Easter comes early this year and, if the weather is kind, Rye traders could get the shot in the arm they so badly need after the hard times they have endured throughout the tough winter weather and financial blizzards that have been blowing through the High Street.
Ryers who have stuck to shopping locally have not been subjected to the nastier aspects of the horse meat scandal. There have been moans in the past that Jempsons and our high street butchers and delicatessens are more expensive than the multi nationals like Tesco but as this magazine has always said, deal with the people you know and trust, they will give you VALUE for money. What’s a penny off here and there if the contents of the cheap package are substandard or fraudulent? No horse meat or pork was found in beef products sold at any food shop in Rye or Peasmarsh.
The time has come for the return of common sense. World resources are dwindling yet we continue shipping food in and out of our ports and airports. Milk powder is now being imported from Poland in vast quantities! Milk from farms all over the country is sent to the Midlands in tankers to be mixed, put in disposable plastic bottles and shipped to supermarkets around Britain. What was wrong with local milk in re-usable glass bottles delivered to your door? A massive saving on the environment, more local jobs, a fairer price to the farmer and with the savings on fuel and plastic costs, could I even suggest a lower price?
When I talk to Rye, County or District Councillors and tell them of days gone by when Rye was governed by it’s own Borough Council, of the times when Retail Price Maintenance protected local small business and of the days before the European Union when times were so much better for everyone, they smile benevolently at me and say “Yes! Jim – we know it was better but those times have gone, we cannot go back”.
Why not? Let us get out of the EU, restore Retail Price Maintenance and go back to being Rye Borough Council and be responsible for looking after our own town as we did in the 900 years before 1973. Encourage the farmers to produce food again. Return to British Law and rules cast aside the crazy and highly expensive rulings coming out of Brussels. Local politicians may ridicule these views despite the true fact they worked well in the past and the new system fails us today.
I call on a higher authority, Winston Churchill, who tells us :-
“The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.”
SCALLOP KING
Well done Oliver Campion. The Scallop Festival was an outstanding success. People came to Rye from far and wide to enjoy a week of fun and good food.
Olly co-ordinated and promoted the event in his own imitable style.
The Scallop Festival brought trade and filled Hotel and Guest House beds in the cold bleak month of February.
“Oliver Campion should be made Town Manager” said one local business man – “His effort and enthusiasm were infectious, he is a born organiser”.
“Rye’s Own” March 2013
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