A Matter of Priorities
What would the average man in the street think was the greater death risk, visiting Rye Cemetery or riding a cycle along the Rye Harbour Road? Every single person I asked thought it was a stupid question, without exception they said riding to Rye Harbour. Ask the same question of Rother District Council, they are knocking down headstones in our cemeteries as fast as they can and look like having to shell out £34,000 of our money to pay for it. That money would have gone a long way towards building a cycle / footpath down the two mile ‘Death Road’ that so recently cost the life of 22 year old Graham Matthews.
Ask Rother District Council to name all these people that have been supposedly killed by falling headstones – they will not be able to come up with one victim in the Rother area over the past 100 years!. What is it all about?
“Rye’s Own” will tell you. Its about a lot of silly fools with a bit of power not using their common sense. Get real Rother, your actions have, we suspect, caused more deaths by anxiety and stress than headstones have been responsible for over the past 1,000 years. Rother should leave the dead to rest in peace and take more care of the living by persuading East Sussex to start work on a cycle / footpath immediately.
If they are not tough enough to stand out against stupid European Community directives and can’t get their priorities right, they should resign down to the last man. Hitler would have had no power if petty officials had refused to carry out his dirty work Rye Town Councillors are fiercely opposed to any more Rother skulduggery in our Cemetery. This whole episode is just another reason for Rye to be in charge of her own affairs. If Rother would rather protect the people of Bexhill from falling headstones and refuse to build cycle tracks there, all well and good – but please – keep your spineless European Community rule enforcers out of this town!
“Rye’s Own” November 2004
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