Catsfield village voice

Today is the big day of events in Catsfield!

First is Gwen’s famous Coffee Morning raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support, it will be held at her home at Glebe Cottages from 9am – 12noon. Go along and sample her incredible meringues if you haven’t yet had this pleasure, they alone are well worth the visit! But it’s also a great opportunity to meet up with old friends for coffee, whilst raising money for this worthy charity.

From there, it’s down the road to the Village Hall for the last Lunch Club of the month, with the raffle where everyone brings and wins a prize! Come and join in for a delicious home-cooked lunch and great company too. More diners needed, so come along and give it a try and bring your friends!

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Then home for a rest before back to the Village Hall at 7.30pm for an evening of music and fun provided by the ‘Classic Buskers’. Their musical virtuosity and entertaining humour are guaranteed to amuse and delight you, but you’d better hurry to get your tickets from Catsfield Stores at £8 each (children and over 60’s £5) Refreshments will be available. A busy day in Catsfield!

The Communion service on Sunday at St Laurence Church will be at the usual time of 9.15 am.

It was with great sadness that we heard of the recent death of Martin Carter, his funeral was due to take place yesterday at the parish church of St Laurence, where he served as organist and choirmaster for more than fifty years. He joined the choir when he was seven and was organist by the time he was sixteen.

Martin was an excellent teacher, he taught the likes of Richard Gurr, John Putland and John Kemp when they were boys in his quiet, but effective manner. He was a very good accompanist, never too loud when you were singing a solo and helped very cleverly if you started to come unstuck.

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He also knew the St Laurence Sweetland organ very well. Richard recalls that coming up to Easter one year, when the choir was singing pieces from The Crucifixion, the organ started playing up. During a said bit of the service or perhaps the sermon, Martin disappeared into the bowels of the organ armed with a torch, an elastic band or two and emerged in time to play the next piece - the problem sorted!

Failing health caused Martin to retire about six years ago, but he still used to practise on his beloved organ until he became too poorly to get to the church. Our sympathy and sadness go to his widow Ann and all the members of his family. So many people remember Martin with gratitude, respect and affection, he will be sadly missed.

There was a lot of activity last Saturday on the Playing Field. The end of the cricket season meant that Mike, Martin and David Pratt were busy in the morning, scarifying the wicket and then re-seeding ready for next year, just in time for a wet Sunday. The afternoon saw the Catsfield football team beating Sandhurst 4 - 0, Colin White scoring two of the goals. News of last week’s defeat missed the newspaper deadline, but perhaps it would have been better to conceal the 0 -7 defeat away to Ore, who I am told were simply better than Catsfield. Tomorrow, Saturday 29th we are away to Orington at Netherfield.

The East Sussex Mobile Library will be in its usual place outside the Village Hall tomorrow, Saturday 29th September from 4.15pm – 4.45pm.

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The next WI meeting will be at 2.30pm in the Village Hall next Thursday, 4th October. This month the speakers will be John and Thelma Burgess and they will be talking and entertaining us with ‘A Victorian Magic Lantern Show’. New members and visitors are always sure of a friendly welcome so come and join us and enjoy a delicious tea.

Sadly, for the first time in over forty years, the Harvest Supper has had to be cancelled. The WI are extremely disappointed they have had to take this decision, which is due to the very poor response and low number of tickets sold. We still think of Catsfield as a farming village where events like this should be celebrated, but perhaps this is no longer the case; or perhaps it is due to there being so many other events taking place on the same week-end. We would however, hope that other village events will not meet with the same fate.

Jill Jarrett, Henley Down Cottages