The Onion magazine - May 2015 issue by carolfarley

May 2015

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INSIDE: INSIDE: HEATHFIELD SHOW TENTERDEN 365 GREAT GARDENS TO VISIT

SAUSAGE DOIG

Tenterden in Flower

Jewel of the Weald Flower Festival St Mildred’s Church, Tenterden Saturday 23rd to Wednesday 27th May 2015

Opening concert by a quartet from

The Academy of Ancient Music Saturday 23rd May at 7.30pm

Pavlo Beznosiuk Violin I

Rebecca Livermore Violin II

Jane Rogers Viola

Andrew Skidmore Cello

An evening of Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven

Tickets £15 from Smith’s Florist, 16 High Street, Tenterden. Tel 01580 761 356 or friendsofstmildreds@gmail.com WE ARE GRATEFUL TO OUR SPONSORS WHITEHEAD MONCKTON SOLICITORS, GIBBONS MANNINGTON & PHIPPS CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS, NFU MUTUAL, PENGELLY & RYLANDS SOLICITORS

Advertising and Editorial:

01797 253668 Publication date: 1st of the month Entries for Noticeboard email: noticeboard@onionpublishing.co.uk To send editorial/advertising material email: carol@onionpublishing.co.uk For advertising sales enquiries email: advertising@onionpublishing.co.uk www.onionmagazine.co.uk Twitter: @OnionMag1

This, just in case it escaped your notice, is General Election month, but you will be pleased to know that The Onion is completely ignoring it. Having watched all the ridiculous posturing, promising, and political side-stepping of the last few weeks, it will be such a pleasure to get back to the solid, day-to-day, mundane moaning about the potholed roads and the NHS. Indeed, judging by our emails, the road rage article last month seems to have touched a nerve or two as has the stupidity of Tunbridge Wells Council’s conservation policy and its effect on The Walled Nursery. We will keep you abreast of any sensible developments there.

The Onion magazine is published by Onion Publishing Limited, The Studio at Friars Cote Farm, Crockers Lane, Northiam, East Sussex TN31 6PY.

When I saw this month’s cover picture I thought it looked a bit like a giant saxophone, but all will be revealed in next month’s Onion which will come out on 1st June.

Editor & Publisher: Carol Farley Director & Publisher: Nicholas Farley

Carol Farley, Editor

Contributors: B Dalziell, A Davies, J Harding, J Hebden, S Williams Print: Buxton Press Cover picture: Giant saxophone? All will be revealed next month. Designed and produced for Onion Publishing Limited by Vantage Publishing Limited, Godalming, GU7 2AE.

May 2015

COMPETITIONS Competition Winners for the March 2015 competition A copy of The Countryside Companion N Allen, Hawkhurst D Baker, Brede P Brown, Broad Oak A Collins, Tenterden A Gilbert, Iden

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Tableware A Piers, Cranbrook L Sutton, Winchelsea Beach C Wood, St Leonards-on-Sea NOW Legends CDs K Huddle, Rye J Kingsnorth, Benenden P Martin, Northiam The Onion magazine

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COUNTRY Markets EVERY TUESDAY 09:00 to 11:00 Wittersham Wittersham Village Hall, The Street EVERY WEDNESDAY 10:00 to 13:00 Rye Farmers’ Market Strand Quay, Rye, East Sussex, TN31 7AY

Contents 5

Noticeboard What’s on in your local community

Sounding Off

EVERY THURSDAY 09:00 to 12noon Rolvenden Farmers’ Market, St Mary’s Church, Rolvenden, TN18 5PN Rolvenden Village Hall, Maytham Road, Rolvenden, TN17 4ND

Great Gardens

EVERY FRIDAY 10:00 to 12noon Brede Brede Village Hall, Cackle Street, Brede, East Sussex, TN31 6DX

20 The Heathfield Show

EVERY FRIDAY 10:00 to 11:30 Rye Community Centre, Conduit Hill, Rye EVERY FRIDAY 09.30 to 11.30 Tenterden (Formerly the WI Market) St Mildred’s Church Hall, Church Road, Tenterden TN30 7NE EVERY FRIDAY 07.00 to 15.30 Tenterden Market Square, behind Savannah Coﬀee Shop, Tenterden & Tenterden High Street from 08:30 to 14.30 2ND & 4TH FRIDAY 10:00 to 15:30 Sissinghurst Plain outside the entrance to Castle Gardens SATURDAY 4 MAY 10.00 to 12noon Robertsbridge Station Road, Robertsbridge TN32 5DA

14 Sausage Doig Charcuterie from Northiam

24 May Gardening with Jack Hebden 26 Tenterden 365 30 Letters to the Editor 32 A Good Book 34 Festival Foretaste 36 Walk Bewl Water from Wadhurst

38 Business Cards Small ads for trades and services

39 Win Enter our giveaway competitions

SATURDAY 16 APRIL 09:00 to 12:30 Heathﬁeld Co-Op car park, 110 High Street, Heathﬁeld TN21 8JD SATURDAY 23 MAY 09:30 to 13:00 Cranbrook The Vestry Hall, Cranbrook SATURDAY 30 MAY 10:00 to 12noon Brightling Village Hall, Brightling 4

The Onion magazine

The contents of this magazine are protected by copyright and nothing can be reprinted without prior permission of the publisher. The publisher has tried to ensure that all information is accurate but does not take any responsibility for any mistakes or omissions. We take no responsibility for advertisements printed in the magazine or loose inserts that might be delivered alongside it. © Onion Publishing Limited.

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Noticeboard... EXHIBITIONS … CONCERTS … FETES & FAIRS … CHARITY EVENTS ... THINGS TO DO

Don’t forget, the Noticeboard is your opportunity to promote your events, memberships and messages for FREE if you are a charity, club, society or non-profitmaking venture, or are promoting a charity event. The deadline for you to send information to noticeboard@ onionpublishing for June’s Noticeboard is 8th May. Anyone for tennis? If you fancy a game of tennis and want to join a club then why not try Westfield Tennis Club. It has two all-weather courts and a clubhouse with good facilities. Members meet for group play on Thursday afternoons and Sunday mornings. Members enjoy twice-yearly tournaments and social outings. Membership is £50 per person with balls provided. If you are interested in joining them please ring 01424 752531 for more details. Venue: Westfield Tennis Club – across the road from Westfield Church. Tenterden Savers is looking for volunteers Backed by the church, the chamber of commerce and St Michaels Community Group, Tenterden Savers will open in June this year for 3 mornings a week, operating from St Mildred’s Church Hall. It will comprise a ‘Community Bank’ and a Community Hub where people can call in to discuss problems – financial, social or pastoral – or anything which can benefit from some assistance. They are looking for volunteers for both the community hub and the community bank. The volunteers will be given training in all aspects of the work involved prior to the opening. For more information on becoming part of the team please contact Rev Eileen Harrop – ekgharrop@gmail.com or Stephen King on steve51king@yahoo.com. History walks in and around Rolvenden Every Tuesday 18:00 Meet at St Mary’s Church, Rolvenden. Various local projects related to research carried out by landscape archaeologist Dr

Brendan Chester-Kadwell. Enquiries to Sue Saggers on 01580 241056. “The Sea” Exhibition at Smallhythe Studio Until Saturday 16 May 11:00 to 17:00 Go and immerse yourself! Venue: Smallhythe Studio, Tenterden. Line Dancing in St Michaels, Tenterden Tuesday evenings 19:30 to 21:30 A friendly Line Dancing Club meets once a week at St Michaels Village Hall, Grange Road, St Michaels Tenterden. This club is not suitable for beginners but if you would like to go along and join in please contact Pam on 01580 241389. Line Dancing – including beginners If you are a beginner you can also go along to Sandhurst on Monday evenings at 7.30pm to 9.30pm or on Wednesday morning at Copthall in Hawkhurst from 10am to 11.45am. For more information contact Ruth on 01580 850637. How about playing Netball? Every Wednesday 19:30 to 21:00 No pressure to join the club, the Tenterden Netball Club welcomes everybody. A lot of women who currently go are also managing families and say it’s a great release. For more information call Teresa on 07557 883833 or Giselle on 07970 709945. Giselle is a qualified Netball Coach. Venue: Homewood School, Ashford Road, Tenterden TN30 6LT. Beckley Bowls Club is looking for new members. They are a small club and tuition is given to anyone who has never played before. It’s a sport suited to all age groups. Contact Peter Michaux on 01797 253395 or Nigel Pearson on 01797 260537. Venue: Beckley Bowls Club, Kings Bank Lane, TN31 6RU.

YOUR COMMUNITY NOTICE BOARD IS FOR LOCAL EVENTS AND INFORMATION. TO FEATURE HERE FOR FREE, PLEASE EMAIL US AT NOTICEBOARD@ONIONPUBLISHING.CO.UK

Delivered by the Royal Mail to 23,000 local homes every month in Appledore, Benenden, Brede, Brightling, Broad Oak, Burwash, Camber, Cranbrook, Cripps Corner, Etchingham, Hawkhurst, Hurst Green, Icklesham, John’s Cross, Northiam, Peasmarsh, Robertsbridge, Rye, Salehurst, Sandhurst, Staplecross, Tenterden, Udimore, Winchelsea, Wittersham and surrounding villages. May 2015

The Onion magazine

Soundingoff You take the Hi! Road and I’ll take the Hello road. Have you noticed that simple courteous words and phrases like ‘Hello’ and ‘Good morning’ are fast disappearing from usage? What has happened to ‘Mister’, to ‘Sir’ and to ‘Madam’, and when was the last time anyone used your surname when addressing you? You can’t remember can you? Why do people I’ve never met, and would never want to meet, insist on addressing me in their emails and letters as Steve? “Hi Steve” is now the standard form of address in emails, or, if I’m lucky, I might get a “Dear Stephen” at the start of a letter from some huckster who purports to be the Customer-Care-Team-Leader of some hideous organisation. Anybody who has some tenuous commercial link with me, perhaps because I have investigated buying some thing or some service from them, seems to think that that then gives them the right to arrogate to themselves my friendship. Why? I never give them any grounds for this: I don’t address them as Sid or Jennifer out of the blue, unless

they give me no alternative by withholding their own surnames. I am very happy to be friends with people, but I would like to make the decision about where and when I will bestow that favour and then I will get the ball rolling with a “Please call me Steve.” The trouble is that I can’t remember when I last had any choice in the matter. All over the country, well, actually all over the world, there are hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of people I’ve never met, and would probably loathe if I did, who call me Steve, and I don’t like it. Even worse than just barging straight in with the familiar ‘Steve’, are the places hospitals for example - where in a mistaken attempt to acknowledge that some of us prefer not to be Steve-ed and would rather be Mistered, they actually ask me whether I prefer to be addressed as Mr Williams or as Stephen. How do I answer that? “Oh do please call me Steve, I would be mortified if you didn’t, after all every other Tom, Dick and Harriet does, whether I know them or not and whether I like them or not, and do you know I‘ve long forgotten what my full name really is anyway.” It’s a ridiculous question and it’s a redundant question: since the beginning of time the correct address to someone you don’t know is Mister, or its equivalent, and that’s it until I decide that you may call me Stephen or Steve, and that’s not a decision I’m going to make on first meeting and it’s certainly not one I should be making so that you can tick a box on some politically correct form. And while I’m at it, I don’t like being introduced to children by my Christian name either. Children show little enough respect to adults these days and encouraging them to think of us as equals does not help. Mr S Williams

If you would like to Sound Off about anything please feel free to do that here. Email Carol@onionpublishing.co.uk or post to the address on page 3. 6

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EXHIBITIONS … CONCERTS … FETES & FAIRS … CHARITY EVENTS ... THINGS TO DO

Siam Boxing Camp A new and exciting way to get fit and learn the techniques of Thai, K1 and kick boxing. Lead and delivered by exceptionally experienced and well-trained coaches. All levels of ability is welcomed from juniors to seniors – female and male members. For more information contact Sarah Hallworth on 07824 877171 for session prices and times. Venue: Unit G15, Rye Industrial park, Harbour Road, Rye TN31 7TE. Art & Craft Club Every Wednesday 13:30 to 15:30 For £2 anyone can go along and sew, paint, knit, draw and make something crafty. Cup of tea/coffee and a friendly welcome assured. For more information contact Maureen or Stuart on 01424 813918. Venue: Winchelsea Beach Village Hall. Play Badminton Every Friday 20:30 to 22:00 Play badminton at a very social badminton club every Friday evening in the Pretious Sports Hall attached to Northiam School. With two courts they try to ensure a good mix so that everyone gets a good game. All abilities welcome. £3 a session. No joining fee. Go along or call Karen on 01797 253375. Medieval Merriments at Bodiam Castle Saturday 2 May to Monday 4 May There’ll be lots of fun activities with some medieval games

May 2015

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and wandering minstrels. Play Noughts and Crosses or Nine Men’s Morris in the grounds. Bodiam Castle 01580 831321. www.national.trust.org.uk/bodiam-castle. Get pedalling Fancy a social cycle with a tea and cake stop? The TN30CC Tenterden Cycle Club rides out from The Crown at St Michael’s, Tenterden at 10am on Sunday and 9.30am on Wednesdays. For more information contact Ian at tn30cc@ sky.com or visit the website http://tn30cc.blogspot.co.uk. Meditation in Beckley The Woodgate Farm Retreat and Meditation Centre offers meditation and opportunities to explore human consciousness and meaning. There are weekly meetings on Thursday for meditation and discussion and more indepth meetings one Sunday morning a month. For more information contact Carolyn or John on 01797 260763 or email info@woodgate-farm.co.uk, http://www.woodgatefarm.co.uk. Visit the Bluebell spectacular at Hole Park Garden Opening times to 7 June 11:00 to 18:00 Check the bluebell ‘barometer’ on the website for regular updates on when the bluebells are expected to be at their peak www.holepark.com. Venue: Hole Park Garden, Rolvenden. Rye Art Gallery Exhibition

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Great Gardens And some small ones too, by Nick Farley.

Jack Hebden, in his article this month, (page 24) is urging us to visit some of the magnificent gardens in the area and to pinch some of their ideas for our own gardens. We do have an embarrassment of riches around here with world renowned gardens such as Sissinghurst and Great Dixter, but there are two privately owned gardens which I feel don’t get nearly as much attention as they deserve: Pashley Manor and Merriments. These two gardens are very different from each other and very different from most other ‘visitable’ gardens. Merriments Merriments bills itself as a “stunning Garden” and I actually think it lives up to what some might see as an extravagant claim; it’s also an unusual garden because it is just that - a garden: there’s no house behind it or in it, it’s a garden for a garden’s sake. And unlike so many of the gardens one visits which were laid out donkeys years ago, Merriments is a young garden: it was started only 23 years ago and its excellent head gardener, Sally Briggs, has been with it for twenty of those years. The fact that it’s not the support act to some historic stately pile is, for me, absolutely central to its attraction because it allows the garden to meander where it will as it does not have to pay court to a dominating house. When I say “meander” do not

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interpret that as aimless wandering; no, this garden has been artfully designed and it knows exactly where it’s going and what it’s doing. A few weeks ago in March on a cold, dull, rainy morning before it was opened for the year, I was lucky enough to be able to walk alone around Merriments in what you might think were pretty poor conditions for garden viewing, but on that morning I was able to see more clearly than I ever had before the underlying structure of this interesting garden and to appreciate how clever it is. Merriments is owned by David and Peggy Weeks and the original design was by Mandy Weeks - David’s sister and Peggy’s daughter – and her husband, Mark Buchele and they did a brilliant job. Think about it: it is actually much easier to design a garden around a house; to design a garden to support a house; to create a garden which works outwards from a house and which is designed to provide views from that house, rather than to design a garden like Merriments from scratch in an empty field where any path you take has come from nowhere and ultimately can lead to nowhere. However, at Merriments they have succeeded in doing this in spades: every turn you take opens a new perspective and each of these perspectives is quite intimate such that you feel that you could replicate it in your own garden because the scale is never ‘grand’. And, because you are never, so to speak, coming from anywhere or going anywhere, you can wander for ages approaching each part several times from different directions. It’s very clever indeed. That is not to say that this is a small garden; it’s definitely not, there’s three and a half acres of it, but there’s an intimacy which makes it like no other garden I know, and seeing it in its relatively bare state in March it brought home to me just how clever the original underlying layout is.

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Bottom left: Stunning planting at Merriments Above: Intimate planting of candelabra primulas at Merriments Right: Pashley rose garden and Helen Sinclair statue

The pictures will show how good the planting is but there are two other important things that set Merriments apart for we visitors and which are not immediately obvious: seats and people – or, more accurately, lots of seats and usually not many people; both excellent features of any garden I think. You can even sit down in a proper bird-watching ‘hide’. Merriments will surprise you. Pashley Manor Pashley Manor, in complete contrast to Merriments, is a garden providing a setting for a beautiful old house. The original house on the site was a moated manor built in 1292 but this has long gone and before the Pashley Manor we know was built in 1550 and later extended in 1720. The house is now the home of Mr and Mrs James Sellick and the garden we see today has been made by them with the help of the celebrated garden designer, Anthony du Gard Pasley, and it was first opened in 1992.

which 25,000 tulips in about 100 different varieties make a dazzling display. If you haven’t seen it before you simply must stir your stumps and go this year. In fact, right now would be a very good time. It’s on until May 4th, and it will hurt your eyes. However, and this is why I think Pashley does not get the attention it deserves, there is a tendency for us to think of it only as a tulip garden and to forget what a beautiful garden it is throughout the year. Make no mistake, this is a garden to be seen at any time, and for a number

Pashley Manor these days is synonymous with tulips because of its magnificent annual Tulip Festival in

Vintage Fair

May 9th - 11am-5pm

King John’s Nursery & Garden

Another of our wonderful fairs packed with all sorts of goodies, scrumptious lunches, stunning garden and much more!

www.kingjohnsnursery.co.uk Sheepstreet Lane, Etchingham,TN19 7AZ

May 2015

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I love a well-kept vegetable garden which is also a reason for bending your steps towards Sissinghurst this year. Over winter the enormous vegetable garden at Sissinghurst has been completely revamped and when I saw it in March it was, not surprisingly, looking pretty bare, but it was plain to see that by the time you are reading this it will be looking a picture. I know that all anyone ever talks about at Sissinghurst is the White Garden but I predict that the vegetable garden will attract as many visitors from now on.

Above: Lilies and Mary Cox sculpture at Pashley

The National Gardens Scheme The choice of gardens to visit is enormous and of course we tend to think all the time of the big show gardens but the good old Yellow Books of the National Garden Scheme are crammed with places to visit. There are separate NGS books for Kent and for Sussex and they are where you will find all sorts of gardens open to you; gardens large and small, and some which are minute; gardens that are open only now and then and others that are open virtually all of the time; but the great thing about all of the gardens in the NGS books is that they are open for charity.

of reasons: the reason which makes it a garden like no other is the sculpture, and I say that as someone who in the normal course of events wouldn’t be listing sculpture as one of his great passions, but Pashley, I promise you, is different. Several years ago, on my first visit there, a piece by Philip Jackson completely changed my mind and I’ve never forgotten it. Philip Jackson has exhibited many pieces here over the years, and his work is always striking and has become the thing which, for me, now symbolises Pashley. There are many pieces of sculpture and you will find them everywhere in this garden, but don’t expect legions of those old lichen-encrusted Greek gods drooping listlessly about the place; no, the sculpture at Pashley is virtually all by contemporary artists and for me there is something about seeing it in this wonderful garden setting that makes it so much more approachable and ‘usable’ than you would either expect or believe. This is a very large garden with everything that you would expect from a garden surrounding an important house: Explore our exciting range of high quality, Sunday 3rd May 2015 a lake, herbaceous borders, roses in abundance, and home-grown plants in10am our beautiful surroundings that comparative rarity, an excellent vegetable garden. to 4pm. Free entry. A really good vegetable garden is an unusual sight these days although one or two places make aBedding, feeble Perennials, Vegetables Roses Auricula and ComeShrubs, and see the Kentand National attempt at providing one, yet when you consider that Primula Society’s Cafe in the Vinery show Auriculas in a huge all of the big houses whose gardens we wander around Auricula Theatre. would have had enormous vegetable gardens in their British-made Gifts and Gardening Goods pomp and an army of gardeners to look after them, it Auriculas for sale and plenty of advice on is a shame that so few have any sort of vegetable and fruit garden at all. Fortunately for us, Pashley does, and these beauties. Coffee and Cakes. Open 7 days a week from 8.30amTea, to 5.30pm although it is nothing like as big as it would have been www.thewallednursery.com in its heyday, it is a gem and, for me, almost worth a 0 1WATER 5 8 0 7 5LANE 2 7 5 2 HAWKHURST TN18 5DH visit on its own.

Auricula Day

T H E WA L L E D N U R S E RY S T. RO N A N ’ S S C H O O L WAT E R L A N E H AW K H U R S T T N 1 8 5 D H

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Make a day of it Merriments charming garden is open daily again 10am -5pm.

Spring Flowers Spectacular to 10th May

Wonderful colour-themed displays of thousands of tulips and a patchwork of soft colours in the Spring Garden. Later in May, large banks of Alliums line the stream bed with Candelabra Primula partnered by Poppies and Irises. Hawkhurst Road, Hurst Green, E.Sussex TN19 7RA

www.merriments.co.uk 01580 860666

The Old Rose Nursery

Top: Pashley’s vegetable garden Above: Sissinghurst’s new veg and fruit garden FIND OUT MORE

Merriments: www.merriments.co.uk Tel: 01580 860666 Hawkhurst Road, Hurst Green, East Sussex TN19 7RA Pashley Manor: www.pashleymanorgardens.com Tel: 01580 200888 Pashley Road, Ticehurst, Wadhurst, East Sussex TN5 7HE NGS gardens open for charity: www.ngs.org.uk. See Noticeboard for details of open gardens supporting St. Michael’s Hospice May 2015

Rose specialist - 25 years experience A traditional nursery specialising in all types of roses, carefully selected to offer the best in the old and new varieties. Select your roses in a pleasant and unhurried atmosphere. Quickbourne Lane (off Beales Lane), Northiam TN31 6QY Tel: 01797 252680 Opening hours: 9am-5pm Tues to Sat. Closed Sunday and Monday

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EXHIBITIONS … CONCERTS … FETES & FAIRS … CHARITY EVENTS ... THINGS TO DO

To Sunday 10 May 10:30 to 17:00 The Rye Society of Artists exhibit includes paintings, prints, ceramics, photographs and sculpture. Venue: Rye Art Gallery, tel 01797 222433 or visit www.ryesocietyofartists.co.uk. First Friday Networking in Tenterden Friday 1 May 13:00 to 14:30 This is a great opportunity to meet like-minded people in an informal and friendly atmosphere. There is no prior booking, no registration, no fees, no presentations .. and no pressure. Everyone is welcome, just buy your own drinks and food. Don’t forget to take along plenty of business cards and promotional material. Venue: The White Lion, 57 High Street, Tenterden, TN30 6BD. ‘A Kick up the Sixties’ in Tenterden Friday 1 May 14:30 Enjoy a reminiscence of the 1960s by Alain Haines, hosted by the Weald U3A. £3 entry for non-Members. The Weald U3A is for the dynamic over 50s. For more information visit the website www.u3asites.org.uk/weald or contact Roger Berman on 01233 850859, or email rogroger@tiscali.co.uk. Venue: The Zion Baptist Church, High Street, Tenterden, TN30 6BB. Relive the Fabulous Forties at the Kent & East Sussex Railway, Tenterden Saturday 2 May to Monday 4 May Turn back the clock and experience wartime Britain and the forties lifestyle. Each day there will be re-enactments and the music, fashion and dancing of the era. Walk through the 1940s village scene and watch presentations throughout the day including wartime cookery demos. For more details telephone 01580 765155 or visit www.kesr.org.uk or email enquiries@kesr.org.uk. Jumble Sale in Stone Saturday 2 May 11:00 to 13:00 Entrance 20p. In aid of Stone Cricket Club. Donations to the hall from 10am. All enquiries to 01233 758640 or 01580 766504. Venue: Stone Memorial Hall. Table Sale at Winchelsea Beach Saturday 2 May 11:00 Ring 01797 224820 to book a table which is £6. Entrance 40p includes tea and biscuits. All welcome. All proceeds go to the Winchelsea Beach Community Hall funds. Venue: Winchelsea Beach Community Hall, Sea Road, TN36 4NA. (See entry also for 23 May.) Antique Maps and Prints Fair in Rye Saturday 2 May 10:00 to 16:00 Genuine, framed and unframed, decorative and topographical antique maps and prints, and some ephemera. Free admission. For more information telephone Patricia Wheeler on 01424 882153. Venue: Community Centre, Rye. Icklesham Craft Fair Saturday 2 May 10:00 to 14:30 Local crafts and interesting stalls. Refreshments available including home-made cakes. Plenty of free parking next to the children’s play area. Venue: Icklesham Memorial Hall on the A259 between Hastings and Rye. Contact Maureen 12 The Onion magazine

Tompson on 01424 813928. Little Acorns Spring Fair Saturday 2 May 10:00 to 14:00 ‘Frozen’ sweet making, games, ‘cash grab’, face painting and tattoos, raffle, tea, cakes, bouncy castle, hot dogs, tombola and stalls. To book a stall contact 07921 826031. All proceeds go to Little Acorns Playgroup. Venue: Hurst Green Village Hall, Station Road, Hurst Green. Robertsbridge Village Market Saturday 2 May 10:00 to 12:00 The May market offers a large selection of local fresh foods: Sedlescombe Lamb, Rushlake Green Pork, bread, jams and preserves, handmade chocolate and sweets, a wide variety of cakes and savouries as well as many crafts, plants, pet food and refurbished furniture. Light refreshments provided by Robertsbridge WI. For more information contact Sally Pitman on 01580 881944. www.facebook.com/ robertsbridgemarket. An Introduction to Rye Harbour Nature Reserve Saturday 2 May 10:00 to 13:00 This is the first in a series of three walks that aim to introduce people to the nature reserve and its wildlife, and perhaps take you to a part of the reserve you have never visited before. In this walk Barry Yates, the nature reserve’s manager, will look at wildlife on the new saltmarsh and visit the birdwatching hides at the Wader, Quarry and Ternery Pools. Meet at Rye Harbour car park. No booking necessary. Donations appreciated. www.sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk. ‘In the Field’ Concert in Wadhurst Parish Church Saturday 2 May 19:30 Concert will include two world premieres: Composer Helen Ottaway from Artmusic has written a new choral work sung by the Field Choir (a community choir with members aged 10 to 80); the concert will be conducted by renowned musician Howard Moody and includes the Bernardi String Quartet, Wadhurst Brass Band, organ and bells. The second premiere, ‘Wadhurst’ by Stuart Fifield will be played by the brass band. This concert is a major new site-specific arts project commissioned to reflect on the deaths of 25 young men from Wadhurst at the Battle of Aubers Ridge on 9th May 1915. It will also feature in an interactive sound installation to run in the church throughout May. There will also be images of ‘A Weekend to Remember in Wadhurst’ displayed throughout the High Street. Tickets for the concert £15 Adults, £8 Children (£20/£10 on the door) from www. wadhurstculture.ticketsource.co.uk or 01892 783911. Sound installation admission free from 3 May. Check opening times before visiting www.wadhurstculture.org.uk. Wader Watch at Rye Harbour Sunday 3 May 04:30 to 08:00 A very early morning walk for a good chance to see a wide range of breeding and migrating wading birds and to count the Whimbrel leaving their roost at dawn. Meet at Rye Harbour car park. No booking necessary. Donations appreciated. www.sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk. Grand Spring Sale for Rolvenden Cat Rescue Sunday 3 May 10:00 to 15:00 onionmagazine.co.uk

EXHIBITIONS … CONCERTS … FETES & FAIRS … CHARITY EVENTS ... THINGS TO DO

There will be a huge number of good quality new, used and vintage items for sale including beautiful wood-turned crafts, books, electricals, pictures, clothing, china and glassware, jewellery, toys and furniture. There are refreshments and a tombola. Free entry. No members of the Rolvenden Cat Rescue team, including the management, are paid for the work they do which means that all the funds raised are for the many cats in their care. For more information and directions to the event please visit www.cats.rolvenden. org.uk/events. Guided Tours of Winchelsea’s Medieval Cellars Saturday 3 May, Tuesday 5 May, Saturday 23 May and Sunday 24 May 11:00 Winchelsea’s Friends of the Ancient Monuments and Museum are running tours from through to September. Each tour takes in five of the cellars. All the money they raise goes towards the maintenance of Winchelsea’s ancient buildings. For bookings and more information contact Richard Feast at cellars@winchelsea.com or telephone 01797 222629. Cost £5 per person. Please note some cellars have difficult access. You are advised to take a torch and wear sensible shoes. Meet at the Town Well in Castle Street, Winchelsea 10 minutes before start time. Tours last about 1.5 hours. Archery Open Day Sunday 3 May 10:00 to 16:00 The 1066 Archery Club of Tenterden are holding an Open Day. Adults and children (10+ years) welcome. Beginners will

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have the opportunity to sign up for a four-week course later in the year. For further information and directions please call 07729 374605. Venue: Archery ground at Pickhill Farm, Pickhill Business Centre, Smallhythe Road, Tenterden. Charity Boot Fair at Jempson’s Peasmarsh Bank Holiday Monday 4 May All the money from the sale of the pitches for this event goes to Rye & District Community Transport. For more information contact Dominic on dominic@jempsons.com or telephone 01797 230214. Venue: Jempson’s, Main Street, Peasmarsh, TN31 6YD. Under Winchelsea Cellar Tours Monday 4 May and Monday 25 May Winchelsea has more than 50 medieval cellars and each year Winchelsea Archaeological Society (WAS) conducts tours. Find out why and how the cellars were built and learn something of the history of the Ancient Town and Cinque Port. Cost is £5 including a guidebook. All tours start at 2pm on Castle Street, TN36 4EL. Proceeds go to WAS to pay for new archaeology. Enquiries and reservations to 01797 224446 or tours@winchelsea.net. There are also tours in June, July, August, September and October. Taste of Wisley British Herb Fest From Monday 4 May to 28 June Celebrate the best of British herbs with more than just parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. Their Taste of Wisley

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Fabio’s Italian Cafe, 16 Stone Street, Cranbrook. Tel 01580 720555 The Onion magazine 13

From Manhatten...

...to Northiam!

Sausage Doig by Nick Farley

What might link New Zealand, Hong Kong, the slick-Madison-Avenue world of American advertising and bucolic Northiam? The unlikely answer is a French sausage. More accurately, I suppose, it’s saucisson, and more specifically it’s a saucisson made by a New Zealander in Northiam. Before we get tangled up in other stuff let’s deal with the charcuterie - the saucisson - because it is that which brought me to John Doig’s rather insignificant door beside the railway station at Northiam in the first place. The Moons Green Charcuterie is in a small building sandwiched between the hand car wash and a garage and it’s here that New Zealander John is making some of the best charcuterie I have ever tasted. As a Francophile of some fifty years standing I consider that I know good charcuterie when I see and taste it and what comes out of this unlikely building in Northiam 14 The Onion magazine

is as good as you will taste anywhere. If you were buying this stuff in some quaint Provençal market you would be purring with delight; you would be proclaiming loudly that you can’t get stuff like this at home; this, you would declare to all who would listen, is the vrai McCoy and only the French can do it; and there you would plainly be wrong. Hard to believe, I know, but you can get charcuterie right here on the borders of East Sussex and Kent which is as good as anything I’ve ever eaten in France. What makes it even more unlikely and bizarre is the fact that it’s made by a New Zealander who was once a very successful advertising executive in that most advertisingy of places, New York. So how does a bloke from New Zealand finish up making French sausages in England by way of advertising in Australia, Hong Kong and America? Like this: John Doig was born in New Zealand in 1950 and when he was 16 he went to school in America and that “opened my eyes pretty wide,” he says. He returned home at a time when he says that New Zealand was “emerging from the dark ages and deciding it was actually all right to drink (alcohol) with food.” Up until 1967 the law required that the bars in New Zealand shut onionmagazine.co.uk

at 6pm and alcohol could not be served anywhere after that time, but from 1967 they were allowed to stay open till 10pm and new restaurants opened as a consequence of that change. Restaurants need staff and John got a job as a waiter while at university and this is what first stimulated his interest in food. He shared a flat with five other students and they all worked as waiters in different places “The universities pretty much controlled the restaurant business in terms of waiting staff,” he says, “It was fun and there were some great restaurants.” Nobody it seems knew much about wine and so the young John even managed to get a job as a sommelier! However, despite his foody interests what he really wanted to do was to be a documentary film maker. The openings for such jobs anywhere in the world are pretty limited I imagine and in New Zealand at that time they were probably non-existent, which is why he finished up in advertising as a copy writer. After a short while he was recruited by the Australian office of an international advertising agency called Ogilvy and Mather. That simple phrase doesn’t sound much, but let me put it Saucisson heaven

into context: if advertising was professional football then Ogilvy and Mather would be in the top five in the Premiership, so being recruited by them was quite a good move. John eventually went to Hong Kong with O&M and ultimately to New York where he became Creative Director of O&M. Again let me put that into some sort of perspective: the creative department of an advertising agency is its heart and the Creative Director of an agency would be, to use a more appropriate rugby analogy for a New Zealander, the fly half; the playmaker. The Creative Director is the bloke who oversees and inspires the creative teams who have the ideas which win big accounts for the agency and create big sales for the agency’s clients. Creative directors sometimes tend to be a bit difficult in my experience: I’ve worked with a few and they can be rather ‘aware’ of their position. Whether John was one of those in his advertising days I can’t say, but sitting with him in Northiam where he is ‘creative director’ of his own austere, functional and self-built charcuterie he certainly seems very relaxed and ‘unaware’. By the end of the 1990s however he had begun to tire of advertising. He had formed his own advertising agency with major clients such as Mercedes Benz, Heinz and Weightwatchers but his business partner, who was exactly his age, died of cancer, and John, after another period as Creative Director of an agency in Boston, was disillusioned, “I was hating advertising at

May 2015

The Onion magazine 15

at this point,” he says, “it was an industry that specialised in sandpaper… smoothing out the bumps, which were usually the truths. Then George Bush got elected, 9-11 happened, and I didn’t want to be in America any more.” By now his interest in food was paramount and he and his English wife went to live in France. Although from there he was travelling frequently to America where he was working with an old advertising client to develop new food products, and he was also doing what he most wanted to do, namely, writing about food. However, although he was writing about food for Cuisine magazine and for airline magazines and for the now defunct Gourmet magazine, he says that most food magazines were simply lists of recipes and what he wanted to write about was food and politics and where they joined. He’d written a piece, “which was picked up a lot,” about the decline of French food because the French, he thought, were ignoring the fact that the world had moved on and even the Michelin starred restaurants in France were becoming “tired” he thought. However, it was clear that writing about food in the way that he wanted was not going to be financially rewarding and with two young children to educate the family decided to move to England. In contrast with France he thought that in the UK the food landscape was “vibrant”, and in this context he mentions Jamie Oliver. He is a huge admirer of Jamie Oliver, whom he sees as a man of integrity and as someone who has “done so much to bring interesting and better food within everybody’s reach.” He thinks too that there is an anti-supermarket feeling everywhere, which is why the no-nonsense approach of Lidl - as he puts it “a lot of very good stuff for very little money,” - appeals to people. He was now living in England, but the writing “was falling apart,” and one of his neighbours here, presumably on the premise that anyone who came from New Zealand must know about farming, said “Hey John you’re a Kiwi, let’s raise pigs.” So they did. But raising pigs was not a success, “It was that whole thing about – if you want to make a small fortune then start with a large fortune and raise pigs,” says John. He realised, however, that there possibly was a business in doing something with pigs but only if he got involved after someone else had raised them, and that’s when he began to experiment on a very small domestic scale with curing meat and creating his own saucisson and chorizo. One day he took some of this homemade saucisson to meet a bunch of chef friends in London and one Australian chef said “Jeez, John can you get me 10 kilos of these by Friday? That’d be bloody perfect. ” and John replied “Mate, I couldn’t get you 10 kilo by Christmas.” But that was when he first realised that he had something. He looked for premises and with no experience he started building his charcuterie “I did a lot of reading – read everything I could get 16 The Onion magazine

my hands on and spent nine months working on recipes before we went to market,” he said. He found a farmer who supplies pigs to his specification - he likes them to be bigger and older than is usual – and they arrive every Tuesday and are butchered on the premises before being turned into the most amazing and delicious range of saucisson, chorizo, pancetta and ham. It’s impossible to do them justice here but you can buy Moons Green Charcuterie at The Hartley Dyke Farm Shop and at the Eggs to Apples Farm Shop in Hurst Green, and every Saturday John still sells from a stall at Brockley Market in South London which was where he first sold his charcuterie. And that’s how we come to have absolutely delicious French saucisson, Spanish chorizo, ham and pancetta being produced in Northiam by a New York ad man from New Zealand. FIND OUT MORE

Moons Green Charcuterie 1a, The Old Market, Station Road, Northiam www.moonsgreencharcuterie.co.uk Tel - 01797 270130

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EXHIBITIONS … CONCERTS … FETES & FAIRS … CHARITY EVENTS ... THINGS TO DO

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dishes will be uniquely flavoured with Wisley herbs. Enter the Herb Fest competition and the winner’s dish will be featured in the Food Hall. Venue: RHS Garden Wisley, Woking, Surrey GU23 6QB. www.rhs.org.uk/wisley. Winchelsea Gardens (St Michael’s Hospice Open Garden) Tuesday 5 May A spectacular collection of 11 individual gardens, boasting a mixture of traditional English cottage planting to stunning town gardening with mixed planting. For more information contact Sally on 01424 456369 or email fundraising@ stmichaelshospice.com. ‘More Gardening for Less Effort’ by Alison Marsden Wednesday 6 May 20:00 Sandhurst & District Horticultural Society is hosting this talk. Guests are welcome for £2. For more information contact Ros Maggs on 01580 850583. Bowls Club Open Day Thursday 7 May 14:00 to 20:00 The Cranbrook Bowls Club is a thriving club with its own green, easy parking, no joining fee, four free taster days, free coaching for beginners and experienced players. Annual Adult membership is £55. Juniors between 10-18 yrs will have free membership and equipment will be provided free. If you are interested to go along to see if it’s for you contact Christine Clark on chris.a.clark@btinternet.com, tel 01580 292013 or John Houghton on joju@fonant.co.uk, tel

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01580 714843. Tom Crean – Unsung Hero of Antarctic Exploration by Michael Smith Thursday 7 May 19:30 Polar historian Michael Smith reveals the amazing story of Tom Crean, who sailed on three Antarctic expeditions with Captain Scott and Ernest Shackleton 100 years ago but could never speak about his exploits and took his story to the grave. Find out why. Hosted by the Wadhurst History Society. Venue: Wadhurst Commemoration Hall, High Street, Wadhurst. The Playden Weekend in Playden Church Friday 8, Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 May A celebration of Art, Crafts and Music. There will be paintings, pottery, jewellery, textiles, silver work, woodcuts, watercolours and pastels. The exhibition opens Friday 8th at 5pm to 7pm; Saturday 11am to 5pm and Sunday 1pm to 5pm. All items are for sale but cannot be removed until the exhibition closes. Free entry. Donations appreciated. Children’s Treasure Hunt on Saturday and Sunday. Refreshments available all day. The weekend is organised by the Friends of Playden Church. Parking on the grass verge opposite the hospital. Rob Heron and The Tea Pad Orchestra Friday 8 May 19:00 Presented by Robertsbridge Young Theatre Promoters.

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EXHIBITIONS … CONCERTS … FETES & FAIRS … CHARITY EVENTS ... THINGS TO DO

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Rob Heron and his band play original songs and traditional favourites with their own brand of western swing, blues, gypsy jazz and country – with songs full of character, satire and good old-fashioned hollerin’. Tickets Adult £6 in advance, £7 on the door. Concessions £4 in advance and £5 on the door. Contact Mr Crouch on 01580 880360 ext 150 or email jcrouch@robertsbridge.org.uk. Venue: Robertsbridge Community College, Knelle Road, Robertsbridge, East Sussex TN32 5EA.

Playden Weekend Concert Saturday 9 May 19:30 Wall of Sound present a happy, light-hearted concert of show-time music, mostly sung a capella. The singers are in recovery from cancer and other nasty things, and make a really joyful noice. Entry is free with a retiring collection. Wine and canapés in the interval. More information available from the Vicar of Playden, Teresa Munro, email teresamunro@hotmail.com. Venue: Playden Church.

‘Through the Seasons at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Wakehurst Place’ by Sarah Oldridge Friday 8 May 19:30 The Ewhurst, Staplecross and Bodiam Garden Society is hosting a talk by Sarah Oldridge who has worked at the Royal Gardens for almost 30 years. The talk will follow a monthby-month tour of the gardens highlighting the plants and vistas and will also include some details of the history of the gardens and news of their current projects. Non-members are welcome at a cost of £2. Contact Gill Neal on 01580 830551. Venue: Staplecross Village Hall.

Barn Dance Saturday 9 May 19:30 to 23:00 If you fancy a yee-hah or a do-si-do, then grab your partner and head over to the Barn Dance with the Catsfield Steamers at the fabulous new Etchingham Village Halls. Adults £10, Children £5 under 11. The ticket price includes supper. For more details contact Nicky Menzies on 01580 819505 or email nick@homebirth.net. Proceeds go to hall funds. If you would like to book these lovely facilities yourself for an event contact admin@etchinghamtrust.org.uk.

Grab a little piece of Great Dixter at the Annual Plant Sale in Northiam Saturday 9 May 14:00 Northiam Horticultural Society is holding its annual plant sale which will consist of over 1,000 plants, some of which will have been donated by Great Dixter. Quality plants at a reasonable price. Venue: Northiam Village Hall.

Heath Quartet with the dazzling Michael Collins on clarinet Saturday 9 May 19:30 The Heath Quartet is rapidly becoming an exciting and original voice on the international chamber music scene. They recently won the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artists Award. Tickets £19 adult and £10 child/ student. To book and for more information contact 01580 883092/880413 or email geoffreywhitehead@ A Tentertainment fundraising event

60 S dreSS totally appropriate!

18 The Onion magazine

Ross Hardon man onionmagazine.co.uk

Decided it’s time to sell your house? Here are some tips to help you As the saying goes, putting your house on the market can be one of the most stressful things you do, particularly if you’ve lived in the same home for a long time. We’ve set out some information designed to hopefully make it less stressful. Choosing the right estate agent for you Estate agents will know the market and in particular your type of home and the area where you live. Sometimes it makes sense to contact a couple of agents so you get the beneﬁt of two view points and estimates of value. • You should be looking for an accurate valuation, not too high that it puts off prospective buyers, but fair to you so you can get the right price for your home. • Look for an estate agent with a strong local presence, for ex ample, lots of “sold” boards, adverts in the local papers and online sites such as Rightmove and Onthemarket. • Try to obtain personal recommendations from friends/family who have recently sold their property. • Agree the fee level for the sale. Getting your home ready for potential buyers If your house requires a “spring clean” try to do this before your property is put on the market. Consider the following: • Finish off any DIY jobs. • Consider redecorating, particularly if your home has distinctive colours – magnolia is still the top-selling colour. • De-clutter and organise rooms so prospective buyers can see the full potential of the property. Getting rid of clutter now saves doing it when you actually move. Consider self-storage as it’s a relatively quick and cheap option. • Make the garden look attractive, for example, colourful plant pots and a neatly mowed lawn. Setting the right price Once you’ve instructed a selling agent, you should agree the asking price. Think about the new Stamp duty fee bands when agreeing the price, your agent will help with this. Preparing for those important viewings Once the property is on the market and viewings have been booked in, think about how you would view the property if you were looking to buy. As soon as the property is being actively marketed, choose and instruct your solicitor. Solicitors complete the conveyancing process for a ﬁxed fee so once agreed you will know how much it will cost. Your solicitor will then issue client engagement letters and arrange for the standard property information forms to be sent out to you prior to an offer being accepted. Once an offer is accepted, the legal steps can then start and speed the process to its conclusion. If you would like any help and advice regarding the legal steps for your house sale or purchase, please contact Juliet Harris at Whitehead Monckton. Email: julietharris@whitehead-monckton.co.uk. Tel: 01580 767526.

Buying, selling or both? Whitehead Monckton solicitors can help you complete all the legal steps, whether you’re buying or selling a property. We take pride in offering a no-nonsense approach to what can sometimes be a frustrating process, helping ensure your transaction is completed as quickly and smoothly as possible. Recognised by the Law Society Conveyancing Quality Accreditation Scheme, a requirement for some mortgage lenders to use the same solicitors.

Tenterden 01580 765722 www.whitehead-monckton.co.uk Whitehead Monckton Limited (no. 08366029), registered in England & Wales. Registered office 72 King Street, Maidstone, Kent, ME14 1BL. Authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under no. 608279. OM5/15

The Heathfield Show by Nick Farley

We who live in the country, even those of us who have lived in the country all our lives, but who don’t actually work in agriculture, sometimes forget, I think , that the countryside is not just a pretty backdrop to our life, it is the factory which produces our food. It is very easy to take it for granted and to become somehow detached from it and to see it only as a landscape. We must not forget that every square inch of that landscape we see is farmed or looked after by someone, and that is why the agricultural shows are so important because they allow all of us to get a bit closer to what is going behind the hedges that we speed past every day. That is why I think it is such a good idea that this year’s Heathfield Show will allow free entry to all children who are accompanied by a paying adult. When I attended my village school many years ago, perhaps as many as a third or even a half of the class would have been children from agricultural families and we were all close to that lifestyle, but today that is not the case and that’s why I think that encouraging families to attend the show today and to allow children free entry will help them understand what is involved in the farming that surrounds them. The Heathfield Show is the largest one-day agricultural show in the country and, apart from a couple of occasions when foot and mouth disease or freak weather intervened, it has been going every year since 1946. It was started by the local National Farmers Union less than a year after World War II finally ended, and it was originally intended to raise money for local hospitals in those pre-NHS days. Today the not-for-profit Show Society still gives money to local causes and last year gave £18,000 to various local organisations and clubs. 20 The Onion magazine

Images clockwise from top left: The show in 1982-3; an early champion; DW Browning, 1961 Chairman

onionmagazine.co.uk

Heathfield is always the first show of the season and it has always been held in the last week in May or the first week in June because Henry Dallimore, the original organiser, asked two local “weather experts” who said that this was the driest fortnight of the year. Let’s hope their expertise holds good in 2015. The Show has expanded since its early days and there will be perhaps 200 trade stands and displays this year, but for me still the main reason for going to any country show is to see the animals at close quarters and at Heathfield there will be as many as 1200 of them. There are six show rings where the various prize cattle, sheep and pigs will be parading and being judged, and there is a whole host of horse activity including showjumping, heavy horse events and private driving events; there will also be several packs of hounds including foxhounds, bloodhounds, mink hounds and beagles, but there will be all kinds of other activities too

Garden Machinery

Ernest Doe

Above: A photo from the early 1950s. Left: A 1947 flyer

including quad bike stunt displays by The Kangaroo Kid, vintage tractors and working steam, a flower show, terrier racing, demonstrations, craft fair… it is quite impossible to mention everything. If you haven’t been to the Heathfield Show before, you don’t know what you are missing - it’s a great day out. FIND OUT MORE

For more information, visit www.heathfieldshow.org/ get-tickets. Tickets: £13.50 in advance on-line or from local retailers, or £16 at the gate. Children free when accompanied by an adult.

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Where you can buy with confidence

The Onion magazine 21

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EXHIBITIONS … CONCERTS … FETES & FAIRS … CHARITY EVENTS ... THINGS TO DO

vinehallschool.com. Venue: Vinehall School, Robertsbridge, TN32 5JL. Keith Chandler Memorial Race Sunday 10 May 10:30 to 14:00 Join the Hastings Runners for a 5-mile race in memory of Keith Chandler. All proceeds go to St Michael’s Hospice. Visit www.hastingsrunners.org.uk to register. ‘Hastings Country Park’ Walk with Northiam Footpath Group Wednesday 13 May 09:15 This is an 8-mile, grade 3-4 walk. Leave Northiam Surgery Car Park at 9.15am for a 10am start at Firehills top car park – this is a Pay & Display car park. There will be a fish & chips lunch in Hastings. For more information contact Sue Clark on 01797 253428 or www.northiamfootpathgroup.co.uk. Social and political context of Gilbert & Sullivan by Bernard Lockett Wednesday 13 May 14:30 This talk is hosted by the Winchelsea Second Wednesday Society. Held at the New Hall, Winchelsea. Non members are welcome at £4 for each talk and tea. For details contact Richard Feast on 01797 222629. ‘The Cathars’ by Imogen Corrigan Thursday 14 May 19:30 Hosted by the Tenterden and District National Trust Association. Visitors are welcome. Members £4 and nonMembers £5. For more information contact 01580 764791. Venue: Tenterden Junior School, Recreation Ground Road, Tenterden. ‘Treasures of Small Hythe Place, home of Ellen Terry’ by Laton Frewen Thursday 14 May 19:30 Hosted by the Brede Friendly Circle which is a group with a diverse programme of interests throughout the year with talks, outings and demonstrations. They provide the refreshments each week at the Brede Farmers Market which has raised £17,000 since its inception with the money going to local charities. New members are welcomed. Membership is £10 per year or £3 for an evening visit. For more information contact Wendy Reynolds on 01424 882686. ‘The Art of Audio-Visual Creation Revealed’ by Brian Woods Thursday 14 May 10:00 Hawkhurst U3A is hosting a talk by Brian Woods where he shares the secrets of producing entertaining audio visual material and shows a number of entertaining, humorous and educational sequences. The talk is followed by coffee. Visitors are welcome. Venue: British Legion Hall, High Street, Hawkhurst. Tom Crean – Unsung Hero of Antarctic Exploration by Michael Smith Friday 15 May 14:00 Polar historian Michael Smith reveals the amazing story 22 The Onion magazine

of Tom Crean, who sailed on three Antarctic expeditions with Captain Scott and Ernest Shackleton 100 years ago but could never speak about his exploits and took his story to the grave. Find out why. Hosted by the Hurst, Hassocks and Ditchling U3A. Venue: Hurstpierpoint Village Centre, Trinity Road, Hurstpierpoint. Coffee Morning and Bric-a-Brac Sale in Northiam Saturday 16 May 10:00 to 12:30 A fund-raising morning to benefit the local Hospice. Great cake stall, a craft stall of items made and donated by the Northiam Ladies, St Michaels’ own stall, a raffle table. Since its inception the coffee morning events have raised an amazing £12,187.30 for St Michael’s Hospice. If you haven’t been before you are urged to go along. All donations of Bric-a-Brac or raffle prizes would be very welcome. Please call Eileen Hayes on 01797 252871. Venue: Northiam Village Hall. Plant Sale in Sandhurst Saturday 16 May 09:30 The Sandhurst & District Horticultural Society is holding their Plant Sale. They promise many flower and vegetable plants at very reasonable prices. Venue: Old School Hall, Sandhurst. The Decorative Living Fair at Eridge Park Saturday 16 May 09:30* to 17:00 65 carefully chosen exhibitors selling a fabulous mix of decorative antiques, authentic brocante and handmade collectables of the future, plus jewellery and fashion. Another great thing about this event is that it’s under cover so we can still enjoy it even if the weather is foul. *Premium early entry ticket is £11, standard entry ticket at 11.30am is £7.50. Under 18s are free. Book at www.carolinezoob. co.uk. For more information visit www.facebook.com/ decorativelivingfair. Venue: Eridge Park, Eridge Green, Nr Tunbridge Wells, TN3 9JT. Local Plant and Produce Market at St Michael’s Hospice & Open Gardens Saturday 16 May A chance to walk around the Hospice’s stunning grounds and browse the Fresh Plant and Produce Market. Buy plants for summer months and sample local food and drink. St Michael’s Hospice is also offering the chance to explore the secrets of hidden and private gardens not usually open to the public. This year’s St Michael’s Hospice Open Garden programme has a spectacular list of gardens throughout Hastings and Rother. There are over 50 gardens to explore. For more information on the Open Garden season please contact Sally on 01424 456369 or email fundraising@ stmichaelshospice.com. We have included three gardens in the area open in May in the Noticeboard this month – see 5th May, 19th May and 26th May. A real Hen Party Saturday 16 May 10:30 to 15:00 This is for anyone looking for young chickens, ducks, fertile eggs, plants and flowers. Others attending will be Cranbrook Preserves, Cranbrook Iron, White Chimney Wood products and leather goods. In aid of Hospice in the Weald and onionmagazine.co.uk

EXHIBITIONS … CONCERTS … FETES & FAIRS … CHARITY EVENTS ... THINGS TO DO

Compassion in World Farming. For more information email: bluehenflowers@gmail.com or mgarnier@waitrose.com. Castle Water Wildlife Walk Saturday 16 May 13:00 to 16:00 A circular walk looking at wildlife in the fields and ditches around Camber Castle and visiting the birdwatching hide at Castle Water. Meet at Brede Lock. No booking necessary. Donations appreciated. www.sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk. Arias from sacred and secular Baroque masterpieces Saturday 16 May 19:00 The Rye Bay Ensemble with the amazing Grace Constable, soprano; Jonathan Breeds, baritone and the incredible Rebekah Gilbert will be singing popular arias from sacred and secular Baroque masterpieces by Handel, Vivaldi, Purcell and Pergolesi. Tickets £10 in advance from Rebekah Gilbert tel 07974 001818 or email info@vivawellbeing.com. Venue: St Marys Church, Rye.

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Monday 18 May 19:00 to 22:00 There will be a Nest Feather Show followed by a talk by Ian Fordham from Eastry Kent. Ian is one of the country’s top breeders of Lutinos. There will be no competition birds this month. There is a warm welcome extended to anyone interested in budgerigars. Contact Brian Mepham on 01424 429094 or visit hastingsbudgerigarsociety.org. Venue: Northiam Village Hall. Ladies Who Latte (Cranbrook) Tuesday 19 May 10:00 to 12:00 This is a really friendly networking group of self-employed and business women who meet on the third Thursday of every month. (I go to these meetings and they really are a smashing group of women – so helpful and supportive, Ed.) For more information contact Gill Buchanan at words@ gillbuchanan.co.uk. Venue: The Queen’s Inn, Hawkhurst.

‘The Story of the Peace Rose’ by Grace Davies Monday 18 May 14:00 An illustrated talk by Grace Davies, based on a philatelic display. Hosted by the Rye & District U3A. New members welcome. Contact Sheila on 01797 224339 or June on 01797 226380 for more information. Venue: Rye Community Centre.

Icklesham Gardens Tuesday 19 May Four lovely gardens in Icklesham will open their gates for the St Michael’s Hospice Open Garden season. One garden is set in 500 acres of pastureland while another has its very own vineyard. All of these gardens are on or near the 1066 footpath which commemorates the Battle of Hastings. For more information contact Sally on 01424 456369 or email fundraising@stmichaelshospice.com.

Nest Feather Show for Hastings Budgerigar Society

A talk on ‘St Dunstan’s Day’ by Richard Eales in Cranbrook

May 2015

The Onion magazine 23

MAY GARDENING By Jack Hebden on blackspot and try to prevent it getting a hold. If it gets established early there’s very little you can do in my experience. However, I am sort of semi-green, and I will try to avoid using any insecticide sprays during the year.

Now that the good weather has arrived, or rather I hope it will have arrived by the time you are reading this, many of us will be visiting some of the magnificent gardens which we have in this part of the world, and I urge you, when you are looking round, to take written and photographic notes of what you see so that you can steal some of the ideas from these gardens and translate them into something you can use in your own garden. Although the scale of these big gardens may be different from your own garden, that doesn’t matter; they are full of ideas and colour combinations which will transfer to your plot quite readily. At last May is here but it can be an odd month for weather so watch out: on one hand we could still possibly get a late frost or on the other hand we could have temperatures of 21-22°C (71-72°F). This can also be a dry month so be alert and watch any new plantings and don’t let them dry out. Actually, as I write this in late March, I am already having to water frequently two well established shrubs growing in tubs which are becoming very thirsty as their early spring growth gets under way.

May can be quite a difficult month in the garden if you are not careful because the spring bulbs will be finished or finishing while the roses and summer plants will still be on their way to work. What’s more all those parts of the garden which were so vibrant a few weeks ago will now be full of the dying greenery of the exhausted bulbs, and what was once a colourful highlight will now perhaps look a bit scruffy. What can you do about this? One very easy thing is to redirect people’s attention; change the focus of your garden. Eventually, this will happen quite naturally as the summer shift of roses, herbaceous plants and annuals turns up for duty, but before that you need something else and that’s why azaleas and rhododendrons were invented, I like to think. They like the acid soil which abounds in this area, and some are evergreen which is a benefit too, but above all they are bright and attention-grabbing, and it’s their brightness which is so helpful in May. You’ll be amazed at how much work a relatively small but bright azalea can do in demanding your attention and drawing your eye away from some of the scruffiness of the dying bulb leaves. The bright azalea gives you something to look at and you simply don’t see anything else.

I shall also be spraying the roses with a systemic fungicide again this month as I continue to wage war

Good selection of beautiful UK-grown azaleas and rhododendrons In bud and ready to flower Open 7 days a week - Coffee shop on-site Bumbles Plant Centre, Tolehurst Farm, Frittenden, Cranbrook, Kent TN17 2BP Tel - 01580 720940 Email - info@bumbles-plant-centre.co.uk www.bumbles-plant-centre.co.uk 24 The Onion magazine

Top: Eye catching. Above: Even a small tub of azaleas draws the eye onionmagazine.co.uk

mostly plants which have a dense covering of blooms and usually those blooms are of strong, vivid colours. These are plants which definitely say, “Hey! Look at me,” which is why I am recommending them; that’s exactly the job I want them to do. I am not suggesting that you suddenly cover your garden with azaleas, nor am I suggesting that you try to grow huge plants like those you might see at Sheffield Park or Scotney Castle but you will be surprised at what an effect a few – just three or four – small, bright azaleas can have in the average sized garden at this time of year as you bridge the gap between spring and summer.

Top: A small bush can make a big impact. Above: Ignore this if you can...

Now is the perfect time to identify where a strategically placed azalea or two will have the greatest effect in telling your eye where to look in the garden, and now is also the best time to see these plants in bloom in nurseries and gardens so that you can choose the ones that you like. They are

Finally, one tip, as you are strolling around nurseries admiring and being tempted by all sorts of plants: don’t try to grow plants that don’t suit your soil and conditions. When I first took up gardening I was always getting carried away at this time of year and I could convince myself that I could create artificial conditions which would suit any plant. It was always doomed to failure and I’ve long since learnt not to fight the prevailing conditions in my garden. Shady wet spots will never become dry well-drained spots; acid soils won’t become chalky overnight, or ever. Garden with what you’ve got – it’s easier, cheaper and a lot more fun.

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The Onion magazine 25

How much do you remember about 2014? Well, just how much do you remember? Probably not much, which is why local photographer, Stuart Kirk, had the brainwave of recording every day of the Tenterden year using photographs taken by the residents of the town and local area. He called the project Tenterden 365 and during the year 120 people sent their pictures in to the project. The pictures could be of any subject whatsoever, taken by anyone using any sort of camera, mobile phone, ipad… anything; the only rule was that the pictures had to be taken in the town or the surrounding countryside. Over the course of the year an incredible 3600 pictures of people, places and events were sent in, plus pictures of all sorts of other things which simply caught someone’s eye. Judges from sixty local businesses took it in turns to select their favourite pictures of the day and each day the judges’ choice of picture was hidden away and those pictures are still being kept a closely guarded secret so that even now no-one knows whose pictures have finally been picked to represent each day of the year. Of the other pictures, four a day were shown on the project website www.Tenterden365.co.uk.

This will be a really impressive exhibition, as well as a bit of social history, because it’s not just one person’s view and it’s not just one subject; it’s the view of 120 people each one with a different idea and a different viewpoint, and the final 365 pictures have been selected by 60 judges all of whom in making their choices will have been influenced by their own view and perspective of the town. So, how much do you remember about 2014? You may be surprised at how much you’ve forgotten. If you were in or near Tenterden you may even find yourself in one of the exhibition pictures.

Stuart, had the monster task of collecting all the pictures and sorting them into daily folders before sending them off to the judges, and he also maintained the website to keep everyone informed, “It’s taken hours of work each day,” he said, “No holidays, not even a single day off, but it’s been a fantastic year and one that I will never forget.” Helped along the way by a small but very hardworking committee and having been lucky enough to have attracted a few local sponsors to help with the finances, the project has been totally free for all the participants. Now that the year is over the result is that 365 pictures, one for each day of the year, have been printed and are ready for an exhibition which will take place in St.Mildred’s Church from 9am to 5pm, starting this Saturday, May 2nd , and continuing to Wednesday May 6th, including Bank Holiday Monday, when the church tower will open for photography. 26 The Onion magazine

FIND OUT MORE

Pictures are all for sale with the proceeds going to St.Mildreds. www.Tenterden365.co.uk and the Facebook page

onionmagazine.co.uk

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EXHIBITIONS … CONCERTS … FETES & FAIRS … CHARITY EVENTS .. THINGS TO DO

Tuesday 19 May 18:30 Cranbrook & District Local History Society in association with The Friends of St Dunstan’s is hosting a talk by Richard Eales, a Medieval Historian and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Kent, Canterbury. Free admission with a retiring collection in aid of church restoration. Light refreshments will be served after the talk. Venue: St Dunstan’s Church, Cranbrook.

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There is a monthly meeting with a guest speaker on the third Thursday of each month at St Mildred’s Hall, Church Road, Tenterden at 2pm. Members and guests welcome. Details of speakers can be found at www.tenterdentown/u3a.

‘Creating greetings cards using internet formats’ Wednesday 20 May 19:30 Hosted by The Weald of Kent Computer Club. Annual membership costs £10 and covers free admission to all 10 meetings. Visitors welcome £2 per visit. Enquiries to secretarywkcc@yahoo.co.uk. Venue: Biddenden New Village Hall.

Plant Sale – Battle Abbey Green Friday 22 May 10:00 to 14:00 Friary Gardeners (part of the Parchment Trust) offer horticultural training and greater independence to people with disability through gardening. As part of its 40th Anniversary celebrations Friary Gardeners are working with Day Lewis Pharmacy to hold a plant sale on Battle Abbey Green with the promise to double any money raised. Go along to great some lovely plants, raise funds and find out more about the Friary Gardeners. For information call Day Lewis Pharmacy on 01424 772010.

The Plant Hunters by Stephen Harmer Thursday 21 May 14:00 Stephen has an MA in Garden History and gives talks to local groups as well as lectures at RHS Wisley. He will be talking on the plant hunters and how some of the plants we have today in our own gardens were found. This is hosted by the Rye & District National Trust Association. Venue: Brede Village Hall.

Spring Children’s Trail at Bateman’s Daily from Friday 22 May to Sunday 31 May 11:00 to 16:30 Help Puck the Elf who is holding a spring party and has invited all his special friends who have been hibernating around Bateman’s. Find out who is coming along and what sort of party they would prefer. Normal admission charges apply. £1.50 per trail. Venue: Batemans’, Burwash, TN19 7DS.

‘Godinton House, a Local Jewel’ by Pam Wait for Tenterden U3A Thursday 21 May 14:00

Bluebell Railway Rail Ale Evening Friday 22 May For information contact 01825 720800, www.bluebell-

May 2015

The Onion magazine 27

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EXHIBITIONS … CONCERTS … FETES & FAIRS … CHARITY EVENTS .. THINGS TO DO

railway.com/event/rail-ale-evenings. Venue: Bluebell Railway, Sheffield Park Station, TN22 3QL. Coastal Plants at Rye Harbour Saturday 23 May 10:30 to 12:30 Find out how the shingle and saltmarsh plants cope with their harsh environment and see some coastal birds. Meet at Rye Harbour car park. No booking necessary. Donations appreciated. www.sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk. Table Sale at Winchelsea Beach Saturday 23 May 11:00 Ring 01797 224820 to book a table which is £6. Entrance 40p includes tea and biscuits. All welcome. All proceeds go to the Winchelsea Beach Community Hall funds. Venue: Winchelsea Beach Community Hall, Sea Road, TN36 4NA. A Concert of varied music in Peasmarsh Saturday 23 May 18:30 Peasmarsh and District Ladies Choir are performing a concert of varied music at Peasmarsh Church during the weekend of the Flower Festival. Refreshments will be served. There will be a retiring collection. May Charity Walk and Treasure Hunt at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve Sunday 24 May from 09:00 Organised by Rye & Winchelsea Rotary Club. Adults £7, children free. Proceeds to St Michael’s Hospice and Rye Memorial Hospital. Distances from 3 to 10 miles. Refreshments available. Registered walkers may visit the courtyard of Camber Castle free. To register in advance email ryerotary@hotmail.co.uk or on the day at Phillips and Stubbs Cinque Ports Street, Rye between 9am and 11am. Rye Ukulele Festival at the Cinque Ports Inn Sunday 24 May from 12:30 There are bands coming from all parts of Kent and East Sussex to take part in the first Festival here. It will be a relaxed, vintage-style music event for players, families and friends with a barbeque, vintage craft stalls and a bar. The highlight will be the last session when as many Ukuleles as possible will join together and perform a dozen songs in unison for the Big Busk. There will also be an attempt at a world record Kazoo and Uke rendition of Urban Spaceman. www.ryeukuleleexperiment.co.uk. Email: info@ ryeukuleleexperiment.co.uk. Charity Boot Fair at Jempson’s Peasmarsh Bank Holiday Monday 25 May All the money from the sale of the pitches for this event goes to Rother Responders. For more information contact Dominic on dominic@jempsons.com or telephone 01797 230214. Venue: Jempson’s, Main Street, Peasmarsh, TN31 6YD. Become a Rockpool Explorer at Birling Gap Monday 25 May 09:30 to 11:30 Join the rangers to discover the creatures living in the rockpools. Explore the beach at low tide and find all creatures that live there – colourful starfish, tiny crabs, stuck-fast 28 The Onion magazine

limpets or even some jellyfish. All equipment is provided but you could always take your own nets and buckets if you have them. Tickets £3 per person. Adults supervising children free. Booking essential on 01323 423197. Sir Edward’s Fair at Bodiam Castle Monday 25 May A family fun day. You can try on armour and explore local craft stalls. You can also meet Sir Edward and some of his household to learn about castle life and the medieval origins of the fair. Normal admission charges apply. Bodiam Castle 01580 831321. www.national.trust.org.uk/bodiamcastle. Happening History’s Toy-Making Workshops at Bodiam Castle Tuesday 26 May to Sunday 31 May Children have the chance to make some medieval toys to take home. The workshops run throughout each day and cost £5 per child. Places are limited so make sure you call and book in advance on 01580 831324. Normal admission charges apply. Bodiam Castle 01580 831321. www.national. trust.org.uk/bodiam-castle. Children’s Birdwatching at Rye Harbour Tuesday 26 May 14:00 to 16:00 The pools will be alive with thousands of nesting gulls, terns and waders. Why not go long to see if you can spot some of the fluffy chicks peeping out of their nests. Suitable for accompanied children aged over 5. Meet at Rye Harbour car park. Booking essential. £3 per child. www. sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk. Ewhurst Green Open Gardens in aid of St Michael’s Hospice Tuesday 26 May Two beautiful gardens will be open in the pretty village of Ewhurst Green. These gardens are very different in style and design, but both offer breathtaking features including striking views of Bodiam Castle and a 12-acre garden with paddocks, ponds and a vineyard. For more information contact Sally on 01424 456369 or email fundraising@stmichaelshospice. com. Creepy Crawlies at Rye Harbour Wednesday 27 May 13:30 to 15:00 The Warden, Chris, will lead a ‘hunting’ party to take a closer look at the fascinating and bizarre world of insects and spiders. Suitable for all ages. Children must be accompanied by an adult. Meet at Lime Kiln Cottage Information Centre. Booking essential. £3 per child. www.sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk. A visit to Boldshaves, Woodchurch Wednesday 27 May 18:00 Visit Boldshaves in Woodchurch with the Biddenden Horticultural Society. For members and for non-Members. Cost £7.50 including light refreshments. If anyone would like to car-share they will be meeting in the Biddenden Car Park at 6pm. Contact Irene on 01580 291777 or Lesley on 01580 291931.

onionmagazine.co.uk

EXHIBITIONS … CONCERTS … FETES & FAIRS … CHARITY EVENTS .. THINGS TO DO

Are you self-employed or a sole trader? Thursday 28 May 09:15 for about an hour This is an informal and incredibly friendly networking group for any self-employed /sole traders who would like to get more clients (and to have a cup of coffee and some support). Any trade or profession welcome. Venue: Lunch Belles Café, Highbanks Nursery, Cranbrook Road, Gills Green. For more information contact Ali on 07970 952199 or email soletradersoftheweald@gmail.com. Pond Dipping at Castle Water Thursday 28 May 13:30 to 15:30 A guided walk across fields to Castle Water to see what creatures are lurking amongst the reeds. You might find newts, water beetles, medicinal leeches and water scorpions. Suitable for accompanied children aged 4 to 12 years. Meet at Brede Lock. Booking essential. £3 per child. www. sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk. Wild Woodland Holiday Club Friday 29 May 10:00 to 15:00 A whole day of holiday fun at Swallowtail Farm. There will be a campfire, you can play games and try your hand at some woodland crafts. Do take a packed lunch. Suitable for children aged 6 to 11 and parents do not accompany children. Meet at Swallowtail Hill Farm, Hobbs Lane, Beckley, Rye TN31 6TT. Booking essential. £20 per child nonmembers. £17 for Sussex Wildlife Trust members. www. sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk.

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Brighton Beer and Cider Festival Friday 29 May and Saturday 30 May 18:00 to 21:30 Hot food on the night by Beach BBQ. Over 50 beers and ciders from Sussex and surrounding counties alongside a selection of wines in festival marquees on Hove Lawns, BN3 2WN. £7 entry including a festival glass. Tickets available in advance from www.brightonfoodfestival.com. Wild Woodland Weekend Club Saturday 30 May 10:00 to 13:00 Monthly adventures in the woods for ‘wild things’ aged 6 to 11 years. Parents not allowed. Build dens, cook on a campfire, play in the mud, learn some woodcrafts and play games. Each month is a little different and a lot of fun. Held in a private woodland in Beckley. Meet on the last Saturday of every month at Swallowtail Hill Farm, Hobbs Lane, Beckley TN31 6TT. Booking essential. £10 per child. £8.50 for members of Sussex Wildlife Trust. www. sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk. Tenterden Book Fair Saturday 30 May 09:00 to 15:00 Thousands of books for sale from a number of book dealers. Refreshments available from the Highbury Hall Café. For more information contact Barry Williams on 01634 235484. Email barryjean.williams@btinternet.com. Venue: Highbury Hall, Highbury Lane, Tenterden TN30 6LE. Udimore Garden Safari

SPECIAL OFFER FOR READERS OF THE ONION Buy your copy of the Yellow Book 2015 at a special oﬀer price of just £9 (rrp £12.99) including p&p to UK postal addresses. Order via the website www.ngs.org.uk using the following promotional code when prompted TOYB15. Published each year in February The Yellow Book is the essential listing of gardens to visit and provides a county-by-county guide to the thousands of welcoming gardens in England & Wales, many of which are not normally open to the public. Each garden is described and includes directions, admission price as well as opening dates and times. The 2015 edition of the book contains details of 3,800 gardens and nearly 1000 new or returning gardens listed. Oﬀer valid until end July 2015. Please allow 14 days for delivery.

May 2015

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The Onion magazine 29

Letters to the editor Dear Onion, I so agree with your piece on the state of the roads. It is hard to concentrate on the road ahead when you are trying to avoid gashes in the tarmac, deep and dangerous potholes and raised manhole covers. I had two vans outside the gate here the other day with umpteen men ‘at work’. They filled one pothole and pushed off. Who is directing these contractors? Sue Whigham Dear Onion, I’m not one to moan, but the state of our local roads is shocking. I have spent years emailing the highways, the council, basically any one that I thought might be able to help. I had a response from a councillor once who gave me a phone number to call. This turned out to be a manager at the Highways Agency who was very angry that a council official had given out his number. All I was trying to do was to get the appalling state of our roads repaired or resurfaced in our area. I did receive an email stating that East Sussex received 1.4 million pounds last year to aid the repair of roads in the area. Where was that spent? There’s rubbish and pot holes everywhere.

I have been spurred to write to you and Nick to thank you both for producing such an interesting magazine and the current April Magazine is no exception. However having read Nick’s article about the Walled Nursery in Hawkhurst, I am incensed at the stupidity of the Conservation Law that apparently prevents Emma and Monty from using the powder coated aluminium and insists on wood to replace the Vinery. I tried to add my name to the Petition but it failed to recognise it in the list of so many others, but I shall try again. Surely, in this day and age some ‘common sense’ might be made to prevail, although where politicians are concerned, even at local level, there seems to be little of that about! I hope that enough of us throughout this area, whether we are gardeners or not, will be sufficiently moved to join the protest and support Emma and Monty in their ‘fight against officialdom’ and be able to prevent this piece of rank stupidity so that the Vinery can be repaired with the proper modern materials to make it last well into the future and not be caused to rot within just 20-30 years if wood is used. Even the current ‘tanalising’ of wood is not as efficient as it was when creosote was used for preserving wood fencing a few years ago. Best wishes to Emma and Monty.

I have decided on a course of action, and that is to plant bulbs and seasonal flowers in the massive amount of pot holes that we have to suffer on a daily basis. I would like suggestions for what to plant at various times of the year. In the meantime we will continue to swerve around these pot holes, putting our lives at risk. God help those motorbike chaps if they hit one of those, its curtains. (Nick and I are both motorcyclists and I can tell you that some of the potholes are very dangerous, especially in the dark. Ed.)

KMT, Etchingham

I wonder where all the money from our road tax actually goes?

I was lucky enough to purchase a house on the edge of town with a garden that has won many awards, and which I try to maintain to the best of my ability. However, am I the only Rye resident whose garden is used regularly as a rubbish dump by persons unknown? Every day I have to comb through the

Ben from Beckley Dear Carol,

30 The Onion magazine

Dear Editor, Rye is one of England’s major tourist attractions. Its rich history, beautifully preserved old houses, friendly pubs, superb views over the Weald and the majesty of St Mary’s Church bring thousands of tourists to our delightful town. Invariably, there is much admiration for the residents’ picturesque gardens, a point of pride for their owners.

onionmagazine.co.uk

17/11/2014

20:13

Aching back & shoulders?

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Do write to us, we’d love to hear from you either by letter or email. Letters Page, The Onion magazine, The Studio at Friars Cote Farm, Crockers Lane, Northiam, TN31 6PY or email carol@onionpublishing.co.uk.

DProf MA LRAM(Hons) LLCM ProfCertRAM(Hons)

What kind of people have so little respect for others’ property? Is it tourists returning after dark to the numerous B &B establishments near my house? Schoolchildren discarding sweet wrappers on their way home from school? Surely it’s not responsible adults, who probably have very nice gardens of their own? There is no shortage of litter bins all over town. Maybe B & B owners could include a tactful reminder concerning litter in the rules they ask their tenants to observe? Tour operators could ask their groups to discard their rubbish in litter bins only. And the school could remind pupils every so often that respect for other people’s property is a basic courtesy. More importantly, it is something parents could (and should) teach their children.

GET IN TOUCH

07974 001818 info@vivawellbeing.com www.vivawellbeing.com rebekah gilbert at vivawellbeing @vivawellbeing

street-facing part of my garden to pick up fast food containers, soft drink bottles, beer cans, sweet wrappers, used paper tissues, and suchlike. My back garden, which faces a path much favoured by local dog lovers to exercise their pets is also treated as a convenient tip.

Dr Rebekah Gilbert

CMY

DProf MA ProfDipLSSM HDipRSPH(Hons) DipsITEC IOSH

Viva

Tel: 07974 001818 Email: info@vivawellbeing.com www.vivawellbeing.com

Does anyone else have this problem? And, if so, how does one combat it short of putting up a 10foot fence on all sides? Alyona Kojevnikov Dear Onion, We are blessed with a host of fine pubs in our area serving high quality food. Your regular Eating Out reviews confirm this. But I am fed up to the back teeth with people bringing their dogs into the pubs and restaurants. I don’t want to eat my dinner with a smelly dog sniffing around the table. No decent restaurant or food shop allows dogs on the premises, so why do we have to put up with dogs in pubs serving meals? When will publicans accept that good food and dogs don’t mix. Liam Griffin

May 2015

The Onion magazine 31

A GOOD Book

In this column we feature books that we, and our reviewers, like. They may not necessarily be new books, but they’ll be fiction and non-fiction books that we have enjoyed. We’ll always include at least one children’s book in the selection each time. We’d love to hear your thoughts on anything you feel we should be reading and sharing with others.

The Specialist By Chic Sale Ask at Barnett’s Bookshop

This little gem was first published in 1929 and has been entertaining people all over the world for the 86 years since then. I can’t believe that I’ve only just discovered it. It must be the smallest and the shortest book - 27 pages - I have ever reviewed but that is no guide to the pleasure it gives. It’s written by Charles (Chic) Sale who lived in Carmel in California and it’s about a real man he knew called, for the purposes of the book, Lem Putt. Lem was a builder of privies, a job which was probably common back in those pre-flushing days in rural America. Lem was a master builder of the privy and the culmination of his work was the eight-holer he built, but for a family of eight he deemed a three-holer to be more than sufficient. Lem was craftsman and a wise man and, above all, a man entirely contented with his lot. You will learn much from this little book, and not only about the lost art of privy building, but more importantly you will be gently entertained and amused. Reviewed by Nick Farley

32 The Onion magazine

The Lovers of Amherst By William Nicholson Fiction Published by QUERCUS £14.44 hardback

This is a novel based on fact which revolves around the real 19th century American poet, Emily Dickinson, and it is set in the New England town of Amherst where she was born and lived. The lovers (who were also real people) are her older brother, Austin, trapped in a loveless marriage, and Mabel Todd, married to astronomer David Todd. Emily was an eccentric figure who dressed in white and was reluctant to meet anyone in person. Her poetry had not, at this point in the 1880s, been published. Austin and Mabel, he in his fifties, she in her twenties, share a love of nature which starts a passionate love affair. The society in which they strive to abandon their reputations is intolerant. Their passion for each other, reflected in many letters and notes, seems to thrive on restraint and they will never live together openly, as man and wife. We never know what Emily feels for Mabel, as her brother’s lover, because they never meet face to face. Yet Emily makes it possible

for the lovers to meet in the Dickinson home and seems to be sponsoring Austin’s affair, even to the extent that her dining room is made available and private for the lovers to meet and eventually to make love. It is possible that Emily eavesdrops, even to the sounds of their sexual activity. One is invited to consider that Emily, although sexually inexperienced, is bisexual and is using both lovers as her surrogates. She loves her brother deeply and her relationship with Mabel, albeit at a distance (they never meet), deepens as time passes. When Emily dies in 1886, she is unpublished and Mabel Todd steps into the task of transcribing and organising her poems which have been left in a drawer. Mabel thus becomes Emily Dickinson’s amanuensis. Organising the poems and persuading someone to publish them becomes her life’s work, even after Austin dies in 1895. Emily’s poems are the bedrock of this story of 19th Century passion. The quote “I’ve none to tell me to but thee” emerges repeatedly, so Mabel is chosen by the poet to hear Emily’s thoughts and ideas through short poems which are written for the younger woman. The book’s narrative is written in the modern day through its principal character, Alice Dickinson (no relative), who is a film scriptwriter, researching the love affair in a visit to Amherst. In vain she looks for a suitable ending to a story which, to an extent, defines itself. onionmagazine.co.uk

Then she meets an older man, Nick, in Amherst and embarks on a brief affair which ends equally painfully for her. There are lessons to learn which provide a clearer view of herself, of love and of life. This story is the sixth in Nicholson’s series of books with some characters who are related to each other, across generations and different families, in different times. Each of these stories has roots in Sussex. The links make sense but do not dictate that the reader has to read all six books – each stands alone as excellent writing, finely drawn characterisations and relationships, ‘Motherland’ being a fine example. This latest novel is thought-provoking stuff and makes very good reading. Reviewed by Alan Davies

Next World Novella by Matthias Politycki Fiction Published by Peirene (www.peirenepress.com) £8.99 Paperback

I discovered this very interesting publisher at the London Book Fair last year and am now completely smitten. Peirene has a great publishing philosophy “Contemporary European Literature. Thought provoking. Well designed. Short.” I liked the word ‘short’ in that description; The Times Literary Supplement describes them perfectly as “Two-hour books to be devoured in a single sitting: literary cinema for those fatigued by film.” And their books are things May 2015

that you want to own and to keep. This particular book entitled ‘Next World Novella’ is written by prolific German novelist and poet, Matthias Politycki, and was translated by Anthea Bell who is well-known for translating the French Asterix comics. The book blurb says it “deals with the weighty subjects of marriage and death in an impressively light manner”. Light manner or not, this wouldn’t immediately have appealed to me, but I’m so pleased that I opened the book and began to read - and ended up devouring it in one sitting, so The TLS was right. Hinrich and Doro have been married for some years when Doro suddenly dies of a stroke and Hinrich discovers in the papers on his wife’s desk something new and previously hidden about her and their relationship… I so enjoyed reading this book that I shall now be working my way through the rest of the Peirene catalogue. Reviewed by Jessica Harding

Snail, Where Are You? By Tomi Ungerer Published by Phaidon Press in April 2015 www.phaidon.com

This is a delightful little hardback book where you find the ‘hidden snail’ in every page. The Tomi Ungerer illustrations are bold, bright and fun. He is a graphic artist, illustrator and caricaturist and this sings out from every jolly page. There is no text in this book, it’s for children aged between two and five to find and discover the snail shapes in the illustrations for themselves. Absolutely charming. Reviewed by Jessica Harding

Barnett’s of Wadhurst is a bookshop with a difference. “We really listen to what our customers say” It is a very friendly, personal service at Barnett’s. Our Literary Lounge Spring Events

Tuesday 12th May:

Nicola Beaumann from Persephone Books, publisher of beautiful editions of neglected works by 20th century women writers, will talk about the way in which books are selected and how Persephone has rediscovered some key writers.

Tuesday 23rd June:

Karen Swan launches her new book “Summer at Tiffany’s” - with advance copies of the publication which comes out the following week. Watch out for news of our Autumn season - including, we hope, Kate Mosse. Meet at the shop at 7.30pm for drinks and nibbles. All events £10. Tickets to be purchased in advance from Barnett’s.

Open: Mon-Sat 9-5 (Closed 1-2) Wednesday 9-1 only Gordon House, High Street Wadhurst, E. Sussex TN5 6AA Tel/Fax: 01892 783566 Enquiries@barnettsbooks.co.uk www.barnettsbooks.com Proprietor: Richard Hardy Smith

The Onion magazine 33

Festival Foretaste

The Festival season in this part of the world seems particularly vibrant. Show someone a piece of temporarily vacant ground, an empty hall, a full pub or just any old street and before you know where you are that someone has organised a ‘Festival’. The festival season stretches from now until October before it slows down just enough to allow us all to draw breath before we gird our loins again for The Christmas Market season. This year’s Festival round gets under way this month with, Ta Da! – The Rye Ukulele Festival which is a full pub type of festival and will take place on Sunday May 24th at The Cinque Ports Arms in Cinque Ports Street and has already attracted a huge number of bands from all over the South East. www.ryeukuleleexperiment.co.uk. There is then a bit of a lull before Tenterden’s Tentertainment Festival takes over a bit of vacant ground in the middle of town for its annual three day musical shenanigans. This is a wonderful family festival where there is much eating, drinking and singing, and this year it’s on July 3rd, 4th and 5th. August 27th to the 31st sees the return of The Rye International Jazz Festival, and that’s about all I can tell you on that subject at the moment because as we go to press the contracts for this year’s performers are just in the throes of being finalised and cannot be published yet. However, if past form counts for anything there will be some pretty big stars there, and in the meantime the Jazz Festival organisers have Gregory Porter at the De la Warr Pavilion on June 24th. http://ryejazz.com. 34 The Onion magazine

September is Rye Arts Festival time and they are well ahead with their plans and some pretty exciting people are booked already. A performance of the Viv Stanshall’s - he of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band - Sir Henry at Rawlinson End will certainly be a highlight: Sir Henry played billiards on horseback, so keep September 24th free. There’s a packed programme of blues, folk, Americana and country music and an equally packed classical programme, the highlight of which will be Don Giovanni starring the soprano Rannveig Káradóttir who was such a hit in La Traviata last year. And for the first time the opera will be performed on two nights. The Piatti Quartet are appearing again as are Stile Antico and the world famous Belcea Quartet are appearing on September 25th. http://www.ryeartsfestival.co.uk/. In October it’s Battle’s turn with the second Battle Arts Festival. As I write this in early April I have no details of who is appearing but this new festival got off to a good start last year and we look forward to this year. http://www.battlefestival.co.uk/. Finally, on the 1st to the 4th of October there is that old favourite The Tenterden Folk Festival and this is the sort of festival which takes over streets, full pubs, vacant ground and empty halls too. There will be the usual swarms of Morris men and dancers and singers and bands and parades everywhere you look. The number of acts which have already been booked is amazing, you’d think that it was all going to happen next week. Jez Lowe, Hudson and Cutler, and Mark Gibson will open proceedings with the Thursday concert, and a host of names including The Phoenix Band, The Askew Sisters, Vicki Swann and Jonny Dyer are also appearing over the four days. http://tenterdenfolkfestival.org. uk/. And finally, finally, there will be Wild Boar Week in October which is a sort of eating festival – for us, if not for the boar, which is probably what makes them wild. Top left: Jazz in Rye last year. Above left: Rannveig Káradóttir will star in Don Giovanni. Left: Morris man in Tenterden

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EXHIBITIONS … CONCERTS … FETES & FAIRS … CHARITY EVENTS .. THINGS TO DO

Saturday 30 May 13:30 to 17:30 Enjoy wandering around six lovely gardens, some of which have not been opened to the public before. Total price £6. In aid of St Mary’s Church. Children 12 and under free. No dogs permitted. Tickets and map available from Udimore Community Hall, Church Lane, TN31 6BB. Homemade refreshments and plant stall available at Udimore Community Hall. Shanties and Seafood in Peasmarsh Saturday 30 May 19:00 By popular demand the Rye Bay Ensemble will be offering ‘shanties and seafood’ at the Oak in Peasmarsh. Tickets £25 for a three-course meal by Carmen. Limited seating available. Book in advance from Rebekah Gilbert tel 07974 001818 or email info@vivawellbeing.com. Garden Safari in Northiam Sunday 31 May 11:00 to 17:00 The Northiam Bonfire Society’s Open Gardens this year feature five delightful gardens giving inspiration to anyone with only a standard size plot. Take a gentle walk around Northiam then relax with tea and cake. Cost £5. The programme and the start position is at Goddens Gill Green. For more information visit www.northiambonfiresociety. co.uk. ‘The Bull Ring’ walk with Northiam Footpath Group Sunday 31 May 14:00 This is a 4.5 miles, grade 3 walk. Leave Northiam Surgery car park at 2pm for 2.15pm start from Rolvenden Church. For further details contact Sue Clark on 01797 253428 or www. northiamfootpathgroup.co.uk.

funds for the winter hay at their wild camel breeding centre in Mongolia. With a top prize of £500 for adults and £250 for juniors the question posed is: “Why should the critically endangered wild camel be protected?” Full details of the competition can be found on www.wildcamels.com and the deadline for entries is 1 July 2015. For more information please telephone 01580 241132. STOP PRESS … last minute entries … Canterbury Boys Choir comes to Stone Saturday 16 May 19:00 A chance to hear the wonderful voices of the boys of Canterbury Cathedral led by Dr David Flood, Cathedral Director of Music. Light refreshments available. Tickets £10. All proceeds to church funds. For tickets and more information contact Ann Bonas on 01233 758574. Venue: St Mary the Virgin church, Stone. (Having heard them in Woodchurch myself last year I urge everyone to go to listen to this sublime singing, Ed.) Quiz Night in Northiam Saturday 9 May 19:30 Hosted by the Northiam Bonfire Society. £7.50 per person includes food and wine. Tables of 8. Includes a ‘Canine Conundrum’ round. To book call 01797 253375 or email karen@terenceayling.co.uk, www.northiambonfiresociety. co.uk. Venue: Northiam Village Hall.

London to Brighton Classic Car Run at Chiddingstone Castle Sunday 31 May 10:30 Admire over 200 classic cars stopping at Chiddingstone Castle while taking part in the London to Brighton Classic Car Run. For further information contact the Castle on 01892 870347, www.chiddingstonecastle.org.uk. Venue: Chiddingstone Castle, nr Edenbridge, Kent TN8 7AD. Wild Camel Protection Foundation – Essay Competition Camel Racing at Hole Park will not take place until 2016 so this year they are running an essay competition to raise

Militaria and Vintage clothing

55 The Mint, Rye, TN31 7EN Call Eddie 07905 747791 or Mark/Tracey 07896 502936 www.timemilitaria.com May 2015

The Onion magazine 35

Bewl Water from Wadhurst Bewl Water is the largest area of open water in the south of England. There is a 13mile (21km) walk around its perimeter. This walk takes in part of its less-frequented southern shore. Be sure to wear waterproof footwear as the approach path is often wet. It is not advisable to wear shorts on this route. Wadhurst is one of those places that seems unable to decide whether it is a village or a town (having been granted a charter and a market by Henry III in 1253 it could well claim to be a town). Iron-smelting from local ironstone was probably established when the Romans first came here In the 17th and 18th centuries Wadhurst prospered from ironfounding – look inside the church to see 31 memorials of cast iron set into the floor. The spire of the church is 128 feet high and, as this walk shows, is a distinctive landmark. The walk (TQ 641 317) Walk down Blacksmith’s Lane, opposite the Greyhound Inn and, when it turns sharply left (TQ 644 319), keep ahead on the drive to Little Pell Farm. Go through the farmyard and join a track with a hedge to the left that descends to a wood and a muddy pond. Bewl Water can be seen ahead. The reservoir came into operation in 1975 and holds 31,300 million litres of water. It has become famous for its recreational facilities, catering for fly-fishers, windsurfers, yachtsmen and canoeists as well as walkers and cyclists. The footpath continues through woodland and between fields, eventually reaching a stile and a field. Continue ahead to cross another stile and turn right immediately beyond it at a junction with a bridleway (TQ 654 324). Although this right of way closely follows the shore of the reservoir, there are, as yet, only glimpses of it. Cyclists also use this path and may approach quickly and silently from behind. After some distance of skirting muddy creeks, the bridleway bursts out into open countryside and a great expanse of Bewl Water is revealed. Continue along the shore path – if you look back you will see the spire of Wadhurst church rising above the trees. Just beyond a small

36 The Onion magazine

fisherman’s hut, turn right onto the bridleway. At the end of the 18th century this isolated district was famous for its enormous oak trees, among the last remaining from the forest that once covered the Weald. They provided timber for the fighting-ships that sailed under Nelson’s command during the wars against France. The difficulties in removing the trees to the dockyard at Chatham and Portsmouth can only be imagined. The path leaves the shore to skirt the wood behind the farm and oasthouse at Newbarn. Turn right at a lane and, after 50 yds, take the concrete drive on the left (TQ 664 324) that leads towards Bryant’s Farm. At the gateway to the farm, take

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the footpath to the right (TQ 665 326) down some steps and through woodland. There is a nicely sited seat and another fishermanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hut overlooking Bewl Water and a series of fish tanks used for rearing some of the 50,000 trout that are needed each year to restock the lake. Turn right (TQ 669 329) onto the lane that (in the other direction) disappears beneath the water of the reservoir. Go right again at the road junction at the top of the hill and walk along the quiet lane for almost a mile, climbing at first. Pass the lane for Chessonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Farm on the left. Less than a quarter of a mile farther on where the lane begins to bend left, take the footpath on the right (TQ 662 318) that follows a hedge to the bottom of the field. Turn left after passing two fine oaks to go through a gate and across a bridge. A track takes the route to Little Whiligh. Turn left along the drive to see Wadhurst church on the skyline again. When a drive rises on the left to Whiligh stableyard, descend the steps on the right (TQ 656 313) and go through a kissinggate. The path follows the hedge down at first but veers left after a hawthorn tree towards a stile in the fence at the bottom. Bear left along a grassy path to a gate and a bridge over a stream of reddish water.

Walk up the edge of a large field with fence, trees and hedge on the left. In the top corner exit to a lane, cross over and go diagonally across the pasture to reach the B2099 at Stone Cross. Turn right here and follow the pavement into Wadhurst.

DISTANCE: 5.5 miles (8.8km) OS MAPS: Landranger 188 (Maidstone & Royal Tunbridge Wells) and 199 (Eastbourne & Hastings), Explorer 136 (High Weald, Royal Tunbridge Wells) STARTING POINT: Wadhurst (there are two public car parks in the village) ROUTE TERRAIN: Field and woodland paths This is Walk 10 from the Pathfinder Guides No.67: East Sussex & the South Downs, published by Crimson Publishing (www.crimsonpublishing.co.uk). OS maps available (Landranger 188, 199, Explorer 136). Image: Over Bewl Water to Newbarn by Des Blenkinsopp

Neither the publisher nor the author can accept any responsibility for any changes, errors or omissions in this route. Diversion orders can be made and permissions withdrawn at any time.

May 2015

The Onion magazine 37

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38 The Onion magazine

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WIN WIN! A FAMILY TICKET ON THE KENT & EAST SUSSEX RAILWAY The Kent & East Sussex Railway is the country’s finest example of a rural light railway. The line gently wends its way from Tenterden - “The Jewel of The Weald” for ten and a half miles, through the unspoilt

countryside of the Rother Valley, to terminate in the shadow of the magnificent National Trust castle at Bodiam. Whether you are interested in heritage, shopping, nature, food and drink, or recreation, there is always something to enjoy when visiting the Kent & East Sussex Railway. We have a lovely family ticket to giveaway. For your chance to win the K&ESR family ticket please send your name and address to competition@ onionpublishing.co.uk with K&ESR in the subject line. Winners will be drawn and notified after the closing date. The closing date is 27 May 2015.

WIN! ONE OF FIVE COPIES OF WILD GARDEN WEEKENDS BOOK

Since 1930, Britain has lost a staggering 97% of its traditional meadows. As a response to this major change to our natural landscape, a new wild garden movement is looking to ‘rewild’ Britain’s nature and food. Bestselling author Tania Pascoe spent the last five years charting this movement and her new book, Wild Garden Weekends (£16.99 www. wildthingspublishing.com) is the result. With stunning photography and illustrated maps, Wild Garden Weekends is the first guidebook of its kind, and recommends nearly 400 of the best secret gardens, wild flower meadows, kitchen garden cafes and the most enchanting places to stay. The book is an invaluable companion for weekend breaks and holidays in the UK, and is perfect for garden lovers, foodies and nature-lovers of all ages. From traditional cottage gardens and ancient orchards, to kitchen-gardens and contemporary gardens planted for bees and wildlife, Wild Garden Weekends has plenty of suggestions for year-round discovery and adventure. For your chance to win a copy of Wild Garden Weekends please send your name and address to competition@onionpublishing. co.uk with WILDGARDEN in the subject line. Winners will be drawn and notified after the closing date. The closing date is 27 May 2015.

WIN! A LIBERTY MAINS-FREE WATER FOUNTAIN The Liberty Mains Free Water Features offer a range of beautiful moving water designs requiring no cables and no plumbing. The small, quiet and mains-free water pump is powered by newly developed lithium battery technology which gives many hours of continuous use from one charge, yet recharges in just three hours. The batteries are also available as an additional purchase so you can run one and charge one, never having a break in the enjoyment of your feature. There is a stunning choice of designs in the new Liberty range, from Romanesque and traditional styling to charming, and the fountains can be changed for different effects too. Contact your local aquatic or garden retailer or search online for your nearest Liberty Mains Free Features stockist www.libertyfeatures.co.uk. For your chance to win a Liberty Fountain please send your name and address to competition@onionpublishing.co.uk with FOUNTAIN in the subject line. Winners will be drawn and notified after the closing date. The closing date is 27 May 2015.

Please enter as directed above. Postal entries can also be sent to us at the address given on page three.

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF ENTRY: By entering these competitions you agree to receive periodic emails from The Onion magazine, Onion Publishing Ltd and the originator of the competition you are entering. You can opt out of receiving these at any time and your data will never be passed on for use by third parties. The prizes are non-transferable and have no cash alternative. Only one entry per person per competition and prizes will only be sent to homes with a TN postcode.

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Reduced priced tickets available from local outlets or online at

www.heathfieldshow.org Show Secretary: Nicola Magill - Tel: 01435 864587