Rodmell and Southease Parish Pump

I’ve had some lovely people stay recently, one being a very nice man, who was going on his motorbike to France, and was catching the ferry from Newhaven. It’s such a small world because he was interested in our forge (no longer in use) and the Dean family who are farriers and it turned out that he was a farrier to my grandmother’s family the Berkeley’s at Berkeley Castle, as well as travelling to remote areas of the world, and being a farrier at famous venues to do with horses. We spent a very interesting evening talking about the family and his travels. I haven’t been to Berkeley since I took my goddaughter there about 20 years ago.

Another interesting person was Jane, who at 90, looked like a film star, was very ‘with it’ in dress sense and mind, and had driven from Woking in Surrey to visit her family who had just moved to Rodmell. We hit it off like a ‘house on fire’ as they say and will keep in contact.

Talking about a house on fire – I was in the pub with my goddaughter Ali on Thursday when Abby, one of the bar staff, came rushing over to me saying ‘have you got a bonfire Pauline, because it looks like your garden is on fire’. I told her I hadn’t but asked Ali who moves faster than me to investigate for me. When Abby and Ali went over, it turned out to be my neighbour, who had an enormous bonfire with flames going high into the air near a large shed in her garden. People in the pub garden also wondered what was happening. All was well, panic over, but I am grateful to Abby, who seems to keep an eye on my welfare, having recently rushed around the village looking for me, when some B&Bs turned up early and found I wasn’t home, but my car was there, I was completely safe at a village meeting. Thankyou Abby and other bar staff for caring about my welfare – much appreciated.

So, the Big Butterfly count was well down this year. I didn’t take part, but I can tell you I had plenty of butterflies in my wilding areas, which are being cut down at the moment. Evidently according to the media it’s climate change and people being too fussy about keeping their gardens neat and using chemicals. As a child when we went wild fruit picking in the school holidays, we had clouds of butterflies around us. Wild fruits used to be in abundance and my mother, grandmother and I used to know where to get it. I remember getting on the bus in Brighton with large wicker baskets to go to pick gold raspberries and red ones up at Devil’s Dyke. The bus conductor said, ‘what are the baskets for’ and my grandmother told him ‘to get raspberries’ where upon he laughed and said ‘you won’t get that many’. You should have seen the look of surprise on his face when we got the bus back with full baskets. I don’t know if wild raspberries can still be found at the Dyke, I suspect not. We knew all the places to find the fruits of nature due to my father knowing all the areas around because of the shooting parties and also because Romanies were at all the farms each year, and were friends of ours, and they knew everything to do with nature.

Our house was always a hive of activity with jam and pickle making, pheasant plucking etc. You would never have thought that my grandmother came from an aristocratic background, and had been sent to a school in France to learn how to be a young lady, and cook apart from the fact she was an amazing cook (not something I’ve inherited sadly)

Ian Everest is going to give another of his amazing talks in Rodmell Village Hall of Friday November 8th 7pm for 7.30pm. Tickets £10 per person in advance, only available from Sue or Martin Brickell Tel: 01273 8568628 ([email protected]). The talk is ‘Out of Town Farming and Rural Life in Sussex – with apologies to Jack Hargreaves. Tickets go really quickly so get a move on if you want one.

Our Coffee Morning on Wednesday 18th September was very well attended and it was nice to see so many people turning up. The price has gone up to £2 per person for coffee, tea and cake or biscuits. The next one in our pub will be on Wednesday 16th October at 11am-12.

Sadly, I missed the Harvest Festival service in our church this year as I had a full house of visitors. I’m sure it must have gone off well. I’ve always loved the Harvest Festival service especially as a child, when it was magical. It was always a busy service here in Rodmell when we had our school, and the children loved it.

Hopefully Artwave and Eco Open Houses have done well this year as well. I’ve missed everything so the ever-dependable Ali (Walters - not my goddaughter Ali!) has told me she’ll try and write something for next week.

Sadly, the village has had a few funerals of late and I was rather upset to see in last week’s Sussex Express that my boss Richard Vernall, whom I shared an office with for about 2 years in early University days, has died. He was a great boss to me and lovely to work with. His funeral is at Woodvale Crematorium (North Chapel) Brighton on Monday 30th September 2024. I hope to meet up with other University colleagues that I haven’t seen for years at this sad occasion. I still meet up with a group about once a month, but there are many I haven’t seen for a long time. We were all in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.