Fairlight

In our churches this Sunday… January 12, Rev Kay Burnett will be leading the 8 am Holy Communion at St Peter’s, and then, at 10.30 am, Morning Praise at St Andrew’s will have the Rector, Richard Barron, leading the service, in which he will tell of the vision for the future of the church in Fairlight, at both the top and the lower part of the village. This is to be Part One, with Part Two following next Sunday.

Pett Methodist Church… will be celebrating their Covenant Service at 10.45 am, on Sunday. A united service with the Anglican Church in Pett, this occasion is when we remember promises we have made to God and, perhaps more importantly, the covenant (or promise) that He has made with us! The service will be led by Rev Ian Pruden.

The Sunday Club for children meets at the same time as the church service and they enjoy activities from craft to games, stories and drama together. Children aged from about 5 months to 9 years usually attend – and have a lot of fun!

Today at Mopps… you can partake of Fish, chips and peas, with Upside-down pudding to follow, and indulge with Celia King in some Chair Back Exercises. Next Friday, January 17, it will be Roast pork, potatoes and veg, with trifle for afters. Julia Fitzgerald will be along, too, with Healthwatch.

The latest Bowls Club whist drive evening… is in the village hall tonight at 6.45 for 7 pm. Just the thing for blowing away the cobwebs of the Christmas and New Year period, although you’ve probably had them blown away well enough already.

Activate’s Busyart…! The art and craft club, which meets every Monday, will resume operations at 3.45 pm on Monday next, January 13, and will now be open to any child under the age of five accompanied by an adult, as well as all others from 5 to 11 years. A good reason to celebrate – for the first time little ones can go along and get messy! Make sure they and you come prepared with suitable clothing! The cost will be £2 per child. For more details, phone Wendy Hatch 812297 or contact her at [email protected]

Stand up and be counted – or heard… The Players hope to be in full cry next week, when they read the script for their April production, Holiday Snap, on Monday, 13 at 7.30 pm in the village hall. Auditions follow on Thursday, January 16 at the same time. All comers will be made welcome, and certainly do not need to be Fairlight residents to take part with this high-standard group who are going from strength to strength.

The Literary Society… meets at 2.30 pm in the village hall on Wednesday week, January 22. Geoff Hutchinson will be the speaker, and his subject – John Logie Baird, the pioneer of television. New members are always welcome, as are guests on payment of a small fee. If you want to know more, Barry Prime on 319137 will be able to help.

Knit and Natter… is back on course next Wednesday, January 15. This informal and friendly group runs at Kingsdown, in Channel Way, from 10.30 am to 12.30 pm, and should you require further details, why not give call to either Lynette Forward on 813417 or Betty Snow on 812694

Activate Youth Club… has made some enforced changes. Youth worker Alice Tigwell is off to Malawi in a fortnight to work as a leader of a youth development project. That’s been the reason for the several fundraising activities recently. Vincent Bruce is also off to work with PGL in February. While Activate is thrilled for both of them, they have had to decide how to proceed with the youth club. They are delighted to have Tracy Burbidge to take over. Tracy is trained in youth work and has been working at Sussex Coast College, Hastings, as a youth councillor until recently. She has also been part of the club’s management team, who have been able to get to know her well over the past year. The club will be open every Tuesday and Thursday as usual, for youngsters aged 10 and over.

The Tuesday Ladies Club… meets on Tuesday week, January 21 in the village hall at 2.15 pm. It is four years (not the five I claimed before Christmas) since this excellent club arose from the ashes of the village W.I. group, which had folded. Though the annual sub is £18 a year, this is well worth it as certain subsidised events are only available to fully paid up members. An admission charge of £2 is made for visitors and, indeed, the menfolk are very welcome to attend the meetings. The Club Leader is Val King, on 814753, and the Secretary Shirley Gilbert, on 813441. January’s meeting will be Hearing Dogs, plus the always-entertaining Richard Baines, whose talk is entitled ‘the Face’.

Sleeping Beauty… will be waking soon at the hands of Jennifer Annetts and her Panto Group cast. Rehearsals are proceeding apace, and Liz Gilbert’s usual sumptuous cozzies are in readiness. The show opens in just under a fortnight, on Thursday 23. Tickets have not quite all gone. They are available at the Post Office at £6 for adults and £3 for children for the first three performances, though all tickets are £6 on the evening of Saturday 23.

Other January attractions to look forward to… must include the Floral Club’s meeting in the afternoon of Thursday 24, at 2.15 pm in the village hall, when the demonstrator will be the brilliant Lynn Carter with ‘Fantasia’.

Official representatives of all the various clubs, societies and groups in the village who use the village hall are reminded that the Full Trustees of the hall are obliged to attend the meeting on Monday, 27 at 7.30 pm. Guess where? And if you take your sleeping bag along, you’ll be all present and correct for the Parish Council meeting the following evening at 7.15 pm, Tuesday, 28. We haven’t had a council meeting since last November, and many will be suffering withdrawal symptoms!

The Village Choir is having a short break (to get their collective breaths back?) and will be up and running once more when they restart on Monday January 27th, 7.30 pm at Pett Chapel. All newcomers, as well as oldcomers, will be welcome.

We’ll weather the weather, whatever… Many of you will have been suffering badly from the wind over the holiday period, but that is outside the scope of this note. We may have had it unpleasant and bad, but so many others in the south-west and at various notorious inland sites, like Tewkesbury, have been very much harder hit. However, the village has seen more fences down than a novice show-jumper, and those that remain standing are often wobbling like a milk tooth about to be prised out. Several greenhouses have been left looking like an airship disaster, just a distorted aluminium skeleton. A number of residents were left without power from the Monday before Christmas for five days. Any number of turkeys and joints of beef were ferried round the village seeking out functioning ovens. The power suppliers may have covered themselves, but it certainly wasn’t with glory.

The stream in Lower Waites Lane, mightily swollen, has been flowing fast for a fortnight, as if the recent rain can’t wait to get back to the sea – and go round again, like children rejoining the queue after a fairground ride. In a still, deep, dark collecting pool I caught sight of what looked like a body. It was only an Eddy.

The cliff-saving pumps have been working their socks off, delivering hundreds of gallons of water away from the danger area. The Fairlight Preservation Trust’s cliff face and pumps expert, Laurie Beetham, had been unable to get down the cliff until the Wednesday of this week, due to tides and weather conditions, and we shall bring you his assessment of the state of play next week.

Potholes abound. One in the southern part of Broadway is abnormal, but not as much so as one at the end of the wooded straight coming south on Martineau Lane. This now has a cone in it. You may not know that iPhones now have a CTC (Cyclists’ Touring Club) app available to report potholes, using GPS, to fillthathole.org.uk, which passes them on to the relevant authorities, with some success at rectification. If you’re going to report this particular hole, keep a stout hold on your phone. If you drop it, a long hairy arm will rise out of the depths, grab it and you’ll never see it again!

Two long running sores. The absence of a white line on a couple of hundred yards of the Fairlight Road is making it extremely dangerous to drive along. If any accident results from the unmarked road it deserves to lead to extensive legal claims. And the other is the continuing dire state of the A259 in front of the Hastings Academy, which is like driving too quickly over two hundred yards of cattle grid. The powers that be – or rather, should be – must be aware that this section of a major coastal trunk road is now in a worse condition than most of the roads in Pompeii. Alright, I concede that Pompeii roads have had little vehicular traffic for 1934 years. But they haven’t had much maintenance, either.