Camber village voice

Dan was trying to reunite him with his owner. He had been found in a small back pack left on the beach. Via a children’s scrap book in the bag a school in London was located. After two or three calls Dan identified that Mickey was indeed missing and that there was much pleasure in finding out that he was to be returned. Now for the bizarre bit! On enquiring how long Mickey had been going walk about, Dan was told 5 years! Upon further inspection, a small yoghurt was found in the back pack dated 2007! One can only wonder?

Mickey was in good condition, not wet and the scrap book was in perfect condition.

If only Mickey could tell his story? Where has he been? We will never know. Another very different scenario involved the sad death of a dog on the beach. It just dropped dead.

Dan had to go with the Fred the Coastal Officer to deal with the dog and a very distressed owner. Dan then invited me to go down to the beach for a couple of hours at the weekend if I had time, he thought that I would get a useful insight into what it was like on a hot, sunny weekend. I made it on Sunday after lunch. Neither he nor the Coastal Officer was immediately to be found. I located him via the coastguard patrol vehicle on the beach; he was out on coastguard launch. Rob the Coastal officer was taking a call about two missing children, so he was liaising with Dan before he went about finding the children. It was indeed all go.

The beach had an estimated 25,000 people on it. On Saturday 11 children had been reunited with their families, I can’t help wondering what the total will be by the end of the weekend. Dan returned to the Police Box at the same time as two police officers from Rye arrived on their bicycles. Rob had anticipated the influx and provided funding for extra policing from his budget.

This meant that the police could respond to needs in the village as well as the beach. An incident with a jet skier had been dealt with prior to my arrival. He had driven over the dunes onto the beach via Broomhill pebbles, so Dan and Rob had served him with a Section 59 fine and escorted him off the beach telling him that he needed to use the dedicated area for jet skies at Rye Harbour.

The skier then made himself a nuisance to the Harbour Master until the Harbour Master ordered him away. Another very surprising story, a group of people had set up camp in a huge sand bunker on one of the Rye Golf Club greens. This was complete with gazebo! They had to be ordered off the green not the least reason because of the huge risk of the bunker collapsing and burying them.

The bunker was used to supply sand to top up its bunkers; consequently the sand was particularly unstable. At this point Dan went to investigate a problem with parking in Denham Way.

He returned an hour later having issued 11 tickets to cars parked illegally. The next moment he was applying butterfly sutures to a small girl who had cut foot. It has become quite clear to me that if you want to speak to Dan, or Rob for that matter, don’t try and do it on a hot sunny weekend, it just won’t work.

I was impressed at the way that Dan and his colleagues are able to switch their focus from one issue to the next so quickly. It must be exhausting.

Let me remind you of Dan’s contact details, ring him on 07796 195 639 and leave a message if he doesn’t answer. His email is [email protected] and last but not least, twitter@Rye_Police

The Flip Flops Bingo evening went off with a bang. £100 was raised for the preschool. It was in fact so successful that they will be holding more evenings like it.

Our village jubilee celebrations start with the Flip Flops Jubilee event on 1 June between 12.30 – 2.30pm in the Thomas Longley Hall. There will be a cake sale, raffle, bouncy castle and teddy bear’s picnic. Can you help by donating cakes and raffle prizes?

Let Sharron know if you can. 07870 586 378.

There is the Memorial Hall AGM on Monday 11 June at 7.30pm. The Memorial Hall provides a great focal point for the village, a venue for all sorts of organisations and activities. Go along and support Terry Hovenden who does a great job managing it. The new electric blinds are now installed in the hall, they look terrific.

Parish Communion will take place at Camber Parish Church at 10.30am on Sunday. Rev Richard is coming again. A cuppa is available afterwards.

Please remember to send me any items of news, you can put it through my letterbox or email me, [email protected]

Larri Hayhurst, 18b Denham Way