Lewes FC will kick off the 2010/11 season with an
away friendly against Worthing on Saturday July
17th (3pm) - just six days after the World Cup Final
signals the end of the 2009/10 term.
As we go to press, though, we are still unsure as to
whether The Rooks will be run next season by the
existing regime, or a new group, which is planning
to turn the club into a community-run organisation,
in which fan-members have equal votes in regular
elections held to decide who sits on the board.
We’ll keep you in touch with any news on that
exciting front both in this space and in the pages
of www.vivalewes.com, our weekly web magazine.
It’s only fair to say that the directorship of Viva
Lewes is involved with the transition project, and
that we’re hoping for a smooth turnaround which
incorporates all the volunteers who have done so
much in recent years to keep the club afloat.
Whatever’s been happening behind the scenes,
Steve Ibbitson has been busy over the summer
developing a new squad composed of existing
Lewes players and new signings, having absorbed
the loss of a couple of key players.
Top scorer Joe Keehan has been signed by
Conference Premier side Rushden and Diamonds,
and goalkeeper and Player of the Season Rikki
Banks has moved to Eastbourne Borough, but there
has been plenty of movement in the other direction
w w w. V I VA L e w e s . C o M
F o o t b A L L
to make up for those losses. Two familiar names
moving to the Pan are Rob Gradwell – whose onloan
goals helped Lewes stay up last season, and
Simon Wormull, the canny veteran midfielder who
was a key member of the Steve King promotion
team in 2008.
Other signings include midfielder Lewis Ide,
experienced centre-back Mark Pullen, goalkeeper
Chris Winterton, and long-term target Sonny
Cobbs, who was the skipper of the Albion youth
team which recently reached the semi-finals of the
FA Youth Cup.
Two home friendlies have been arranged, and
Ibbitson is hoping for big crowds to watch the
Rooks test their mettle against Conference Premier
opposition - local rivals Crawley (Monday July
26th, 7.30pm) and Hayes and Yeading (Saturday
July 31st, 3pm). Lewes finished last season on a
real high, with five wins in their last eight fixtures
resulting in the team finishing above Worcester, and
out of the three relegation places. Everyone at the
club is hoping that the feelgood factor which this
engendered will carry over into the new season.
The Rooks complete their pre-season friendly
fixtures with an away game against Eastbourne
Town on Friday 6th of August, but it’s their match
three days earlier across town at the Langney
Sports Club (Tues 3rd, 7.30pm) against Eastbourne
Borough that most sets the pulse racing. Borough,
the team Lewes fans pretend they don’t give a
damn about, were promotion rivals with Lewes
throughout the 2007/8 season, which resulted in a
fierce rivalry between the clubs.
The Blue Square South season kicks off on August
14th; the fixtures for the new season won’t be
announced until early July. Meanwhile Rooks fans
are invited – as they were last year – to help spruce
up the Dripping Pan on Sunday 4th and 11th July
from 10.30am to 12.30. Information about this and
all other Lewes FC matters can be found at the
excellent www.lewesfc.com.
7 3

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photo: emma Chaplin
borde hill
Zip-wire fun and ornate gardens
Many may know Borde Hill, just north of Haywards
Heath, for the excellent Jeremy’s restaurant, Elvira
Café, or for the lovely gardens. But it has also had
an adventure playground for many years.
The management have recently built an entirely
new version, so I went along with my sister, my
colleague Beth and all of our five kids (aged 4-13)
to try it out. We pick, by fluke, a beautiful day, and
so the shade of one of the variety of large old trees
makes a welcome picnic spot to dump our food and
our blankets.
The playground is completely enclosed, and
includes a number of wooden climbing frames,
swings for young children as well as a pretty zippy
zip-wire, that goes down well with my eight year
old. I’d say that most of the playground equipment
is aimed at younger kids, maybe 3-7 being the ideal
age range. We adults mostly remain chatting on
our picnic blankets, occasionally venturing down to
rescue a small child stuck at the bottom of a rope
climbing tunnel, or feeling a bit too wobbly on the
wobbly rope bridge.
The scattered tribe return to eat lunch before an
adult volunteer nips back to the car park to dump
baskets and blankets. Then we all head through
the shop to enter the gardens (via the loos),
w w w. V I VA L e w e s . C o M
V I VA K I D s
peering at our maps to work out a route. We end
up meandering around the twisty paths, up and
down steps, finding ponds and fountains, glades
and manicured hedges, statues, a rose garden, the
‘Garden of Allah’ and some Victorian greenhouses.
But our favourite spot, perhaps because it provided
such peaceful and pleasant shade on a hot day, was
the Italian Garden, with its beautiful rectangular lily
pond, surrounded by benches. What fascinated the
kids was the open gully where water trickled from
the mouth of a stone lion down to the pond. They
were kept happy for ages, poking at green slime
with sticks.
Borde Hill is lovely. It’s large enough for you to
be able to get away from other people if you want
to, but not so large it overwhelmed the youngest
children trying to walk around it. A considerable
amount of intermittent shade can be found on a hot
day, and a woodland gazebo provided a perfect spot
for a drink, a sit down and an impressive impromptu
magic turn from Beth. Emma Chaplin
Open daily, March-October, 10-6pm. Admission:
adults £7.50/6.50, children £4.50. Borde Hill also
holds a variety of events, such as kids’ summer fun,
jazz picnics and Battle Proms. See website for details
(www.bordehill.co.uk)
7 5

w w w. V I VA L e w e s . C o M
SHADES
The big decision: Elvis Costello, or Top Gun?
Buying sunglasses during my 80s Blues Brothers
phase (Jake in case you’re wondering) was easy -
always Ray-Ban Wayfarers.
There was also the option of a spare cheapo fake
‘fashion’ pair from the local market, or a dodgy
beach kiosk.
All that though was before my eyesight
diminished, and the added cost of prescription
lenses kicked in - not cheap in a Ray-Ban, I can
tell you.
When I spotted a sign in Specsavers window
offering ‘free prescription sunglasses’, then,
I was through the door like a shot. The deal,
as it turned out, was 2 for 1, but as I was after
a second pair of normal glasses anyway, I was
looking at a free pair of sunglasses on top.
Now all I had to do was choose…
I enlisted help from Trisha, the branch manager,
who’d experienced a previous eighteen-month
saga of me trying to select a second pair of
glasses. So at least she knew what to expect.
Curved lenses and certain brands, I discovered,
would not be suitable for my prescription. So my
choice was getting more limited - but there was
still fatal room for deliberation.
Trish found suitable frames for my roundish
face, which sat, crucially, parallel with my
eyebrows. All had larger lenses than I would
have chosen, but as Trish explained, they covered
my whole eye socket and would be much more
effective at keeping the sun out.
By now, we’d reduced my choice to three pairs.
The decision was further complicated by the fact
w e t r y o u t
that my favoured pair of ‘Animal’ frames came in
black or silver, and we disagreed on which one
suited me best.
Alternatively, there was a pair of seventies-style
frames with a double nose bridge (also ‘Animals’)
or some lightweight (plastic) Nikes.
I’d like to say that I’m not bothered about
brands, but the truth is, I probably am. I like a
lot of Nike gear. So they made it through to the
final three.
By this stage my rambling deliberations had
involved at least four members of staff, and in a
probably unprecedented move, they gave me all
three pairs to take home to deliberate upon.
Before I left, we discussed polarisation, and this
was the major revelation in the process for me.
After a couple of quick comparative tests I was
happily signing up for the £50 worth of antiglare
on offer.
On the way out I spotted a Top Gun style
teardrop pair, and expectantly placed them
on my face. The negative expression on four
separate Specsavers staff faces told me all I
needed to know.
Nick Williams
7 7

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photos: Katie moorman. self portrait: John henty
First of all, may I just answer three questions
regarding my curious appearance in the June
edition of Viva Lewes? 1. I was standing on our
roof because the photographer liked the view from
it towards Newhaven. He actually preferred it to
me if I’m being totally honest.
2. I did not steal the ice cream cone from a seafront
café in Bexhill! It was acquired legitimately at Julian
Dawson’s weekly auction in Lewes a couple of years
back (more about that in future articles).
3. The baggy trousers were a mistake, but be
thankful I wasn’t wearing shorts…
Right – having cleared that up – perhaps I’d better
explain the thinking behind this new monthly
feature. Amongst many other things, I’ve always
been a collector of what you might describe as
‘quirky antiques’. In fact the more bizarre an item,
the better I have liked it. When I lived in Brighton
two telephone kiosks were acquired, a brick from
the demolished Cavern Club in Liverpool was
delivered to our house by Securicor and my wife,
Sylvia, did turn down the opportunity on one crazy
occasion to co-own a 1950s juke box. It simply
would not go through our front door – without
taking the ancient door off first!
Seeking such odd objects brought me to Lewes
from time to time and today – living here – it’s
almost like having the key to a permanently opened
Aladdin’s Cave. Happily there are so many excellent
antique centres, auction houses, flea markets and
quality charity shops in town that I thought it made
sense to suggest to the editor that a regular feature
on ‘collecting’ would be a useful addition to his
w w w. V I VA L e w e s . C o M
HENTY’S TWENTY
How far can he take a Hampden Roar?
A N t I Q u e s
elite editorial stable.
He agreed and went on to suggest ...Well you
know the BBC programme that gives people loads
of twenty pound notes to go off and find valuable
trinkets in a given time ? OK – this is Lewes and
we’re all supposed to be tightening our belts, but I
must admit that when Alex offered me ONE twenty
pound note to fit in with the title “Henty’s Twenty”,
I felt like saying “Erm … why don’t we call it
Henty’s Plenty” instead ?
However, I didn’t and anyway I like a challenge
so here we go. What can one find in and around
this super town of ours for no more than twenty
quid a month? An item that is amusing, appealing
and ultimately good accounting (i.e. a potential
investment). Not a lot, you say, and you could
be right, although I do remember a press trip to
Hamburg in the 1960s when a young journalist
from the South Wales Argus parted with a similar
amount in the Reeperbahn only to discover that it
allowed him to be beaten on his bare bottom by a
muscular woman wielding a hair brush. Unlikely in
Lewes don’t you think? Pardon?
Sorry, I digress. Our object for starters this month
is a Pop-Up book I purchased at the last Ardingly
Fair. The Dan Dare book was published just before
Christmas in 1953 and cost me £8. According to the
useful Miller’s Collectables Handbook 2010 – 2011
(page 158) it is worth between £50 and £80. Get
the drift? The next Ardingly Fair is on Tuesday and
Wednesday, July 20/21. Second day admission only
£5 – doors open at 8 a.m. See you there?
John Henty
7 9

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RECIPES fOR
DISASTER
Ef Benson’s poisonous cookbook
Although the artist Edward Burra lived pretty
well all his life in Rye, he had a decidedly lovehate
relationship with the town. An inveterate
traveller, he was always plotting to get away,
but whether his destination was Toulon or New
Orleans, Havana or just the bars of the Old
Town in Hastings, he invariably returned to
Rye, or ‘Tinkerbell Town’ as he called it in his
extraordinary letters.
Burra’s parents were pillars of Rye society. His
father served on the East Sussex County Council
and was a member of countless local committees.
As such he would have undoubtedly come across
the writer EF Benson, most famous for his Mapp
and Lucia novels. Although Benson rose to
become Mayor of Rye between 1934 and 1937,
he, like Edward Burra, would seem to have had
a deeply ambivalent attitude to the town if his
account of ‘Tilling’, his fictionalised equivalent of
Rye, is anything to go by.
In 1936, Benson submitted two contributions to
A Cargo of Recipes, ‘collected in aid of the Rye,
Winchelsea and District Memorial Hospital and
printed at Deacon’s Printing Works at Market
Road in Rye’. His two recipes rejoice in the names
of Cod à la Bourgeois and Pancakes à la Borgia.
The latter reads as follows: ‘Procure a small piece
of glass (any broken window will serve) about
one inch square. Pound this in a mortar till its
consistency is of the finest dust, and thoroughly
mix it with six or eight times the amount of sifted
sugar. Take three berries of deadly nightshade
(belladonna), mince well and add ¼ oz. of
foxglove seed (digitalis), a dessertspoonfull of
weedkiller (arsenic) and mix together in sufficient
jam or honey to neutralise the taste of the other
ingredients. Spread this mixture over the surface
of an ordinary pancake, roll it up in the usual
w w w. V I VA L e w e s . C o M
L I t e r A r y s u s s e x
manner, and sprinkle thickly on the top the
powdered glass and sugar. Pass a salamander over
it till the glass and sugar assumes the appearance
and texture of caramel. NB Digitalis and
belladonna may be procured from any chemist,
but they are not always fresh, and it is wiser for
this and other reasons to pick these ingredients
yourself. It is also advisable, when serving an
enemy with this delicious dish, to explain that you
never eat sweets yourself, but that this pancake is
prepared according to an old family recipe.’
Pancakes à la Borgia and another helpful piece
of advice in A Cargo of Recipes suggest that
the figuratively poisonous atmosphere of the
dinner tables in Tilling may have been rather less
figurative in 1930s Rye. Regarding Poison Bottles
is the contribution of a certain Miss Burra (Burra’s
sister? Burra himself?) and reads ‘If you have a
deadly poison bottle on your medicine table, buy
a penny bell, thread a riband through it and tie it
to the neck of the bottle. If you pick up that bottle
by mistake, the bell will tinkle out its warning’.
David Jarman
8 1

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eth
MILLER
When I go swimmin’ with the wimmin’,
Ee I do have a real good time
‘Totally up for it, Lad’, I heard Man of the House say, as I
staggered in with the shopping. ‘I’ll tell the missus we’re just going
for a drink.’
Intrigued, I silently put down the bags.
‘I know! Barenaked ladies as far as the eye can see’, Man
continued, and I readied myself to jump aboard the Conclusion
Train to Obvious.
‘See you there, Lad, dress code casual.’ Sniggering, he put down
the phone, then delivered a classic double-take when he saw me
posing coolly in the doorway, smoking a cheroot. The impact was
only slightly marred by me coughing my guts out, and ten minutes
passed before the interrogation could begin.
Man stopped hovering solicitously with water and tissues and said,
‘It’s a right-on political cause.’
‘The nude swimming party at the Pells, presumably?’
‘It’s to support, er’, he looked quickly at the flier, ‘naked bike
riding. It’s about sustainability and stuff.’
‘Yes, the message about the vulnerability of cyclists is clearly stated
by a load of starkers old goats going swimming and leering.’
Man sulked. ‘I’ll call Lad and cancel.’
‘I think you should go’, I said.
Man did another double-take. It’s good to retain an element of
surprise in a long-term relationship, isn’t it? And it had occurred
to me that if he went, I could write about it without actually
having to go. I only venture into a swimming pool if I’ve brought
my Victorian bathing machine, from which I slowly emerge, clad
from neck to ankle in a baggy knitted suit.
Everyone loves the Pells though. If I’m not swimming I sit under
a tree, tartan rug round my knees, watching the jollification.
Teenagers snog on the table-tennis table, then leap into the
hormone-freezing water. Toddlers excavate the paddling pool for
treasure: Thing Two recently brought me a dead spider. Adults
sunbathe and, depending on temperament, tut at noisy children,
frown at petting adolescents, or scream at deceased arachnids.
On Saturday, Man of the House sloped off for a riotous evening
w w w. V I VA L e w e s . C o M
C o L u M N
of au naturel splashing, while I
enjoyed a nice solitary time of
macrame and absinthe. When
he returned he was grumpy,
complaining that Lad had
ditched him, no-one had talked
to him, and that he’d spent
most of the time having to think
about Ann Widdecombe.
Lad came round next day with
a different tale. ‘It was brilliant!
Best night ever. Loads of lovely
ladies.’ He started to unbutton
his trousers. ‘That bird I really
liked wrote her phone number
across my derriere’, he said
cheerily to Man, as I backed
hastily out of the room, ‘can you
copy it down?’
Moments later Man laughed
so loudly, I had to come back
in. Across the wobbly pink
canvas, Lad’s new friend had
written, ‘Seen enough thanks’, in
waterproof marker pen.
We took the kids to the Pells
next day. Man brought a rug and
sat under the tree with me. It
was nice to have the company.
8 3

This month’s column is dedicated to a man
many of you may never have heard of, but
one who has given a great deal to the local
community over the last 18 years.
I refer to John Crawford, who retires on
Friday July 2nd after 40 years service to local
government, the last eighteen of them as Chief
Executive of Lewes District Council.
As leader of the council at the time, I headed
the panel that appointed John back in 1992.
He had previously been with the then Brighton
Borough Council. I remember that we had
about 45 candidates for the post, and in the
end, we were in no doubt that he was our
choice. It was perhaps the best appointment I
ever made.
On his first day, I arrived in his office having
walked up the lovely garden of Lewes House.
I was dressed in jeans
and my favourite
hooped T-shirt.
My hands
were purple
from picking
mulberries
on the way
up, and
I held a
bunch of
mushrooms
recovered
from the
lawn.
He was
much too
polite
to say
w w w. V I VA L e w e s . C o M
NORMAN BAKER
A tribute to a loyal public servant
anything, but diplomatic though he was, his
face betrayed a certain, well, alarm. “John,
you’re working for a Liberal council now,” I
told him, mischievously.
John was always the consummate professional,
but he was more than that. He was something
that now seems sadly a bit old-fashioned:
someone who believes in public service. Unlike
some council chiefs I have encountered, he
did not have his own agenda, would always
do his best to help councillors achieve what
they wanted, and was content to remain in
the shadows, seeing the public role as one for
elected councillors. And he chose to remain at
Lewes District Council when he could easily
have secured a job elsewhere with a bigger
authority on a much better salary.
John has also been the returning officer for
all the General Elections at which I have
been returned – from 1997 to 2010 [see John
Crawford interview in the May Election
Special issue of Viva Lewes], but I had better
not regard him as some sort of lucky mascot,
given that he won’t be there next time. There
is a huge amount of unseen work that must
be carried out to ensure an election proceeds
successfully, and John has never faltered. It is
typical of his professionalism that he decided
to stay in the post until after the General
Election just gone, to ensure all went smoothly
and that his successor was not dropped in at
the deep end.
Lastly, I reflect that he will probably grimace
at the fact that I have written this column
about him, but I just couldn’t let his retirement
go without publicly saying thank you. Anyway,
as I surprised him on his first day, there’s a neat
symmetry to doing so again on his last!
C o L u M N
8 5

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BUSINESS BRIEFING
The Chamber of Commerce continues to form a
highly effective pressure group on local, business
related, planning matters. We remain one of the
District Council’s most vocal consultees on planning
applications and frequently provide a valuable
counter-balance to the often strident opinions of
other, non-commercial, pressure groups.
Earlier this year, however, the Chamber found
itself firmly alongside a wide spectrum of local
opinion in opposing Tesco’s application to extend
their existing store. Others shared our fear that
not only would the proposal engulf a large area of
much-needed industrial premises, it would also be
so large as to totally unbalance our existing retail
offering. Tesco’s ambition remains the domination
of the local retail sector, and their extension is firmly
aimed at taking market share from our existing,
town centre multiples. Offered one-stop shopping
for all household needs under one roof, many will
bypass the much wider choice offered by the High
Street and opt for the easy parking option of a new
superstore. We can only hope that the people of
Lewes will not forget the many attractions of the
town centre.
Over the past year, plans have moved ahead, albeit
slowly, for the redevelopment of the Eastgate
and Bus Station sites. The relocation of Wenban
Smith has created the opportunity for a brand new,
riverside Waitrose Store. This would free up the
existing site for an interesting new mix of retail and
residential development, as well as much needed
extra car parking. We are very much at the stage
of “watch this space”, but we are confident that the
planners and the developers will fully involve the
Chamber as their plans progress.
Lewes faces an interesting and economically exciting
future, and the Chamber will continue to work
with the councils, residents and developers for the
interests of all Lewes traders.
Contact the Chamber via secretary@leweschamber.
org.uk or on 01273 488212.

BUSINESS NEWS
photo in the sand ship by Katie moorman
There’s been movement in The Needlemakers
this month, starting with The Sand Ship, which has
taken over the space used until February by Romeo
Glass. The new shop is in fact run by Romeo’s
original owner, Paul Summers, who tells us he is
aiming to create “a gallery style, without gallery
prices”. They are offering a selection of unusual
gifts, such as fascinating glass bulb radiometers
or beautiful crystal gardens, as well as sculptural
pieces from as little as £5. (www.sandship.com).
Meanwhile, the space previously used by Baltic
Trader as a pottery shop has been transformed in to
a jewellery showroom for Alexis Dove Jewellery.
Alexis tells us that the new space will showcase her
collection, which is already stocked in over 80 outlets
nationwide, whilst her partner Justin Small will
continue to work on his commissions, and run their
jewellery repair service from their existing studio in
the nearby Star Brewery (alexisdove.com).
Down on Friars Walk, The Garden Room Gifts has
sprung up, selling a range of gifts, garden furniture
and greetings cards (no connection to the Garden
Room café, found 200 yards around the corner in
Station Street). We’ve also spotted frenzied activity in
the shop next to Fox & Sons on School Hill, which
we understand will open as Mojo a gentleman’s gift
shop in the very near future.
Finally, we’d like to welcome Abeo IT Solutions to
town. Husband and wife team Stuart and Lucy, have
more than 20 years combined IT experience and
are offering high-quality IT support and advice for
both home users and small/medium-sized businesses.
If you want to know more, their offices are located
at 85A High Street, Lewes, above Hilary Moore
Flowers. (www.abeo-it.com).
8 9

W
What does your business do? We sell chocolate, but
during the summer we also sell a range of homemade
ice-creams and sorbets.
How long have you been trading in Lewes? We
opened the shop in 1987 and started selling the icecream
a couple of summers later.
What persuaded you to sell ice-cream? A
combination of a very hot summer and a non-airconditioned
shop. John used to make delightfully
refreshing sorbets for our dinner parties and we decided
to sell a few from the shop. They were very popular, but
people kept asking for ice-cream as well, so John added
double cream and a range was rapidly created.
How’s it made? John makes small batches (about 50)
in our kitchen at home. The strawberry, for example, is
a combination of fresh strawberries and double cream,
which is blended and whisked before being poured into
moulds. These are then placed in to the freezer - briefly
removed after three hours for the sticks to be placed
in the mixture - then deep-frozen overnight. In the
morning, we remove the ice-cream on its stick from the
mould and hand-wrap in baking parchment, which both
protects the ice cream and is also easy to remove for the
customer.
What flavours do you sell? Our mainstays are vanilla,
mango and strawberry, with strawberry being the most
popular, accounting for 70% of our sales.
Any other flavours? We also sell a pink grapefruit
sorbet, and John often has a special flavour on - at the
moment a chocolate chilli ice cream.
How much stock do you keep? We sell almost as soon
as we make it, so I guess nothing stays in the freezer for
photograph: Katie moorman
TRADE SECRETS ELIZABETH & jOHN SYRETT - OWNERS Of BONNE BOUCHE
more than a couple of days at a time.
Who buys from you? We have a loyal customer base
for chocolates and ice cream, plus of course passing
trade, and school kids around 3.30pm.
What’s the season for ice-cream? Our season runs
from the first Bank Holiday in May, through to the end
of September.
Does it affect your chocolate sales? There’s a fairly
symbiotic relationship between our chocolate and ice
cream sales, with the weather playing a big part in
things.
Do people choose different chocolates in the
summer? Not really, I’d say that our best sellers all
year round remain the same, with our Champagne
Truffle being by far the most popular. Violet Creams
and Chocolate Ginger are also consistent favourites.
Any new flavours this year? We’re starting to get a lot
of requests for Salt Caramels - which could be because
President Obama recently announced that they were
his favourite.
Is there anything you always get asked? Yes, even in
winter we get asked if we have ice-cream! We did try
it one year, and John experimented with a Christmas
pudding ice-cream, but we’re normally too busy with
the chocolates in the winter, and demand for ice-cream
is understandably limited.
Give a top tip to our readers: When buying
chocolates always choose a wide selection unless you’re
100% sure you know what the person getting them
really likes.
Interview with Nick Williams. Bonne Bouche, 3 St
Martin’s Lane, 01273 472043
9 1

CLIFFE OSTEOPATHS
Osteopathy Mandy Fischer
BSc (Hons) Ost, DO
Osteopathy Steven Bettles
MEd, BSc (Hons) Ost, BA, DO
Acupuncture Tim Rofe
& Osteopathy BSc (Hons) Ost, BAc MBAC, DO
Hypnotherapy & EFT Lesley Isaacs
Dip I Hyp GQHP, GHR
Nutrition Nicki Edgell
BA (Hons) PDNN
01273 480900
23 Cliffe High Street
Lewes, East Sussex
BN7 2AH
www . lewesosteopath . com
Open Mondays to Friday
Saturday mornings
Apple IT Support
We �Think Different� in & around Lewes
� Mac OS Server/Client Networks
� Broadband, Wired & WiFi Networks
� Windows 7 / Vista / XP �SWITCHERS� to MAC
� File Transfer, Data Recovery & OS Integration
� Free friendly advice, 7 x 24 x 365 Support
Telephone: 01273 470155 - Mobile: 07711 986610
email: info@mac-help.me
Mandy Fischer Osteopathy
Mandy has practiced in Lewes for the past 13 years
and established Cliffe Osteopaths three years ago.
Osteopathy provides gentle, effective treatment
of musculoskeletal conditions, including low
back pain, joint pain, muscular tension, and
sports injuries, and can provide relief to the pain
and stiffness associated with arthritic joints.
The range of osteopathic techniques available
means that it is a suitable therapy for all ages,
from infants to seniors.

DIRECTORY
Please note that though we aim to only take advertising from reputable businesses, we cannot guarantee
the quality of any work undertaken, and accept no responsibility or liability for any issues arising.
To advertise in VivaLewes please call Steve on 01273 488882 or email steve@vivalewes.com
LEWES
Lewes High Street
DENTAL PRACTICE
Steven Kell
BDS (U. Lond) MFGDP RCS (UK) DPDS (U. Brist)
Lewes High Street Dental Practice offers a
personalised approach to modern dentistry.
Whether you are looking for a simple check-up or to
improve your smile through cosmetic dentistry &
tooth whitening, we are here to help.
We are dedicated to the provision of high quality
dentistry in a caring and gentle way using the very
latest dental techniques including dental implants.
Due to recent refurbishment and expansion we are
currently accepting new NHS patients for a limited
time
Lewes High Street Dental Practice,
60 High Street,
Lewes,
East Sussex,
BN7 1XG
Tel: 01273 478240
Email: info@lewesdental.co.uk
Web: www.lewesdental.co.uk

heaLth and WeLL beinG
Fiona Condie SDSHom
Homeopathy
Yoga Therapy
Coach House Clinic
Lewes
01273 474419
ww www.fionacondie.com
Acupuncture
Jeremy Marshall BSc MBAcC
Special Offer
£10 off one treatment
Either initial consultation
or follow up treatment
Offer ends 31st July
Also free 30 minute
consultations available
Phone River clinic Lewes to book
01273 475735
or Jeremy Marshall for more details
07929 742243
www.acupunctureandtaichibrighton.co.uk

heaLth and WeLL beinG
9 5

home

e 1
home
Jack Plane Carpenter
Nice work, fair price,
totally reliable.
www.jackplanecarpentry.co.uk
01273 483339 / 07887 993396
PLUMBER
taps • cisterns • WCs • radiators
• bathroom suites
www.plumbery.co.uk
call Matthew Spencer on
486621 or 07880 676262
Painter and Decorator
Niels Herdal
01273 471399
QUALITY CRAFTMANSHIP • FULLY INSURED • 25 YEARS EXPERIENCE
9 7

9 8
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home
simply stunning
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Parsons Joinery are now FENSA registered.
Please refer to our website or call us for
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home
Qs Electricalþ
24/7 fair price emergency serviceþ
Lighting consultation & designþ
Rewires and upgradesþ
Testing and inspectionþ
Small jobs with pleasureþ
Free energy efficiency adviceþ
& discounts on installationþ
Kevin Moore 07837814235þ
Member of the National Association�
of Professional Testers and Inspectors�
Wooden sash window specialists
Hidden brush pile system
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Reduces noise and improves security
Reinstate traditional sash windows
Specialising in listed buildings
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Repairing, servicing and improving
traditional sash windows.
Call us now on: 0800 731 5905
www.slidingsashsolutions.co.uk info@slidingsashsolutions.co.uk
6 Campbell Road, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 4QD

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home

home
Trading Standards Approved
Expert Render Repairs
Roof Repairs & Renewals
Professional Damp Proofing
Expert Door & Window Repairs
Professional Painting & Decorating
� Structural Repairs & Crack Stitching
Telephone:
Mobile:
01273 550318
07968 280611
B R I G H T O N & H O V E C I T Y C O U N C I L
T R A D I N G S T A N D A R D S A
We are experts in all aspects of exterior repairs and redecoration. We use only the best materials
with extremely thorough preparation. We do not cut corners. Because of this you can rest assured
that our work will stand the test of time and look good for far longer than the usual ‘quick paint
job’ which is inevitably a false economy. We pride ourselves on the quality of our service.
Website: www.ppjconstruction.com
E-mail: Info@ppjconstruction.com
P P R O V E D
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home
Ollie
Clark
handYman seRViCe
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Do you need assistance?
If so, we can come to your rescue
07974 359 483
Based in Lewes and its Environs
Odd jobs – Gardening – Moving
Computers – Broadband – Email
Digital photography advice
Simple electrical or plumbing jobs
Assemble flat-packs – Curtain rails
Patios – Decking – Turf Lawns
Hang pictures – Tiling - Gutters
Fix things – Painting – Repairs
Non-smoker - Police Vetted
bespoke furniture
carpentry
painting & decorating
f u r n i t u r e ollieclarkfurniture.co.uk
£10 per hr (min 2hrs)
Visit us at www.lassistant.co.uk
lewes
01273 479909
07876 069681

GaRdens
Beautiful Perennials, Shrubs, Bedding Plants,
Herbs & Vegetable Plants Grown in East Sussex
Ideal for your Garden and Hanging Baskets
One-Day Plant Sales
Every 1st & 3rd Saturday of the month @
The Trevor Arms, Glynde
Every 2nd & 4th Saturday of the month @
Caburn Cottages, Nr Lewes
9.30am - 4.30pm
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Lessons and CoURses

Lessons & CoURses
otheR seRViCes
Seamstress and Theatrical Costumier
Nina Murden
· Repairs and alterations
· Made to Measure
· Costume
· Curtains & Cushions
Tel: 01273 470671
nina.murden@gmail.com

i n s i d e L e f t
BASH IN THE PAN
thanks to edward Reeves, 159 high st, 473274, for the use of this photo
The Dripping Pan has hosted various sporting events in Lewes, probably since the 17th century. In June,
we featured sprinting male athletes. This month, also from the Reeves collection, we have an abundance of
Sunday-best hooped skirts, bonnets and petticoats from the players (and observers) of a game of stoolball.
Tom Reeves, who himself grew up attending the once hugely popular Jireh Chapel, tells me it is their
Sunday School outing from about 1870. Back then, there were 300 children attending Sunday school. The
congregation was so large that carriages bringing people to church from far and wide regularly caused a traffic
jam backing up past Malling.
In the centre of the picture, you can see the distinctive square wickets on sticks of the Sussex game (see page
71) traditionally either played by women-only or mixed sex teams. This team must be mixed, since the Jireh
Pastor of the time, Reverend Matthew Welland, is batting. It looks to have been a gentle, child-friendly
version, since some onlookers (or are they fielders?) look remarkably close to the action. Behind the game of
stoolball, we see several groups of children mixed with a few adults, all holding hands in circles as if playing
‘ring-a-ring-o’-roses’.
The house to our right of the mound still stands on Mountfield Road. The most striking building is the flatroofed
pavilion or clubhouse (cricket used to be played here of course). We can see trestle tables, presumably
for a post-match tea, being set out under the arches. We initially assumed the pavilion must have been
demolished, but a trip down to the Pan reveals that, actually, it’s still standing. It is now the Rook Inn and
team changing rooms, next to the Philcox Stand, and this lovely structure is almost entirely unrecognisable,
concealed as it under paint and partial wood cladding with an extension out front which hides the arches. EC
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