Etchingham village voice - March 30

This Sunday (April 1) is Palm Sunday, the service will be at 10.30am, all Sunday morning services will start at 10.30am from now on until the end of the summer.

On Good Friday (April 6) the Church will be open for private prayer from noon to 3pm, on Easter Sunday, 10.30am, there will be a Family Service with Communion.

A reminder that the Church is open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, 11am to 4pm, for visitors and parishioners, except when there are services.

Etchingham Under Fives Playgroup would like to say a big thank you to everyone who came and supported the Quiz Night at the Etchingham Sports and Social Club on Saturday March 17. The evening raised a fantastic £377.80. The winning team were “Neighbours”, winning an enormous cheese hamper which was donated by the suppliers to the Bear Inn at Burwash, the winners then donated the hamper to be auctioned, raising £60 towards the total, thank you to “Neighbours” for kindly donating their prize to help boost the total. The food suppliers also donated a fruit hamper and a vegetable hamper for the raffle.

The Playgroup would like to thank Pauline Wilson for organising the event, Terri and Holly for doing a fantastic job as quiz masters, Sid for transporting people to and fro, and The Bear Inn for all their support and their suppliers for donating hampers. Thank you to Lisa for selling lots of raffle tickets beforehand, parents who donated food for the buffet, the Sports and Social Club for supplying the venue, everyone who donated prizes for the raffle and anyone else who may have been missed in the mentions above. The money raised will go towards new equipment for the children.

A number of events have already been planned for the Diamond Jubilee weekend, Saturday June 2, Medieval Feast in the Church (see below), and Village Tea Party and Village Photo & Gift of commemorative mugs in Queen’s Garden. Monday June 4, Jubilee Fete in the Lambing Field and Live Music and bar, also in the Lambing Field.

The Fete replaces the Summer Fete which is normally held in July, and will be in the Lambing field instead of Queen’s Garden. Full details will appear here nearer the date, along with details of any other events that may be added to the weekend.

Etchingham based writer, William Wood, has just had a new book published, “A Little Book of Pleasures”, a delightful anecdotal collection about life’s little pleasures.

A little about the book; In these days of 24 hour news many of us may feel smothered under an avalanche of anxiety, despondency or at best choking with rage over national and world events. Grand passions apart, however, there is still much to enjoy. The small pleasures of life lie all around us. They might be found in a state of mind, in the touch of a familiar object such as a favourite wooden spoon, or they may be found in fleeting observations: a baby’s smile, the sudden appearance of a stag in your path; or they may be physical pleasures like sucking the wet flesh of a ripe mango or the aroma of coffee spilling out on to the pavement on a cold morning. In a mad and greedy world it is these small pleasures that keep us sane, and dare we admit it, happy. Told with wry humour and a gentle, sometimes quirky style slightly reminiscent of a bygone era, Wood’s collection contains a mixture of description and observation with a smattering of autobiographical incident. Wood has lived in many places of the world, is well travelled and well read, with a keen sense of enjoyment in what he sees and experiences, and a talent for bringing that visually to the mind of his reader. The short, usually self-contained pieces make wonderful cameos both for those who do their reading in snatches, and those who will want to devour his stories in one sitting.

A little about William; William Wood has led a nomadic life and his friends and relatives are far flung. He now lives and writes in Sussex when he is not visiting his children in France, Rutland and Cumbria or his in-laws in Norway and Slovakia. The diaries he keeps on these visits occasionally give him local colour and ideas for his stories. His short stories have been read on the BBC World Service and included in a number of magazines and anthologies. His first published novel, ‘No Time’, was brought out by Babesh/Ryan in 2003 and his next novel, ‘Passing Wind’ has been shortlisted for an Amazon prize.

The new book is available now from the main online booksellers ISBN 9781-1-907984-07-5, more about William and his writing on his website williamwoodswords.wordpress.com

As there are several events already planned in the village to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, I have set up a group on Flickr where anyone can add pictures taken at any of the village Jubilee events, anyone can view the pictures, but you need to join Flickr to add images. If you already use Flickr, just upload the pictures to your space on Flickr and then add them to the group. If you do not use Flickr, it is a very easy sign up process and the initial free account gives you space for 200 images, you only need to pay if you want to upload more pictures. If you have pictures that you would like to add, but for any reason would prefer not to join Flickr, if you email the pictures to me and I will upload them for you, you will of course be credited as the owner of the images. Let’s see if we can build a really large collection of village images celebrating the Jubilee. The group can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/groups/diamondjubileeinetchingham/ . Any problems adding or downloading images, contact me [email protected]

Medieval Feast, in the Church on Saturday June 2, 7pm to 11pm, a journey back to the 14th century to celebrate the 650th anniversary of Sir William de Etchingham’s Church. Entertainment will be by Serpentyne, a group who mix medieval songs and dance tunes with world rhythms, creating an exciting magical atmosphere, for more information about Serpentyne, visit their website www.serpentyne.com , there are video clips on the site showing the group performing. Tickets are limited to 120, so get yours as soon as possible, the ticket application form is on the back of the information which everyone received recently, tickets are available at the Post Office.

Get information for this column to me as soon as possible, if you have a diary of events planned for the year let me have the dates and I will put in a list of village events for the year so that people can put the dates in their diaries. There are several ways to get your info to me, but email is preferred because there is less chance of errors during copying. I need information by 10pm on Monday to be sure it will be in time for inclusion, I can sometimes add extra items on Tuesday morning, but this cannot be guaranteed. Just a little reminder, I get plenty of information about events that are taking place, but I get very little follow up information, after your event try and remember to send me brief account of how successful your event was, it can be as simple as a thank you to those that attended and how much money was raised etc. You can deliver to 2 Park Farm Close, telephone 01580 819532 or 07941 786244 or email [email protected]

Colin Boylett, 2 Park Farm Cottages