Jimper’s Jottings
It really gets to me the way that Rother District Council can raise the car parking fees in Rye just to patch up a hole in their overspending. Do they have any idea that the people who come to Rye for the weekend arrive to enjoy the beauty of the town? I meet quite a few couples who make their way here after seeing the town and close area in magazines or on the television. They are amazed that “we” and by that they mean the royal “we” as in Rye Royal, have the nerve to charge so much to park anywhere in Rye. What will they thing of the much higher charges that Rother plan forcing on us? Many small towns in England go out of their way to provide free parking just to get visitors to come and spend their money. Rother are driving customers away from the town and taking the cash from our parking machines as well as massive rates from our pockets.
Do not Rother realise that to pay the high business rates businesses in Rye have first to earn the money? Our shops try hard but what do they and the town’s general public get for their money? The ambulance and fire services, and we all prey we need neither. I hear them in Rother reading this and saying what about the police? – what a joke – a 999 call does not get the same priority now unless life is at threat and police response is almost nonexistent compared with the standards of the Seventies.
I reported a break-in three years ago and was given an instant crime number over the phone. I am still waiting for the appearance of an officer in blue! The shops and business do not get a free refuse collection service despite paying astronomical rates. They keep telling us don’t smoke, don’t eat fat and belt up before driving – to save life. Obviously prevention is better than cure – so what about a man on the beat to prevent crime – it must be better than a crime number.
Now with that off my chest, what is the Railway going to do about the old brick gatepost on the Station Approach that has ‘somehow’ fallen over? I hope to see it rebuilt as it was for it is part of ‘my Rye’. Does it not have a preservation order protecting it?
March is the end of the winter rains, we hope, for the old saying goes “a spec off dust in March is worth a King’s ransom”.The crows have already staked their
claim on a nesting site as a magpie has in a thorn top in my garden.I presume they are the same pair that produced five young last year. I saw the hen trying to
kill a sloe worm on the lawn. A Blue Tit has been taking nesting materials into one of the boxes for over a month now. For the last four years spring has come in February, lets hope the weather keeps fine in March, at least we won’t have three feet of that horrid snow lasting for months.
My favourite bird of the summer is on his way up through France, soon to be here calling his familiar song. Everyone knows the sound of the cuckoo a sure sign of England’s salad days in the sun that lie around the corner.
Watch out this Easter. A special treat to all lovers of Rye. An 80 page booklet by ‘Yours Truly’ containing dozens of country stories of my area in the fifties and sixties. All proceeds from this publication will be going towards the Rye St. John Ambulance Appeal Fund.
From “Rye’s Own” March 2004
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