Dear Editor,
The enclosed copy photograph is of the Tug-of War Team of the Cinque Ports volunteer Reserve. They were the champion team at the Brigade Camp in 1895 photographed with their individual Cups displayed on the table before them.
I have the original photograph and the cup which belonged to my Grandfather, Alfred Woolley who is on the far left, back row, of the picture. I am wondering if anyone else locally has one of these cups in their possession (just as a matter of interest)
Francis Sinden North Salts
Dear Editor,
Thanks for a supurb magazine. I have been meaning to ask you about Eric Streeton. I should know him as he wrote an article about hop picking at Winchelsea, which was very much my scene in the years after the War. Also the account of the Nativity Play at Winchelsea as I was a shepherd in the photo. I was also in the St. John photo.
I was a cadet until 1952 when I left Winchelsea (I used to live at 3, North Street) to go to the Isle of Wight as an apprentice.
Michael Standen. Tongham, Surrey
Dear Editor,
Cover Picture Issue 135
I was delighted to see the superb photograph, on the front of this month’s Rye’s Own, of our harvest team of yesteryear.
This would have been about the mid 1960’s. The combine driver is Ron Collyer of East Guldeford Football Club fame, and the tractor driver is Brian Wenbourne, from Brookland.
We have recently changed to handling grain in bulk after many years of bags and sacks. The combine (note the old car headlights fitted for night work) and tractor are long gone, but the trailer we still use!
They were “The good old days”, formally known as “These hard times”! I wonder who took the photo. It looks to be somewhere along the Camber Road.
Alan Catt. East Guldeford
( I took the photograph in the field, with your Dad’s permission. I also took a mono-chome version which we used on the cover of the October 1971 issue of Rye’s Own. Nice to hear from you Alan, I remember playing with you in the Grammar School soccer team. That seems an awful long time ago Ed.)
Dear Editor,
This photograph shows the desolate scene in the area of the Rye Harbour village in 1927. They were desperate times for the people there coming less than a year after the terrible Mary Stanford lifeboat disaster.
Fortunately the Environment Agency are taking steps to ensure that such a thing shall never happen again. Flood defences along the North West bank of the River Brede at Rock Channel appear to be finished now; as soon as similar work is completed on the South East side, that should safeguard not only Rye Harbour village, but also Rye Harbour Road, a vital link as it leads, among other things to the Lifeboat Station.
In view of the world wide threat of more extreme weather to come, it’s great to see that the Agency is doing all that it can to ensure the devastation of 1929 never happens again. 
June Osborne Military Road
From “Rye’s Own “ November 2005
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