The Hastings Trawler - 7 (August 2006)

EDITORIAL

The Trawler, I hope, uses logic and reason to unravel some of the issues that concern people of the South — everywhere in fact!

In pursuit of that aim, I will not kowtow to vested interests or popular received wisdom. So, in this issue, we look to debunk the ‘wind power’ myth and point out why the A259 must follow a non-urban route — as well as more historical features.

In this issue we begin a regular food column by our own mystery shopper and culinary critic who will be giving a honest opinion on where to shop for food and where to eat. The first is on fruit and veg, but if you disagree about any of the facts or opinions expressed anywhere in The Trawler don't fume — write and let us know! We welcome your feed-back.

Subscribers and sponsors are welcome, as are all articles, comments, photographs, illustrations, cartoons, etc. — and we particularly love to receive your letters.

Graham Frost, Publisher

‘Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.’

-- Benjamin Franklin

Flannel Panel Publisher Graham Frost Editor-in-Chief Francisco Ferrer i Guardia Production Editor Brian Frost

Published by Boulevard Books, 32 George St. Hastings TN34 3EA ✆ +44 (0)1424 436521 www.thehastingstrawler.co.uk editor@thehastingstrawler.co.uk Annual subscription £36.00 (UK) £46.00 (airmail RoW)

Photographer Graham Frost

Cover artwork Swan’s Way © John Huldrick John Huldrick Wilhem is a Hastings-based artist who accepts commissions for paintings, illustrations and cartoons. www.huldrick.com.

Contributors Anushka Asthana, John Barker, Nathan Dylan Goodwyn, Jan Goodey, Frank Gray, Kate Lingard, M.A.D., Nadine Marroushi, Joy Melville, Pauline Melville, Jonathan Mendenhall, Ted Newcomen, Steve Peak, Jane Wainwright

Printed by: Abbot Print, The Applestore, Workhouse Lane, Icklesham, East Sussex TN36 4BJ ✆ +44 (0)1424 815111 F +44 (0)1424 815222 @: sales@abbotprint.co.uk http://www.abbotprint.co.uk

Illustrators Lesley Prince, Richard Warren John Huldrick Wilhel

IN THIS ISSUE August 2006, Vol II, Issue 7 ISSN 1745-3321

THE TALK OF THE OLD (AND NEW) TOWN A public arena for news, views, gossip and tittle-tattle about goings-on in Hastings, St Leonards-and beyond. 2-4 EAST SUSSEX NHS TRUST: Hastingsbased paediatric neuropsychologist speeks to Anushka Asthana about her decision to leave the country in frustration at the NHS Trust’s discrimination against children with special needs.

5-6 OBITUARY: Jonathan Mendenhall says goodbye to the Old Town’s surrogate grumpy uncle, grocer Roland Smith 7 ENVIRONMENT-ENERGY I: Are wind farms the solution for reducing carbon emissions, or are they expensive mincing machines for wild birds. Nadine Marroushi investigates 8-11

Except where indicated otherwise, the copyright in all articles, photographs and illustrations remains with the author, photographer or artist. © 2006 by Boulevard Books. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be photocopied, reproduced or retransmitted without prior written authorization from Boulevard Books.

Thoughts for the month: If you find mistakes in this publication, please remember they are there for a purpose. We publish something for everyone, and some people are always looking for mistakes! ‘‘Oh, summer, scent heavy and humid / When willows weep and blackbirds sing with joy Will not the gentle dragon venture forth? / There are white petalled daisies all ripe for him to eat / And surely on evenings of such delicacy / That bastion of violence and vulgarity, St George / Will be fast asleep.’

www.tvhastings.org Hastings’ own (free) global-local internet tv channel Serving the community — and local democracy

ENVIRONMENT-ENERGY II: Energy journalist Frank Gray questions the quality and cost of wind supply 12-13 NO HIGHWAY: Graham Frost looks at the problems of the A259 14-15 HASTINGS AND THE MODS: In August, 1964, Hastings was invaded by gangs of Mods and Rockers. Jane Wainwright reflects on that day and today’s scooter culture in Hastings16-17 HASTINGS RARITIES CON: Jan Goodey reports on how Hastings became the centre of one of the twentieth century’s most brazen ornithological frauds 18-29 HASTINGS AT WAR: Author Nathan Dylan Goodwin recalls the events of one terrible Sunday in May 1943 20-21 PROFILE — Ellen Terry: The acclaimed Victorian actress loved and lived in Sussex and Kent. Joy Melville looks at her links with the area 22-24 TOWN CHIC: Kate Lingard speaks to the town’s new fashionista, Rima Sams, about clothes and life in Hastings 25-26 TABLE TALK: Our new mystery shopper and food-taster reports on eating and food shopping in the South East 26-27 FICTION: ‘Apparition Hoyle’

by Pauline Melville.

28-30

BOOK Reviews:

30-31

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR August ‘06 | THE TRAWLER

32 1

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THE

TRAWLER THE TALK OF THE OLD (AND NEW) TOWN Wind farms

LOCATE THEM IN WESTMINSTER

L

ike most Trawler readers when it comes to power (and I mean the sort that runs my kettle, as opposed to the one that declares war or increases taxation) I just want it to be reliable, cheap, and not destroy the planet.

Umm… maybe they are not so different after all?

Anyway, I was shocked to find out that when it comes to wind power generation and its contribution to saving the world from the effects of greenhouse gases and global warming then that old cliché — deckchairs and Titanic sprang immediately to mind.

‘How so?’ I hear you declaim. ‘surely wind is clean, free, renewable, infinite, safe, non-polluting, etc etc?’ Er … yes … you’re right, of course, but like so many other things in life it’s just not that simple. So here are a few reasons why we should look more closely at proposals to build new wind farms on Romney Marsh, or anywhere else for that matter. There is considerable evidence to question whether it is physically possible, economically desirable, or even technically feasible: 1) Wind is limited (except in the House of Commons) It is intermittent, which means you require backup power when it doesn’t blow. On average there are at least five times a year when there are two or three days when there is no wind to power the turbines. Somebody has to supply and pay for this backup — a factor that is conveniently ignored by 2

THE TRAWLER|August ‘06

wind-power advocates and rarely appears in their costings — more of this later.

2) Wind blows in the best scenery.

Physically, we may have some of the most suitable locations for wind farms in Europe. But the reality is that much of this resource is actually located in areas of great unspoilt natural beauty, is home to rare wildlife (especially birds), and is often already protected by legal statute.

3) Wind farms require a lot of land and don’t produce that much energy.

The footprint for more conventional power stations, such as coal, gas, or nuclear, is a fraction of that required by wind generators and they produce much more power per square metre of space. Whereas the first three can sometimes be built on existing brownfield sites, wind farms are nearly always located in greenfield areas where there are no obstacles to impede air flow. To put it into perspective, if you took all the wind farms currently in the world, and put them all on the South Downs (assuming you got planning permission). Then even on a reasonably windy day you wouldn’t achieve the aspirational 20 per cent target for renewables we have for the UK, never mind the rest of the world!

4) Wind farms only follow government subsidies.

Unlike the rest of Europe where wind power ownership is more widely distributed down to a local/ community/co-op level, the UK sector is almost totally dominated by the big utility companies. There is considerable evidence to support the

claim that the recent acceptance and popularity for wind farms only reflects the level of government (i.e. taxpayer) subsidy that the industry currently attracts. Take this away and wind power generation will deflate spectacularly leaving us with a lot of uneconomic windmills to tilt at as big business takes it profits, moves on to the next subsidised energy milk-cow, and leaves the machinery to rust.

Remember most wind turbines are designed to have a 20-year lifespan — does anyone seriously believe the government’s power policy won’t change during that period? The experience in Denmark is that investment stops as soon as the government subsidies dry up.

5) Infrastructure, environmental, and aesthetic costs for building and running wind farms are considerable.

These are rarely included in the accounting for wind power generation. For instance, it is claimed that the Romney Marsh proposals will see twenty-seven turbines erected with blades over 370 feet long (twice the height of existing pylons). The site extends to almost one and a half miles and is located close to a wildlife area of considerable importance.

The concrete foundations for the turbines will be over 100 feet deep requiring over 46,000 lorry loads of spoil to be removed. Over 15,000 cubic meters of concrete will be used in the construction process. Six-and-a-half miles of totally new roads will have to be built on virgin Romney marsh soil, requiring over 50,000 tonnes of roadstone to be imported to the area.

FORUM

6) Wind-generated power destabilises the national grid system.

Not only don’t wind farms work when there is too little wind; they won’t work if there is too much. Even when conditions are OK, it is not possible to predict accurately when and at what speed the wind will blow and hence how much power will be delivered.

Since electricity can’t be stored, supply and demand within the system has to be balanced at all times, requiring a degree of certainty over supply. This means with the inclusion of wind power ‘the grid has to be extended and reinforced, to improve security and minimise the effect on the system of the voltage and frequency fluctuations caused by the large amounts of intermittent power’.

In addition, to accommodate the intermittent nature of wind, other sources of power (coal, gas, nuclear etc) have to be highly flexible, i.e able to run at part-load or kick in very quickly. This is not much of a problem on the continent where power grids are interconnected but in a largely isolated island system like ours things are not so easy.

Back in February 2004 the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry admitted that the extra cost of reinforcing the transmission grid to cope with the addition of only 12 GW of fluctuating renewable energy would be £2.1 billion, and this figure was yet to be revised.

Nobody now seems to be talking about the true cost of the required improvements to the system or who is going to pick up the bill for this work.

And don’t forget, the more windgenerated power in the grid, the greater will become the problem and the cost to fix it.

7) Wind power is much more expensive that its promoters tell us.

Given points 1 to 6, it is clear that wind energy will cost in excess of the 0.3p/kWh indicated in the government’s White Paper. Some of us are even old and cynical enough to remember when they previously told us that nuclear energy would be so

cheap that it would be impossible to meter — yes, right!

8) Who profits from the wind parks?

In Germany, a country with more wind-generated power than Denmark, Spain, and the USA combined, Der Spiegel newspaper believes the chief beneficiaries are industry promoters, high-income investors, local politicians, and farmers whose land is necessary for the installations. This is due to fixed prices and a guaranteed purchase of the power together with write-offs for investors (sometimes more than 100 per cent of the investment in the first year). Anyone who thinks it will be any different in the UK is just kidding themselves.

9) Wind energy is better than dirty or dangerous power generated by gas, coal, or nuclear facilities.

Denmark has a non-nuclear policy, being a country with over 18 per cent of renewable energy, almost all of it from wind. Yet when the wind isn’t blowing they are perfectly happy to import nuclear generated power through the connector link from Sweden and other places. Talk about gross hypocrisy — in reality you can’t have large scale wind farms without coal, gas, or nuclear power stations to even out the problem of intermittent flow levels.

If none of the above has convinced you that large-scale wind farms are at best a mere irrelevance, or at worst a financial scam piggy-backing on the good intentions of a naïve Green lobby then read the headline in the Sunday Herald of the 24th July 2004.

It shouted, ‘Forget the threat of global terrorism. China is about to flick the switch on a global energy crisis and a time bomb that will bring massive destruction worldwide’.

The essence of the story behind the horror headline was this — never mind tinkering with wind farms, we are just fiddling while Rome (or in our case, the entire planet) burns.

Whatever we may do in the West to reduce carbon emissions, combat the greenhouse effect, and minimise climate change — it is irrelevant in the

face of the huge economic expansion in China, currently running at just below 10 per cent pa.

Here are some choice paragraphs — ‘In 1999, the country (China) produced 300,000 megawatts, by 2002 that was 338,000MW. The fiveyear plan was for 380,000MW, but it has been upgraded to 430,000MW. The state planning has set the target of 900,000MW by 2020. That’s a tripling of energy supply over 15 years.’

One environmentalist commented on the future ‘If each Chinese family has two cars like US families, then the cars needed by China, something like 600 million vehicles, will exceed all the cars in the world combined. That would be the greatest disaster for mankind... China would need the resources of four worlds to do this.’

This doomsday scenario is underlined by the BBC’s Newsnight programme that confirmed there are plans for 544 new coal-fired power stations to meet China’s insatiable demand for energy. Currently a new power station comes on line every week in China. That’s every week of every month throughout the year and the pace is not going to slacken.

A coal industry expert put it into context, ‘that’s about 80GW of new electricity generating capacity added every year and most of it comes from coal, the prime source of CO2, the global warming gas. If you add up the electricity from all the power stations in Britain, all the coal, gas, nuclear, wind, everything — that comes to about 80GW. And that’s how much China will add this year.’

Now what do you think about the proposals for the wind farm at Little Cheyne Court on Romney Marsh — are you for it, or against, does it matter?  TN Post Office fiasco

RESPECT IS A TWO-WAY THING

L

ike thousands of other Hastings residents, since the closure of seven Sub-Post Offices in the town I am August ‘06 | THE TRAWLER

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now forced to waste hours queuing up for service in the main Post Office.

The other week it was so bad one morning that one line zig-zagged right through the building and almost out the door and onto Cambridge Road — I counted over 45 people in this queue alone.

I am curious to know the last time (if ever), the Prime Minister, any of his cabinet colleagues, or indeed any MP actually used their local Post Office, and saw how long it takes to complete the very simplest of tasks. Not that I blame the staff behind the counters, they were all working flat out like battery-hens trying to keep up with the demand. In fact, I felt quite sorry for them, it looks like a desperately pressured and unrewarding job. As a result I had plenty of time to read the advertisements and notices tempting me to buy services I don’t need with money I can’t afford. Among the signs were six commandments reminding us all how to behave in public.

This sort of patronising rubbish makes you despair for the future of civilisation. Does the Post Office management seriously think the type of people who break any of the above rules of common courtesy are actually going to read these commandments, let alone take any notice of them.

Exactly for whose benefit are these notices pinned up? The staff — so that they feel the senior management actually cares about them. They’d be better off giving them a pay-rise and increasing the numbers working behind the counter. The customers — to remind them not to get bolshy after waiting half an hour to buy a couple of stamps? Or maybe some PR company that has to justify its fat fee — as if the renaming to Consignia and back again wasn’t a big enough fiasco! All this coming from a business that recently took a week to send a 1st Class Recorded Delivery item from Hastings to Eastbourne and then couldn’t explain why my documents did not appear anywhere in their automated tracking service.

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THE TRAWLER|August ‘06

Somehow, I find all this talk about respect just a bit rich.

Tell you what, lets do a deal — customers will agree to respect the Post Office as long as it respects us, and stops treating us all like sheep and provides a speedy, economic, and reliable service.  TN Hastings Council — Again!

A BIT OF A GAMBLE

O

ur irrepressible local council has succeeded in getting Hastings on the shortlist for one of the 17 new casinos under the recently passed Gambling Act. A report into the possible effect of such an establishment in the town said it could increase our ‘attractiveness to business visitors, tourists and residents’.

However, it could also ‘divert spending away from existing businesses’. I think that’s what they call having an eachway bet?

What nobody seems to be asking is how are all these high-rollers actually going to get to Hastings to spend all their hard-earned dosh? Anyone taking the A21 from London and hoping to get here for a little evening’s flutter is certainly gambling with his life, never mind his money. As for coming on the train, that’s just ridiculous, and known in betting parlance as an outside chance.

Sorry, HBC, but its never going to happen. Anybody, and I mean anybody, who knows anything about the feasibility of new tourist attractions, will tell you that good transport links are essential for success, and Hastings just doesn’t pass muster — and that’s what they call betting on a certainty. However, all is not lost and the town’s salvation may yet lie in a little know ruse being floated by our new Home Secretary, Dr. John Reid — aka Minister for Absolutely Anything and Everything. I can’t quite get my head round what kind of doctor he actually is. I think it has less to do with medicine or philosophy and more to do with time travel — as

in Dr. Who, i.e. someone that appears from nowhere, probably from another planet, tramps about the stage muttering the bleeding obvious, before disappearing into a small box to the sound of screeching gears.

The Daleks, of course, are being played by a haggle of Home Office droids who still haven’t evolved the ability to go downstairs into the filing basement to look up the records of released prisoners. Never mind cries of ‘we will exterminate’, the British public would probably settle for a more muted ‘we will repatriate’. You couldn’t make it up — we really are governed by a bunch of buffoons.

Readers may already be aware of the Time-Lord’s idea to allow victims of crime to sit on parole boards and say when criminals will be allowed out of jail. What you probably haven’t heard about are plans to save the £34,000 a year it costs to keep old lags in prison by incarcerating them in private homes. Local residents will act as warders monitoring the activities of their charges, feeding, housing, and clothing them in return for a taxable grant of about £28.75p a week.

This will have the double advantage of saving money and creating many new jobs at the local level. Hastings will become the nation’s largest open prison where inmates will find it almost impossible to escape because of the English Channel on one side and atrocious transport links on the other.

The new scheme will also mean that nobody will ever need to retire and warders will be able to work until they drop dead. In turn they will be replaced by their offspring who will have the opportunity to buy the family home free of inheritance tax providing they believe everything they are told by the government and are never critical — a brave new world indeed!  TN [ Editors note – Unfortunately, The Trawler has not been able to ascertain the veracity of all the facts in this article.]

HASTINGS NHS TRUST— SPECIAL NEEDS CHILDREN

The ‘Lost’ Special Needs Children of Hastings and Rother

by Anushka Asthana

JANIS NEWCOMEN

IS AN

NHS

PAEDIATRIC

NEUROPSYCHOLOGIST WHO HAS DECIDED TO RETURN TO THE

US

IN FRUSTRATION AT

DISCRIMINATION AGAINST CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS.

THE

FOLLOWING ARTICLE

ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN

30 JULY. JANIS’S

THE OBSERVER

COMMENTS

ON

ON THE

AFTERMATH OF THE ARTICLE’S PUBLICATION APPEAR AT THE END.

I

t was always my intention eventually to return home to the United States, but I’m going years early because in all conscience I can no longer participate in a corrupt and dysfunctional system that is dishonest in its treatment and management of children with special needs.’

Janis Newcomen throws her hands in the air in exasperation. She is part of a system that is supposed to provide for the needs of Britain's most vulnerable children, those with conditions such as autism, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and severe learning difficulties. But she has had enough.

In seven years as an NHS neuropsychologist, Newcomen has been so disgusted and upset by what she has seen that she is packing her bags and walking away. She says she can no longer bear to watch children and their families let down again and again. As a specialist who is supposed to provide help she says that she feels ‘handcuffed’, forced to accept hidden waiting lists, discrimination and constant cost cutting. She says she is officially prevented from making recommendations that could safeguard children’s futures.

‘The system is in crisis,’ she said.

‘But it is like the emperor’s new clothes — nobody is willing to tell the truth.’

Recent research has revealed that autism and associated behaviour disorders among children are far more prevalent than was previously thought.

The debate over whether such pupils

should be taught in mainstream or special schools has also been reignited by reports that the present government policy, which leans towards inclusion, is not working properly.

Researchers who studied 56,946 children in south London found that almost 0.4 per cent had ‘classic’ childhood autism and just below 1.2 per cent had autism spectrum disorders, including Asperger’s syndrome and milder forms.

Until the Nineties, the generally accepted figure in Britain was four to five cases of autism per 10,000 people — 10 times lower than the rate suggested in the new study.

It was an Observer investigation last May that triggered Newcomen’s decision to speak out. She found the story of parents struggling to get their children’s needs assessed and met by local education authorities and schools depressingly familiar. Now, as she prepares to leave her job at the Sussex Partnership NHS Trust, she no longer fears the consequences.

Newcomen talked from her office in Hastings, East Sussex, where she carries out specialist assessments and diagnostic work mainly with autistic children. Parents of such pupils experience an ordeal: ‘If you have a child [with special educational needs], it is like Russian roulette. If you are passive, you could be waiting years, but if you have a loud voice you will be seen.’

It is wrong, she argues, that so many of the children she sees have been excluded from school because of behaviour directly related to their condition, which they have no control over. ‘There are federal laws against that in the US — if it is not discrimination, I don’t know what it is.’

Moreover, it will cause serious damage in the long run as children are

brought up to feel like failures, she argues. ‘We are excluding these children from primary school. What sort of message does that give? We are excluding them from school, from society, from having any existence.

‘I think we [health practitioners] are handcuffed: we see the problems but are not able to help.'

Newcomen, 55, believes the school environment has a huge impact on vulnerable children’s lives. Many autistic children she sees are being harmed because they are taught in large classes in busy, mainstream schools, she said. Yet there is nothing she can do: she is not allowed to recommend that they be moved, even if she thinks it could transform their behaviour and make life far easier for their parents.

‘All we can do is provide information. We cannot say the child would benefit from a special school.

We cannot make recommendations.'

As an NHS worker, she said, any suggestions about where a child should be schooled would be met with anger from the local education authority.

There has long been a national debate about inclusion — whether to teach children in mainstream or special schools. Proponents say that with enough adjustments any child can be accommodated in the mainstream.

Others say there is too little money to make this a practical reality for all children, and some pupils — particularly those with severe behavioural difficulties — benefit from smaller class sizes and more intense support in a special school.

While the government denies it has a policy of inclusion, a damning House of Commons select committee report published this month disagreed. The MPs said the present provision was not ‘fit for purpose’ and that inclusion was the message the government was sending to the local authorities.

It is certainly the message that has reached Newcomen and her colleagues. ‘We are told the goal is inclusion and the goal is not to statement [issue an analysis of the child’s needs with costs attached], August ‘06 | THE TRAWLER

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HASTINGS NHS TRUST — SPECIAL NEEDS CHILDREN

because that needs extra money.’

The results are devastating, she argued. ‘It is perfectly possible for an autistic child to be happy and well adjusted. They do not have to be violent and unhappy.’ She believes inclusion could work well if every school was properly resourced, but under current conditions three out of four of the autistic children she sees would benefit from a place in a special school.

She believes that health workers are stymied because cost, rather than clinical need, drives everything. ‘You are trying to work with families with incredible distress, and no one seems to care as long as the boxes are ticked.'

One tick-box is to see children for a one-off appointment quickly so the figures on how long they have to wait stay low. According to Newcomen, paediatricians are expected to make a diagnosis and then send the family away with a brochure and a telephone number for the National Autistic Society. They are often not given repeat sessions, even when the doctors think these are needed. Those who are given more sessions are placed on a second, much longer, waiting list which, she says, is ‘kept secret’.

Ideally, families would get quarterly therapy sessions on how to understand and cope with their child's behaviour, said Newcomen, but they are not getting that support. ‘I go home at night to peace and quiet,’ she said.

'These parents never have any downtime and it can have a destructive impact on siblings.'

It is the endless list of patients who have been failed by the system that angers her most. One mother she has worked with has a son who is autistic and can be dangerous. ‘The mother has warned the school, but a statement has been turned down again and again.

We are not allowed to say he needs a statement. Instead a mysterious panel has decided to reject that child, and he has no place in a special school.’

But Newcomen points out that because the boy's autism means he can be extremely violent he is not able to go to his school full time. ‘How can his 6

THE TRAWLER|August ‘06

needs be being met in mainstream if he can’t go in for a full day? His mother is now out of work [so that she can look after him], so they have lost money. He is being discriminated against. He is not being educated because of his disability. It is heartbreaking.’

At least he got a diagnosis early.

Newcomen regularly sees patients in their mid-teens who are profoundly disabled but have gone through the system with no one ever noticing it. A 15-year-old girl referred to her had been running away, stealing and taking drugs. Newcomen assessed her as having severe learning disabilities. ‘Her cognitive ability was extremely low — 99.9 per cent of the population score higher. That put a completely different slant on her behaviour.'

In fact, failure to help these children will lead to massive social problems, according to Newcomen. Without the right support, many could go on to behave antisocially and aggressively.

The choice, she says, is: ‘Invest now or build prisons later.’

Yet investing is the last thing NHS managers want to do, in her eyes. It took her months to get approval to buy a £135 diagnostic testing kit. She had to make presentations to a committee and a ‘user group’. ‘Asking for new

equipment is agony and it made me think twice about ever asking again.

Everyone is stretched like a rubber band and it is going to snap.’

Newcomen is clear that the fault does not lie with clinicians or teachers who she ‘has nothing but admiration for’. But everyone is struggling: ‘I feel awful. I can’t provide the support. We diagnose and send them to an environment that will harm their needs.’ It is the parents who get the fallout, she adds.

‘I am frustrated. There is a discrepancy between what you hear the government say — that everything is wonderful — and what you see.' It is this daily reality that has pushed Newcomen to leave the UK. She says she is not alone. She hears ‘moaning, anger and frustration’ from colleagues who also talk about resigning from their jobs. For her, there is nothing more she can do: ‘I am feeling low on energy, very drained and hopeless.’ Working in the NHS, trying to help the children who most need it, has become ‘soul-destroying', she said.

That is why, on 27 August, she will travel with her husband to Southampton and board the Queen Mary 2 to sail back to Maryland.  (© The Observer, 30 July 2006)

Janis Newcomen writes: ‘It is fascinating to see the reactions to the above newspaper article. The Chief Executive and senior management of my NHS Trust were incandescent with rage that someone had blown the whistle on the dysfunctional system that passes for services to children with mental health difficulties and sepcial educational needs.

‘By comparison, I received dozens of accolades from local GPs, Consultants, health professionals and parents of children with special needs. One senior paediatrician commented that I may have done excellent work for the NHS over the past seven years, but speaking out in public is probably my most useful and significant achievement!

‘This government has made much of the extra investment it has put into the NHS. Yet in the seven years that I have worked there the actual level of funds reaching the front line have just not been managed effective;ly. Instead, we have seen three major re-organisations; we are now into our third Trust, and a fouth is on the cards.

‘When I first started in Hastings we had hardly any managers and no waiting list. Now we have layer upon layer of unnecessary management, and are frustrated by the lack of resources and support for a specialist service.

‘Sussex is probably no worse than other parts of the country, but we do have huge numbers of children with complex neuropsychological needs. The government’s self-imposed target of reducing waiting lists has corrupted good clinical practice. Managers, not clinicians, are now driving the system. East Sussex does not even have a dedicated Children’s Learning Disability Service. Instead, it has a single consultant psychiatrist who works only one day a week in Crowborough, which is supposed to service all of East Sussex. Management can therefore tick a box and claim to have a service, when in reality it is totally inadequate.

‘As a specialist Child Neuropsychologist I approached Management with the vision of developing my area of expertise in response to the complex needs in our local community. This was dismissed, and I was told that if this was something I wanted to do then I should look for a job elsewhere, hence my early return to the US. ‘This is not just a local issue. Like so much of modern British life, the key areas of health and education have become politicised. It’s time for the politicians and bureaucrats to bow out and allow the trained professionals to do their jobs.’ 

OBITUARY

Obituary DEATH OF A GRUMP

I

t was with a shared sense of injustice that many gathered for Roland’s funeral on June 28. At only 68 it seemed so unfair that after so many years of a life happily shackled to a daily routine of Venison and Vegetables, Roland was to be cheated of a retirement which he most certainly had earned.

We can only speculate as to how Pat would have coped with Roland under her feet all day, having got used to an ‘evenings- only’ relationship with her incorrigible Roland. No doubt she would have given her world for the opportunity to find out.

We learned at the service that Pat and Roland met over the counter at the Co-op in 1971. Pat was enchanted

by Roland’s dazzling blue eyes. True to form and an ominous portent of the workaholic years ahead, Roland married Pat on his afternoon off. Two elderly ladies returning from bingo were commandeered from the street to act as witnesses at their registry office wedding in London.

Roland, or ‘Rolly’ as he was affectionately to become known, was not only a husband and father but a surrogate grump uncle to the Old Town community of Hastings — a grouse maybe, but also a friend to many who got to understand and love this complex and uncompromising personality.

Pat received a card from a friend who described Roland as the rudest but kindest retailer he’d ever met; Does that not sum up Roland perfectly? — stroppy, defiant, beligerant and certainly outspoken... all the character aspects Roland enjoyed protraying ,and yet those who engaged with him could often detect that twinkle in the eye and became fond of a man who could be kindness itself. For Roland did enjoy people; he

Rude but kind: Roland Smith was certainly fond of many who entered his hallowed portal and enjoyed sharing the dramas of our lives not only as individuals but as a collective community.

Roland of course had his very own individual approach to customer relations — ‘bugger off’ was certainly at the top of his style book when he took umbrage to a confrontational customer, firing off broadsides when he wanted to argue, which was most of the time. When it came to a fight Roland himself had no ‘sell-by’ date.

Roland, our very own Arkwright, ‘Open All Hours’, lent a sense of something enduring to the community. He was always there and we could mark the beginning and end of our own working day as we saw the boxes going out and the boxes going in again. Indeed, he hardly seemed to have got them all out before he started carting them back in! Roland was always there, rooted to the shop — a grafter, solid,a symbol of permanance, always on our case maybe, but just by being there would have given many a

sense of community continuity. There are those who did not like him but in eliciting such reaction, the Roland brand very much made its mark.

As the Old Town changed around him, Roland, surrounded by barmy boutiques and the pretentiousness of a new London set, seemed to go into seige mentality in his green-fronted bunker — and would he change? No he would not ! That damn music! Up went the volume, he’d still insist it was chicken you wanted when you asked for lamb, and what was this incessant obsession with wild boar sausages?

Roland was religious. He was a lapsed Baptist and knowing he was poorly did consider returning to the church that nurtured his youth.

Typical Rolly, hedging his bets. If there is a God no doubt he is bickering with him already.

None of us will be able to walk past the shop in George Street without thinking of him. He was Pat’s ‘Roland’, but he was very much ours as well.  Jonathan Mendenhall August ‘06 | THE TRAWLER

7

ENVIRONMENT — Energy

The wind that shakes the barley

by Nadine Marroushi ARE

WIND FARMS THE SOLUTION FOR REDUCING CARBON EMISSION OR ARE THEY SIMPLY MINCING MACHINES FOR WILD BIRDS? THIS IS AT THE HEART OF THE ARGUMENT CURRENTLY TAKING PLACE BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTALISTS, AN ENERGY COMPANY AND THE DEPARTMENT OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY (DTI) AT LITTLE CHEYNE COURT (LCC). THE TRAWLER’S NADINE MARROUSHI SPEAKS TO PHILIP MERRICKS, MANAGER OF THE CHEYNE COURT NATURE RESERVE

N

power renewables, a subsidiary of the energy company npower, has planning permission from the DTI to build 26 wind turbines at a location on the Kent-East Sussex border between Romney Marsh, Dungeness and Rye known as Little Cheyne Court. The controversy is that LCC is adjacent to a Nature Reserve known as Cheyne Court, which is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) for its internationally recognised important bird population.

Some environmentalists fear that npower’s project will pose a serious threat to the life of birds in the area.

Npower renewables’ defence is that the project is in line with Government targets to generate 10% of the UK’s electricity demand from renewable sources by 2010. The wind farm at LCC would provide an equivalent amount of energy as consumed by 80% of the houses in the local district, in this case Shepway, with renewable energy. This would reduce the UK’s emission of CO2 by 130,000 tonnes over the 25 year expected operational life of the wind farm. Therefore, npower renewables argue that they are 8

THE TRAWLER|August ‘06

leading the way for the South-East to become a more environmentally friendly region.

However, for environmentalists the solution is not so simple. Wind farms bring with them bad news for birds.

The Cheyne Court Nature Reserve is part of the Dungeness to Pett Level Important Bird Area (IBA), and migratory route. The Reserve is protected by European Wildlife Law. Important birds on the site include the Bewick’s swan and shoveler, cormorant, mute swan, white-fronted geese, teal, wigeon, gadwall and golden plover.

LCC as an independent piece of land is not under any official protection for its bird population, and that is why planning permission was given. Nevertheless, environmentalists believe that the birds travel across from Cheyne Court to Little Cheyne Court to feed on the oil seed rape fields. Whilst in migration they could come into collision with pylon wires and die instantly.

The wires that are currently at LCC serve the Dungeness Nuclear Power Station.. To tackle the risk of collision, npower renewables are building all of

their wires underground; however, they cannot escape the problem that some of the larger wires will have to remain over ground. On occasions when the sky is clear the travelling birds will able to see the wires, and fly past them, but on dark, rainy nights they will not. Environmentalists consider this a risk too great to justify a wind farm at LCC. On the other hand, npower renewables consider the risk to avian species minimal and stress the importance of addressing the urgent need to combat climate change.

PHILIP MERRICKS

P

hilip Merricks is an environmentalist with a bold voice who is speaking out against npower’s developments at LCC. He provided evidence against the wind farm at the public inquiry, and has instigated the request for a judicial review.

Philip currently manages the Cheyne Court Nature reserve alongside 2 of 100 National Nature Reserves, Elmley and the Swale, in partnership with English Nature (EN). He has managed land for environmental objectives since the 1990s. He serves as Chairman for a number of wildlife and agricultural organisations, and was a member of the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA). In 1999 he was appointed MBE for services to nature conservation.

The Cheyne Court Reserve, part of the larger Romney Marsh Nature Reserve, has a long history of being recognised for its wildlife importance.

It was the first reserve to be established by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) in 1929. In the 1950s the RSPB suffered a financial crises and the reserve was sold by the Society and reverted to farmland, until Philip purchased it in the 1990s when he converted the land back to its earlier role as a bird rich nature reserve.

Philip’s involvement with NWP began in 2001 when the then

Energy — ENVIRONMENT

Development Manager of the project, approached Philip for a chat.

What did NWP want from you?

NWP approached me because they wanted to build wind turbines immediately adjacent to the Cheyne Court Nature Reserve. They wanted to know if they could build a few turbines on my land with the understanding that they would pay me £9,000 per turbine per year as rent.

What were your initial reactions to the proposal?

I was at first intrigued, because some years earlier I had investigated the possibility of installing a wind turbine on the Elmley Reserve. My involvement with the BWEA gave me some understanding of the issues involved with wind power. My research concluded that damage caused to the environment outweighed the benefits, so I did not proceed with installing a wind turbine.

Similarly, when I read the draft contract licence given to me by the developer during our conversation I realised that the scale of the development, and the siting of the wind turbines was wholly inappropriate to the protection of important birds in the area. I declined the offer.

What happened after you declined NWP’s proposal?

NWP obtained permission from three landowners to build wind turbines at Little Cheyne Court. Then they had to apply for planning permission from the local councils, which in this case were Kent County Council and Shepway District Council. However, both councils voted against the wind farm.

Shepway DC’s Development Control Committee (Lib Dem, Conservative, Labour) voted unanimously by the massive margin of 14-0 to refuse permission for the wind farm. Shepway DC’s ruling cabinet (Lib Dem) subsequently voted unanimously (6-0) to oppose the wind

farm. NWP then had the right to appeal, which they did.

The 1989 Electricity Act, under section 36, states that consent is required from the Secretary of State (Department of Trade and Industry) for generating stations where the permitted capacity exceeds 50MWe. At Little Cheyne Court the wind farm would have an installed capacity of between 52 and 78MW. NWP used this Act to appeal for an enquiry from the DTI. However, this Act was not intended for wind farms.

It was intended for emergency supplies of coal, gas and fuel stations.

For example, if a whole town lost its electricity, then the Secretary of State is responsible for issuing a new station.

The context of the Act was completely ignored, and misused.

You were not satisfied with the results of the assessment, why is that?

For the public enquiry assessments the developers needed to employ people to see where the birds were going during winter time. However, the ornithological assessments were carried out in such a way, which make them very unfair.

Both I and a local ornithologist, recall the use of unusually intensive bird scaring regimes in the area during the period of survey. Very loud motorbikes were being driven at the birds to scare them off, so that when inspectors arrived the following morning there were no birds on site.

As a result, that is what was put in the report.

This is a £60 million project, and it is being paid for by us. It comes from the self-tax on our electricity bills, which comes under Renewable Obligations. A part of the money we pay towards our electricity bill is put aside for renewable energy. This money will go towards paying NWP’s developers to carry out their work.

NWP is owned by a mammoth company in Germany called Rheinisch Westfaelische Energiegesellschaft (RWE). RWE is a

company with huge sums of borrowings, and are in debt.

I am incensed that the UK taxpayer is paying a German utility company to clear their debts, and destroy British wildlife.

Given the need for alternative energy in light of global warming, if wind power is not the solution, then what is?

I am all for alternative energy, including on- and offshore wind farms, when it is appropriately sited, and won’t disturb wildlife. Moreover, individual efforts need to be made to lower energy consumption. If everyone switched of their TV, video and other electrical items at night this would be enough to turn off two generating power stations.

Furthermore, too many people rely on central heating to warm up in winter, instead of putting on an extra jumper.

There would be more environmental benefits if equivalent grants, such as those that are being given to NWP to develop the wind farm, were given for roof insulation and low energy light bulbs. However, the reason the Government does not do this is because visually it does not make as much of an impact. If you see wind turbines, you see that something is being done about climate change. It is an icon that change is happening, but it is not the only way to reduce CO2 emissions.

Why do you think NWP chose that site for their development?

They chose that spot, because there are very few houses in the vicinity; it is

August ‘06 | THE TRAWLER

9

ENVIRONMENT — Energy

an open landscape. The main protests about wind farms come from people, but in this case no one is directly effected except for birds who do not have a voice.

The fury with NWP’s development also lies in their approach when revealing to the public their plans. Can you tell me more about this?

At their promotional displays in Rye, Camber and Brookland they distributed the Environmental Statement, a non-technical summary, submitted to the councils of Kent and Shepway, and to the DTI for planning permission at Little Cheyne Court.

The statement said: ‘The proposed wind farm at Little Cheyne Court is within the administrative jurisdiction of Kent County Council and Shepway District Council. Both support the provision of a wind farm in the area around Little Cheyne Court.’

This statement is untrue, and was proven so when both Kent County Council and Shepway District Council subsequently voted against the development of a wind farm.

I, along with many other prominent environmentalists in the local area, am doubtful of a company who is willing to lie to pursue its own interests.

Furthermore, I am concerned, because the danger is that this specific case will be used in the public and political arena to devalue the cause for renewable energy in general, and onshore wind farms in particular.

Philip’s fight for the protection of Cheyne and Little Cheyne Court’s wildlife will resume in two weeks when a court hearing is taking place to determine whether there is any merit in having a judicial review of the DTI’s decision. Philip’s defence is that NWP’s development is in breach of European Wildlife Law. The events at LCC bring into question the powers of state.

Government departments are currently allowed to overrule local authority when it is clear that this 10

THE TRAWLER|August ‘06

would act against the majority of local opinion. Should power for planning decisions be completely handed over to the local district councils, and would that allow for an objective decision to be made? Moreover, in this case, it seems that a new law for renewable energy sources should be in place, instead of using the out-of context Electricity Act. What do you think? Send your comments to The Trawler.

SIMON HOLT — NWP When asked to comment on the events at Little Cheyne Court NWP were more than willing to have a chat.

I spoke with Simon Holt, the current Development Manager of the project at Little Cheyne Court. He has overseen the project for 2 years, though it started 7 years ago.

What are the benefits of your project?

There is an urgent need to tackle climate change. Companies like ours are working in response to Government targets to reduce CO2 emissions. The South-East region has set itself a target of achieving an installed generating capacity of over 500MW of renewable energy, and the wind farm at LCC will provide 150,000,00 kWh of electricity a year for 25 years. LCC represents a genuine opportunity to make progress in renewable energy for the South-East.

Why choose protected land?

When choosing land we were looking for areas in the South-East, which fit certain criteria for wind speed, proximity of dwellings, ecological designations, and electricity infrastructure. LCC provides a good match against these criteria.

We were fully aware that LCC was adjacent to an SSSI, and IBA. This influenced the design of the farm to a heavy extent. The company undertook 3 years of research prior to the public inquiry to know the bird movements. The project began with 36 turbines, but as a direct result of

the surveys we have reduced it to 26.

We have developed an environmental management plan looking at where birds are feeding, and have an agreement with EN and the landowner to create specific areas where birds will be drawn to away from the wind farm.

Can you clear up the misunderstanding of the Environmental Statement?

Certainly; the confusion has arisen from the wording in the NonTechnical Summary. If you continue to read the paragraph from which you quoted it says: ‘Shepway District Council’s revised Local Plan of 2002 in Policy U14 specifically states that the Dungeness/Romney Marsh area may contain suitable sites for wind turbines or other renewable energy developments. Any project would be judged against [certain] criteria. In this area, particular attention should be paid to the need to protect bird life.’

This paragraph appeared under the ‘Policy’ section and stated that our project was supported by the policies of Shepway District Council and Kent County Council for renewable energy, not that we had their support, as some may have understood it.

Did you pay for DTI inspectors to assess the land? If so, do you think they offered an objective assessment?

For any electric generator that exceeds 50MW an application for planning permission must be made to the DTI under the 1989 Electricity Act. At the same time, the applicant must pay the costs of a public inquiry.

Therefore, we did pay the costs of the DTI inspectors, but out of obligation.

DTI When asked to comment on the events at LCC the DTI stated that they would not answer specific questions, since the DTI’s approval of the wind farm is subject of a legal action. However, they confirm that LCC is not an area formally

Energy — ENVIRONMENT

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The RSPB argue that over the lifetime of the development there is a risk significant numbers of birds will be killed by collision with the turbines, or excluded from important feeding areas through disturbance. The RSPB believes that this is the wrong location for a wind farm. Nevertheless, they will work with developers to monitor that area, and make sure that any identified impacts on birds are mitigated as they are detected.

In June 2006 a very similar incident occurred at Smøla, a set of islands off the north-west Norwegian coast. A key population of Europe’s largest eagle, the white-tailed eagle, was significantly reduced by a wind farm; turbine blades killed nine birds in 10 months. Smøla was also designated an IBA; however, the Norwegian

government ignored warnings of the consequences for wildlife before it was built. Let’s learn a lesson from our Norwegian friends to avoid replicating history. Global warming is a bleak reality, for which solutions are needed. While preserving the planet and human life let’s not forget to include our furry friends.  References www.cat.org.uk — offers practical solutions for reducing energy consumption www.rspb.org.uk — a UK charity working towards a healthy environment for birds www.tvenergy.org — the site provides useful info on renewable energy sources www.see-stats.org — provides useful statistics on renewable energy for the South-East www.dti.gov.uk -— they have a section on energy policy www.npower-renewables.com — the developers www.shell.co.uk — very useful diagrams to illustrate wind energy www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts1989/Ukpga_19890029_en_1.htm — 1989 Electricity Act www.english-nature.org.uk/ — working for environmental objectives www.bwea.com/ — information on the UK wind energy industry www.countryside-jobs.com/discussion/Windfarm_evidence/Romney_Marsh.pdf — fact sheet on LCC August ‘06 | THE TRAWLER

11

ENVIRONMENT — Energy

Sowing the wind

By Frank Gray JUST AS

NATURAL GAS WAS THE EXCITING NEW ENERGY SOURCE OF THE

1990S,

SO

WILL THE TORCH BE PASSED TO WIND POWER IN THE FIRST DECADES OF THIS CENTURY.

BUT JUST AS ALARMS ABOUT SECURITY OF GAS SUPPLY HAVE ALARMED THE INDUSTRY, ESPECIALLY IN CENTRAL AND WESTERN EUROPE, SO MIGHT THE QUALITY - AND COST OF WIND SUPPLY SEND SIMILAR ALARMS RUNNING THROUGH THE SECTOR. ntil the start of this century, wind this analysis is the word ‘reasonable’ by power was scarcely a factor in the which is meant a plant processing expansion plans of the electricity consistent and firm supplies of wind, supply industry, still in the throes of something the wind power industry deregulation. But aided by extensive cannot guarantee. (Nuclear power and government subsidies, themselves rushing water in a hydropower scheme spurred by the fear of global warming, are also to be considered as fuels by the installation of wind power way of comparison but such is their turbines, mainly in Europe and the concentration or volume that, once in United States, has proceeded at a operation their efficiency and output is easily measurable.) gallop, albeit it from a low base.

The BWEA adds that wind energy is The most aggressive proponents of wind power at present are Germany, equivalent to new-tech, clean coal with 18,000MW of wind power power and cheaper than nuclear. capacity, Spain at 10,000 MW, the US Wind power costs 3 pence-4 pence per at 9,100MW, Denmark at 3,100MW unit; clean coal 2.5 pence-4.5 pence and the UK at 1,600MW. The and nuclear 4 pence-7 pence per unit.

International Energy Agency (IEA), The association has acknowledged based in Paris says that wind power that wind power units produce programmes have seen capacity in IEA electricity at 70 to 80 per cent of the countries (the OECD bloc, including time but output varies. Over two Japan and South Korea) boom to years, it will generate 30 per cent of 28.1GW in 2003 from 2.4GW in the theoretical maximum output 1990, a 23 per cent annual growth against a conventional power load factor average of 50 per cent. rate.

The German Energy Agency has Impressive though these figures may be, the sector has not been able to rounded on the proponents of wind avoid the quicksand of controversy power, claiming that it will cost about the true cost of supplying power Germany Eu 1.1bn (£700m) to link to the electricity industry. Questions wind farms to the national power grid. are being asked about its commercial Germany, the most high tech country viability, can wind power stand alone in Europe, has a set a target of 20 per as an energy source as do the cent of energy supply by 2015 to come heavyweight power fuels coal, gas and from renewables.

Germany now has 15,000 wind nuclear, can it ever be a base load energy source or a high yield turbines.

The subsidisation issue begs the alternative power supplier?

The British Wind Energy questions, can the elecrtricity supply Association (BWEA) says that a single industry push renewables, led by 1.8MW turbine operating as a wind, into the realm of profitability — 'reasonable' site would produce 4.7m without subsidies — or will subsidies units of power each year and supply (or an element of government 1,000 houses. The significant term in protection) always remain part of the

U

12

THE TRAWLER|August ‘06

operational equation as they have with the nuclear sector.

The Paris-based IEA reports that the average price for large, modern, onshore wind farms is about $1,000 per kilowatt of electric power installed, or off-the shelf. Off-shore installations can cost between 35 per cent and 100 per cent more. It stresses that these figures are basic and do not include potential costs for grid integration and back up capacity. (It is to be noted that the 'factoring out' of site selection, inquiries, cost of equipment, land purchases and construction time and costs is a frequent factor in calculating electricity supply costs in third world countries, such as India and China and Brazil so as to minimise the true per kWh cost of hydro and coal powered schemes.)

While conceding that production costs from the best onshore sites have dropped to $0.03 cents-$0.04/kWh, it says that lower wind speeds increase electricity costs.

‘Taking into consideration the differences in sites, capital costs and wind speed ranges result in a very high variation in the cost of wind in different countries and locations from between $0.03/kWh through to $0.20/kWh. ‘In most markets wind is not competitive today, but it is helped by

ECCLESBOURNE GLEN

Sowing the wind (continued) favourable feed-in tariffs; technology learning will further reduce costs, but CO2 reduction incentives will help bridge the gap between fossil-fuelled power plants and wind."

The IEA, while forceful about the importance of wind power, is nevertheless sanguine. Costs will have to be reduced to make it cost competitive; then too there is the issue of public acceptability of wind farms and doubts about intermittency and the impact on grid stability.

It suggests that going offshore ‘may’ alleviate concerns about upsetting the aesthetics of the landscape. The wind power business has been subjected to an increasing number of environmental complaints because of the noise pollution created by onshore turbines. Furthermore the issue of intermittency and its effect on grid stability may find resolution with the development of more sophisticated grid management systems, demandside management schemes and electricity storage systems.

While it will be a few years yet before it is known what the pure operating costs of wind power complexes will be in the cold room environment of no more subsidies, the IEA believes that wind power is sufficiently advanced to be ready for the market. 

Going....

...going...

...still going...

Frank Gray worked for 23 years handling foreign news for the Financial Times. The last 15 of those years he was editor of Power in Asia and Power in Latin America, then part of the FT's energy newslettere division. Since 2002 he has been contributing to a range of energy publications and also writes for the leisure pages of a number of newspapers.. Gray is an American-born Canadian who has lived in the UK since 1977. ...Gone!

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August ‘06 | THE TRAWLER

13

TRANSPORT

No expeditious highway

by Graham Frost

T

he A259 is a major road in the United Kingdom, running along the south coast, with part of the A259 running almost parallel to the A27 road. The A259 runs east close to Havant in Hampshire, into Sussex via Chichester, Bognor Regis, Littlehampton, Worthing, Lancing, Shoreham-by-Sea, Portslade, Hove, Brighton, Peacehaven, Newhaven, Seaford, Eastbourne, Pevensey, Bexhill, St Leonards, Hastings and Rye. Over the border in Kent, it continues through New Romney and Hythe to terminate at Folkestone.The A259 cuts right through Hastings and St. Leonards on sea, effectively acting as a barrier to access the foreshore and beach.

Between Pevensey and Brenzett (where the A259 meets the A2070), the A259 becomes a section of the South Coast Trunk Road. Unusually for a trunk road, the A259 is almost entirely single-carriageway, with only a 1km stretch of urban dual carriageway in Bexhill. Bypasses have been proposed for virtually all of the settlements on the trunk and former trunk sections, but all have been shelved. Of note is that the road passes through the town of Winchelsea, England’s first new town Ref.1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A259_road

TEMPERATURE INVERSION. A temperature inversion is a thin layer of the atmosphere where the decrease in temperature with height is much less than normal (or in extreme cases, the temperature increases with height). An inversion, also called a 14

THE TRAWLER|August ‘06

‘stable’ air layer, acts like a lid, keeping normal convective overturning of the atmosphere from penetrating through the inversion. This can cause several weather-related effects. One is the trapping of pollutants below the inversion, allowing them to build up.

If the sky is very hazy, or sunsets are very red, there is likely an inversion somewhere in the lower atmosphere.

Inversion are common in Hastings due to: 1) The geology of the Hastings basin, with the ridge to the rear and sea to the front.

2) The speed difference in the heating of land and sea by the sun.

How it occurs is that as the sun rises and heats the land and sea, the land warms up faster than the sea. Warm air rises from the land and cold air from the sea moves in to replace it.

The ridge acts as a natural barrier preventing this cold air from moving further inland. This cold air is heavier than the air above it and so is trapped.

Traffic flowing along the A259 contributes particulate matter and fumes which are also trapped. The worst pollutants come from the elderly diesel buses and H.G.Vs. These pollutants also affect the rate at which the land between the ridge and the sea, heats up. In effect they slow down the rate and prolong the temperature inversion. info@weatherstreet.com

Efforts to control the traffic flow also contribute to the pollutant emission, as engines are least polluting when they are not starting or stopping due to traffic lights and crossings, but

running at a steady speed ( usually 4050 mph) On of Judges’ postcard in our last issue gives a vivid impression of this inversion, and on a hot summer’s day you may witness the same effect as you drive into Hastings from beyond the ridge, along the A21. I used to work in Wadhurst where it would be ‘bright sunny and boiling hot’ and the effect of getting back to Hastings town was as if one had entered a refrigerator full of trapped mist and pollution.

Hastings was once the resort for people with chest and respiratory illness. The number of Hydro-hotels and chest clinics attest to this. Now inhalers are a common sight. Is there a link? Is the poor air quality and damage to our children’s and old person’s health the price the citizens of the our town must pay, to safe-guard others standards of living?

LOCAL — NO LOCAL TRAFFIC. Local traffic in the context of a bypass, is taken to mean journeys of less than eight kilometres return, involving the movement of people, goods and services along the A259 and other associated local roads. Examples would be the school run, weekly/monthly shopping trips, and business and work related journeys.

These journeys are time-specific and hence tidal-peaking at between 07:30 to 0840 and 15:00 to 17:40. The timings being related to the start and ending of the working day and the school day.

The bulk of the schools and supermarkets are located outside of the Hastings town centre area, as are the larger residential areas. The sea front and town centre are mainly retail and short stay letting accommodation, a vestige of this area’s role in the hotel and guest-house trade. The A259 runs along the sea front. The ring roads use residential streets and roads and include, for example: The Ridge, Braybrooke Road, Filsham Road and other roads. The A259 as well as

TRANSPORT

cutting right through Hastings and St. Leonards on sea, effectively acts as a barrier to access to the foreshore and beach. Also, because of its status as a trunk road, it blocks all local plans involving any change to its usage, control of it being outside that of the local and county council. They have no power over it.

Under the Trunk Roads Act 1936, about 30 of the main roads in Great Britain were made trunk roads. This meant that the then Minister of Transport took direct control, as the Highway Authority, over the most important through-roads in the country (some 4,459 miles of road).

Over the intervening years many more miles of existing road have been ‘trunked’ and many lengths of new trunk roads have been built. Virtually all motorways are trunk roads. The length of the trunk road network (as of February 2003) in England is 5,830 miles (9,380 km). In 1830 there were more than 1,000 turnpike companies in England, maintaining 32,000 kilometres of road The Highways Agency: http://www.highways.gov.uk/knowledge/1813.aspx

POLEGATE-EASTBOURNE BYPASS The new A27 (T) Polegate Bypass, which opened on 19th June 2002, has attracted around 23,500 vehicles per day on an average weekday, with an immediate reduction in traffic using the old A27 Hailsham Road through Polegate of around 10,000 vehicles over an average weekday, which represents a 54 per cent reduction in traffic levels.

Traffic flows through Pevensey and Westham has been significantly reduced. Traffic flows on the Pevensey bypass (A27) has increased by some 4,400 vehicles per day (49 per cent) while the daily traffic flows through Pevensey and Westham on the B2191 traffic has been reduced by 2,700 vehicles per day (24 per cent).

Executive Summary Report May 2003 The Highways Agency

Eastbourne and Brighton have both got rid of trunk routes which use urban residential roads to carry nonlocal traffic. Rye, Winchelsea, Hastings & St.Leonards and Bexhill will now carry between twenty and thirty thousand vehicles per day along the access roads for peoples homes.

Additionally, about a thousand heavy goods vehicles a day will continue to use this route. The by-pass must bypass all these towns! It must not use existing urban roads.

RAIL AND PUBLIC TRANSPORT? Hastings currently spends about one million pounds on the Arrow bus service each year. It has had little impact on car and other usage in the town. (In fact one councillor suggested paying the bus passengers to use taxis, as it would cost less!)

Similarly, the rail link to Ashford via Rye also is subsidised, and has had little effect, the rail operator indeed reducing the carrying capacity due to the low demand for this service. The rail link to Brighton is better until Eastbourne. Here the train goes down into Eastbourne then out again adding about 40 minutes to the journey time. Had those great Victorian railway builders been able to build a rail line between Dover and Brighton, they would have done sobut the Victorians — even with cheap labour and the wealth of nation, could not do so. Because of the tunnels and viaducts and cuttings that line would require. In fact, even if such a line were to be built, people are choosing not to use the provided services, in spite of all the taxes, charges and costs, not to mention the

legislation involved in owning and using a car, and in a democratic society, this should be celebrated. You need only to look out of the train window to see the environmental devastation caused by a railway as trees are removed from embankments and the constant spraying of herbicides on the ballast rail bed, let alone the cost of maintaining it all. The road to London the A21 has trees which meet over head! Try driving along the M20 as it runs near the London to Ashford mainline. The motorway carries thousands of vehicles per hour and earns the government millions of pounds in various taxes. The rail line carries less than a thousand passengers in each direction in the same hour.

Just to improve the line to high-speed status, the government has agreed to underwrite the project by £1.3 bn., and as is well known this line still loses money.

People are taking control of their transport needs and refusing to be dictated to by the petty bureaucrats, landowners and their acolytes the socalled environmentalists, who would decide how and when we may travel and ultimately where. 

Sources High speed rail-link http://www.arup.com/europe/feature.cfm?pageid=367 Road facts. http://www.highways.gov.uk/roads/projects/10950.htm http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_roads/documents/downloadable/dft_roads_504925.pdf Hastings to Ashford railway. http://www.southernrailway.com/survey.php?m=feedback&s=25 Climactic inversion effects. http://www.pscleanair.org/airq/inversion.shtml August ‘06 | THE TRAWLER

15

HASTINGS — LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU

LA

T

HAS

by Jane Wainwright

OVER THE WEEKEND OF AUGUST 1-2 1964, HASTINGS WAS INVADED BY GANGS OF ‘ADOLESCENT’ MODS AND ROCKERS RIDING MOTOR SCOOTERS AND MOTOR BIKES. JANE WAINWRIGHT, A HASTINGS-BASED SCOOTER AFICIONADO AND FORMER MOD, EXPLAINS A LITTLE OF THE HISTORY, CULTURE AND ATTRACTIONS OF SCOOTER RIDING.

H

ere by the sea and sand…’ A line from Quadrophenia, that film and soundtrack which encapsulates a peculiarly British way of life for Mods.

The Who played Hastings Pier almost forty years ago; Mods have been synonymous with seaside towns since the 60s, and now Hastings is marking this endearing, quintessentially British movement with a permanent display of Mods and Rockers paraphernalia.

The Rockers had their bikes and the Mods proudly rode…scooters.

Scooters have been around in Hastings for more than forty years.

On any weekend, but particularly Bank Holidays, they can be seen cheerfully buzzing past or parked-up, majestically, front wheels turned elegantly in line. As you walk around enjoying the sunshine, you’ll often see individual or groups of vintage scooters neatly parked, their paintwork and chrome finish 16

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gleaming in the sun. So here’s a quick guide to what you are looking at.

They’re not mopeds, for starters.

Mopeds are the whiny 50cc machines, usually sprayed in electric navy, being ridden erratically by students, complete with ‘L’ plates. No, these are the proud Italian Vespas and Lambrettas, generically called scooters. Scooters usually have an engine capacity of 125-200cc and second hand, can sell for anything from £300 to £6,000.

In 2006, the scene is still vibrant, if rather more low-key than in the heady, Mod days of 1966. To mark this anniversary, Hastings Museum is planning a permanent ‘Mods and Rockers’ display when it reopens in Spring 2007, including a classic Lambretta and original Mod clothing.

Contributions from local residents are welcome, so if you don’t need that Tonic suit anymore because the

waistband has shrunk, Beatrice Cole would be delighted to have it!

Lambrettas and Vespas have been part of the scenery here since the infamous Mods and Rockers skirmishes of 1964. The Daily Mirror subhead for August 3 1964 reads ‘the time, YESTERDAY, the place HASTINGS. The tempo, QUICK, very quick.’ The accompanying article, in disapproving tabloid tones refers to the ‘turbulent teenaged tide’ of young Mods and Rockers who had descended on the town on their ‘motor scooters and motor bikes.’

In 2006, scooterists are more likely to be family men and women with jobs than the infamous ‘yobs’ the tabloids gleefully labelled their ascendants.

Rob is a scooter-riding Mod. It’s been a way of life for him since he was sixteen. He was there in Brighton in ’66 and remembers it with a smile.

‘I got my first scooter when I was sixteen. It was black and chrome — really beautiful. We’d spend all Sunday morning polishing our scooters, then head off to Brighton for a run. It was a lot freer in the Sixties. We didn’t have to wear helmets. It was dangerous, but fun.’

Rob remembers the trouble too.

‘Like the time a group of us Mods pulled up at the traffic lights. The next thing, a great roaring sound filled the air and we were surrounded by a pack of Rockers. We kept staring ahead,

Daily Mirror. Wednesday August 3, 1964

A INGS

Daily Mirror. Monday August 3, 1964

LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU — HASTINGS

pretending they weren’t there and waiting for the lights to change. Then we heard — above the racket of their engines — the most welcome sound of two-stroke engines. We looked round to see a massive pack of scooters come round the corner and the Rockers were sandwiched between us then. Turned the tables on them, gave them something to worry about!’

All over Britain, the scooter scene has survived through dedicated members of scooter clubs who have one thing in common, a love of these elegant Italian machines. Locally, 1066 Saxons S.C. has been going for the last few years. The members aren’t Mods — with a few exceptions — though most appreciate the aesthetic beauty of restored vintage scooters.

The club is a friendly, non-elitist entity, whose members are both male and female scooter owners.

If you are into Sixties style, Hastings is one of the best places to be. There are groovy shops in London that cater for this taste, such as Velvet Illusion in Camden, but there are better bargains to be had locally. Check out The High

Street Retro Centre in the Old Town – as the name suggests, it’s in the High Street. Not only can the astute shopper pick up some groovy threads, there is funky Sixties furniture too, reasonably priced. Time Warp has relocated from the Pier to Bexhill, but is worth a browse for Sixties A-line dresses and psychedelic shirts. Getting changed in a Tardis is a unique experience we should all try.

Scooters have been synonymous with celebrities over the decades — from Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday to Brit Pop singers scowling around London.

Many scooterists use their machines all year round, but the highlight of the calendar is the Isle of Wight rally at the end of August. It is a brilliant experience to be riding as part of a huge group, heading down the A roads and being joined by others on the way. Seen Quadrophenia? Well, it’s an uplifting experience to be part of a phalanx of lovingly restored, gleaming Italian machines.

The low points of the scooter scene

are driving against lashing, horizontal rain on the way to a rally at Skegness, or standing freezing at the side of some lonely B road, kicking the side panels of a scooter that has suddenly decided not to go anymore. Usually a Lambretta.

Much more temperamental than the Vespa.

Having been a Vespa-owning Mod in the 1980s during the Mod revival, I’ve now gone over to the dark side and bought a vintage 1964 Lambretta.

I fell for its silver curves and the unspoken promise of rides through the Sussex lanes and along coast roads.

Hopeless romantic.

There isn’t really much animosity between bikers and scooterists; that was a hornet’s nest stirred up by the media in the mid-Sixties. Usually there is an unwritten code, a fraternity almost, whereby another rider will help you out if in trouble on the road.

Two wheels good, four wheels bad. 

August ‘06 | THE TRAWLER

17

THE GREAT HASTINGS RARITIES FRAUD

IN

THE WORLD OF THE TWITCHER, THE

HASTING RARITIES AFFAIR MUST HOLD THE HITLER DIARIES HAVE FOR YOUR MODERN DAY POLITICAL HISTORIAN. THIS IS A BIRD-WATCHER’S VERY OWN NESSIE, PILTDOWN MAN AND CROP CIRCLE, ROLLED INTO ONE. DID THE TURN OF THE 20TH CENTURY REALLY WITNESS ONE OF THE MOST BRAZEN FRAUDS TO HIT OUR ORNITHOLOGICAL SHORES?

SAME KUDOS/FASCINATION THAT THE

I

t all began in 1890 when a disproportionately large number of rare sightings started to be recorded in and around Hastings; until by 1930 around 600 rare birds had been seen or shot; birds like the Slender-Billed Curlew, a specimen currently in Hastings museum. All this went largely unnoticed until August 1962, when the ornithological journal British Birds published articles by James Ferguson-Lees and Max Nicholson.

Using detailed statistical analysis and comparison of various records from nearby Kent, they seemed to prove that many of the sightings were fraudulent.

There followed a series of sensational newspaper headlines and the ‘Hastings Rarities Fraud’ was born, the case becoming a cause célèbre of international proportions with papers as far afield as the Sydney Daily Telegraph, and Italy’s, Il Tempo, reporting on it in minute detail.

Neither Ferguson-Lees or Nicholson courted publicity here and had no desire to directly accuse anyone, however the British papers were, true to form, less scrupulous and quick to point the finger firmly at Hastings 18

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gunsmith and taxidermist, George Bristow, whose callings fitted neatly with an MO (modus operandi) as well as motive — fame.

It was claimed that the rare birds were brought into the country from abroad and then planted as locally shot examples. Initial suspicions were actually raised in the years leading up to 1916 when the then British Birds editor, Mr H F Witherby, wrote to Hastings birder and egg collector Thomas Parkin outlining his qualms.

The letter spurred Bristow (who died in 1947 leaving a collection of 300 birds cased and mounted) into action and the local gunsmith wrote to the editor offering to have the birds examined by experts after skinning them — the birds not the experts, that is. A panel consisting of a number of eminent ornithologists was convened and a majority of the specimens were examined. The results were mixed, with one of the experts, a one-time honorary editor of British Birds, Dr N F Ticehurst, refuting claims of fraud in the birds he examined, which included many of the rarest. However, subsequently the number of rare sightings did in fact fall, although this could equally

Eastern Little Bustard

by Jan Goodey

Hastings Natural History Society, 1906

Rare birds

have been down to the First World War being at its peak.

Debate hasn’t let up since — books, TV and radio programmes — even though the vast majority of twitchers now accept something was seriously awry. Cathy Walling, assistant curator at Hastings Museum, said: ‘My own view has changed a bit over the years.

I would love to think they were all genuine records, but I now believe that some deception took place.

Unfortunately, it’s now impossible to disentangle the good records from the bad, and the only way is probably to remove all the material from the record.

‘John Manwaring-Baines, the curator at Hastings in 1962, when the British Birds report was published, was prepared to defend our Slenderbilled Curlew against all attack — it was one of the records removed.’ This was one of the recommendations to come from the British Birds article, that 16 species and 13 sub-species be wiped completely from the records, as well as the 600 birds mentioned earlier. However, and this was the rub, birds could be reinstated into the The Handbook of British Birds subject to valid verification, case by case. And so we had Manwaring-Baines’ battle for the curlew and the reinstatement of a number of birds including the White-spotted Bluethroat recorded

by Dr Ticehurst.

The whole affair takes on an Agatha Christie-like air, minus the murders of course, with claim, counter claim, doubts and recriminations.

According to Walling the repercussions are still being felt: ‘It means that recording has now been tightened up. People have also had to accept that bird behaviour and the

Daily Herald

THE GREAT HASTINGS RARITIES FRAUD

www.hmag.org.uk/naturalHistory

Slender-billed Curley

nature of habitats do not remain constant — the pattern of bird occurrences can change rapidly.’

And what of the continued interest in the matter outside the cocooned bird-watching community? Walling puts it down to ‘Piltdown Man effect’. This is one of our most famous scientific frauds when in 1912 at a dig in Piltdown, East Sussex, Charles Dawson, solicitor and member of the Hastings Museum Association, claimed to have found pieces of a skull and purported that they were the missing link between apes and humans. This was exposed as a hoax in 1955 by scientists at the Natural History Museum. Not that interest has waned since, as is the case with the HRA (post-1962 exposé) which has the added draw of being one of those intractable quandaries unlikely to be solved, conclusively, one way or the other. ‘People always like mysteries,’ says Walling, ‘and there has been a growth in the number of people interested in birds and bird-watching, it’s no longer just a pastime of the wealthy with their guns. We still get visitors asking to see our specimens, although they’re not on display.’

In 2003, specimens of The Hastings Rarities stored at the museum did see the light of day to

coincide with an exhibition in the art gallery by artist, Julian Walker, who was inspired by them to create work along the theme of Lies and Belonging. At the time Councillor David Hancock, Chair of the Museums committee, said: ‘There is a great mystery surrounding the Hastings rarities.

Were they imported with an intention to deceive or were they genuine records and who did it and why? Visitors will have the chance to make up their own minds.’

Current holder of the committee chair, the aptly named Cllr Peter Finch, told the Trawler that he found, ‘the whole subject utterly fascinating, and it is interesting how it still appeals to people today’. And of course, let’s not forget this is partly down to the fact that this an atavistic legacy of our stiff, Victorian past; colonial Empire builders, British eccentrics, keen to shoot and bag as many lions, tigers, foxes, rare birds as they could, to add, rather clinically, to dry and fusty collections of dead things to put out on display. In no small way I guess we should give thanks for the digital camera.

But whatever the reservations, the Hastings rarities affair lives on and will surely merit a centenary year — even a BBC2 special fronted by the ubiquitous birder, Bill Oddie! 

August ‘06 | THE TRAWLER

19

HASTINGS AT WAR

One day in May...

Before the devastation – The High Street, 1940

by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

HASTINGS-BORN NATHAN DYLAN GOODWIN DRAWS ON THE MEMORIES OF PEOPLE WHO LIVED THROUGH THE WARTIME YEARS, WHEN HASTINGS WAS A FRONT-LINE TOWN. HERE HE EXAMINES THE EVENTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF ONE SUNDAY IN MAY, 1943, WHEN 10 NAZI FOCKE-WULF 190S SWEPT IN LOW ACROSS THE CHANNEL BRINGING WITH THEM DEATH AND DESTRUCTION.

T

he people of Hastings could not have anticipated the scale of death and destruction, which would span almost six long years in the borough’s history, when the country went to war in 1939, a war which left in its wake 154 civilians dead and more than 14,000 properties damaged or destroyed. Among the countless bombing raids on the town, the scars borne on 23 May 1943, when the crowded Swan public house was destroyed, stands out as being among the most memorable and horrific of the war.

The second worst raid to hit Hastings occurred at 12.59 pm on Sunday 23 May, when 10 Focke-Wulf 190s swept in across the channel at rooftop height, wing-tip to wig-tip, machine-gunning the town and Old Town, at the same time as releasing 25 High Explosive bombs. Twenty-five people were killed in this raid and 30 more were seriously injured. The 20

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Swan, the Denmark Arms, The Albany Hotel, and The Warrior Gate public house suffered badly in the raid, while houses were entirely demolished, or only fit for destruction in Swan Terrace, the High Street, Castle Street, Pelham Street, White Rock, Norman Road, London Road, Saxon Street, Grand Parade, Gensing Road, Undercliff and St Clements Place.

June Parr recalls the fateful day, when, as a young girl, she was playing out in the Old Town: ‘I got a good hiding that day because my mother didn’t know where I was. I was quite safe as I was under a Morrison shelter at my aunt’s place in The Bourne.

When we came out after the raid, the air was absolutely filled with black smoke and feathers because a bomb had hit Reeves’ shop [on the High Street], hitting the flock mattresses there.’

Many of the deaths that day

occurred at The Swan, which was packed with lunchtime customers.

Rescuers worked tirelessly throughout the night and following day, recovering only one person and a dog alive from the rubble. The bodies of the licensee John Gummerson’s wife, Grace Rosina Gummerson, sister Hilda Gummerson, and three-yearold son, Trevor Ernest Gummerson were recovered the following day.

By a cruel twist of fate, one local girl, Janet Harris had her life spared only to loose two members of her family: ‘My aunt violet was in the Land Army and was home for the weekend. She had arranged to take both my sister, Anne and I out for the Sunday morning walk, as Dad was on duty [with the Police]. I went down with measles, so she just took Anne. They had coffee at the White Rock Pavilion and started to walk home. On reaching the High Street, the air raid warning went off and they took shelter in the Pet Shop

HASTINGS AT WAR East Hill Anti-Aircraft guns

Reeves’ Corner, High Street, May 23, 1943

alleyway opposite The Swan. We heard afterwards that someone called them over to take shelter with them in The Swan and it took a direct hit.’

Burgess also recalls his family’s fortuitous involvement in the raid: ‘Granddad Burgess, Frank Burgess and O-Sea Edmunds had been doing some work together on the beach, after which O-Sea wanted to go for a drink; Grandad Burgess was not a drinker so he declined the invitation.

Frank was heckled by O-Sea, who claimed he was shirking his round, but as Frank had promised to call on a friend with his father, he gave O-Sea the beer money. O-Sea went round to The Swan alone but met with Bill Hilder, a mechanic for the lifeboat.

While at their friend’s house, at 12.50pm Frank was looking out of the window through a pair of binoculars when he saw ten bombers coming very low over the sea toward Hastings. As he watched he realised they were German planes and shouted to everyone to get out of the house. They ran down the stairs and out the front door, hitting the pavement as the planes swooped low over the town, The Swan in ruins:– May 23, 1943

machine-gunning along the streets.

Two bombs exploded; The Swan took a direct hit. Frank saw whole windows, frames and all, flying out of the buildings. They went to help search for survivors and after four hours they came across a door wedged at an angle. Under the door, trapped by his legs, was O-Sea Edmunds, alive.

He had gone to the toilet just as the bomb hit. The blast took the door off but wedged it above him, protecting him from the falling debris. Bill Hilder was among those killed.’

All of the casualties from The Swan were rushed by ambulance to the Municipal Hospital on Frederick Road but were almost immediately transported on to the Joyce Green Hospital in Dartford through fear of further attacks on the town. Hastings nurse, Audrey Crittenden recalls the events of that day: ‘When The Swan was hit, we had a lot of casualties come in. They rigged up a bus as an ambulance and I was very surprised, as Matron sent for me and said, “I want you to go as escort with these seven patients”. They were all stretcher cases and one was very badly injured with his spine and I was amazed and flattered as I was only a junior nurse, so I went as escort with an ambulance driver to Dartford. When we got to

Dartford it was early evening and they were in such a state of shortage of staff that I had to go on the ward, where these patients were being taken, to work there with the nurses.’

After attempting to escape back across the channel, two of the enemy aircraft which carried out the attack were brought down: one, piloted by Ofw. Herbert Dobroch, was hit by a Typhoon from No.1 Squadron, and the other, piloted by Fw. Adam Fischer, was hit by flak.

Many of those killed in the raid were buried in the civilian war dead section of Hastings Cemetery a few days later. The bombsite of The Swan public house was cleared and, after the war, a Garden of Remembrance created in memory of the many who lost their lives there.  This article was based on extracts from Hastings at War, by Nathan Dylan Goodwin and also on new material gathered since publication, which will be included in a planned, second edition of the book. The author would be pleased to hear of any new memories of Hastings during the war. Hastings at War 1939-1945 is available from local bookshops and the Internet. ISBN: 1860773281

August ‘06 | THE TRAWLER

21

THE ARTS — Ellen Terry

The actress Ellen Terry

by Joy Melville ELLEN TERRY, THE ACCLAIMED VICTORIAN ACTRESS, HAD A PASSION FOR BUYING COTTAGES, OFTEN OWNING TWO AT ONCE. ONE OF HER FAVOURITES WAS IN WINCHELSEA AND WHEN THERE SHE AND HER ACTOR-MANAGER, HENRY IRVING, SPENT MUCH OF THEIR TIME DRIVING A PONY CART AROUND THE CRISS-CROSSING SUSSEX AND KENT LANES. JOY MELVILLE LOOKS AT HER LINKS WITH THE AREA.

I

ndeed, it was on one of these occasions, when they had strayed into Kent, that Ellen spotted a beautiful half-timbered house at Smallhythe, near Tenterden, and promptly announced that she wanted to live and die in that house. She went inside and asked the old shepherd minding it if it was a nice house. ‘No’, he said. However, she persuaded him to let her know if it fell vacant and several years later got a postcard which merely said, ‘House for Sale’. Ellen bought it immediately and was indeed to live and die there.

Ellen was born in 1847 and became the highest-paid and best-known actress in Victorian England. Indeed, young men would propose to their girlfriends with the remark, ‘Well, if Ellen Terry won’t have me, will you?’

Her fame as Henry Irving’s leading lady at the Lyceum Theatre in London was such that on first nights the Strand was brought to a standstill by the queue of carriages waiting to offload theatre-goers. She toured constantly, so that all Britain got to know her. She received sonnets from Oscar Wilde and her golden beauty attracted the painters.

Indeed, Ellen’s first husband was the celebrated painter, G.F. Watts, who had painted her portrait and been captivated by her. He was 30 years 22

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older than Ellen, who was just 17, and whereas she positively danced down the aisle, he walked slowly and ponderously and with his long beard he looked more like her grandfather.

Ellen, whose parents were strolling players, had been on the boards since childhood and for years had lived in dingy theatrical lodgings with a host of brothers and sisters. Not unnaturally she was enchanted by the artistic elegance of Little Holland House in west London, where Watts lived. But much though he enjoyed painting her, he found her youthful exuberance too much for him and returned her to her parents after some ten months, like an unwanted parcel, paying her £300 a year ‘so long as she remained chaste.’

Mortified at the end of her marriage, it was a bleak time for Ellen. She unenthusiastically returned to acting.

When she suddenly disappeared from London a few years later, no one knew where she was and her parents thought she had drowned. When they later discovered she had eloped with the architect Edward Godwin, a shocking decision in Victorian England, they rather wished she had.

Passionately in love with Godwin, Ellen didn’t care. She was to have two children by him, Edy and Teddy, and was to say this period of her life was the happiest. But although she loved

wandering through fields, picking berries, she all too often forgot to cook supper and, exacerbated by a lack of money, her relationship with Godwin rather understandably deteriorated.

He stayed working in London, while Ellen looked after the children on next to nothing. Indeed, the bailiffs moved in.

An extraordinary chance at that point brought Ellen back to the stage.

She had, after all, twice rejected it — first for Watts, then for Godwin.

While taking the children out in her pony cart, a wheel came off and a nearby horseman stopped to help. It was the playwright Charles Reade, who promised to pay her £40 a week (an enormous sum in those days) if she would return to London to act in his new play. Mindful of the bailiffs, she accepted.

Although she and Godwin had now parted, in 1876, 13 years after her marriage to Watts had failed, Watts finally divorced her — ironically citing Godwin who was now married. Ellen in turn promptly married an actor, Edward Wardell, and quickly had cards printed saying Mrs E. Wardell.

Her children were now legitimised (important now she was living in London) and her family once more recognised her. Lewis Carroll, despite being a friend of Ellen’s, had refused to introduce a young girl to her without the permission of the girl’s mother.

Now at last she was socially respectable.

Her career was flourishing. She had had a great success as Olivia in the adaptation of Oliver Goldsmith’s book, The Vicar of Wakefield, with half England wearing ‘Olivia’ caps and in 1878, when Ellen was 31, Henry Irving engaged her as his leading lady at the Lyceum.

Unfortunately, her husband was angry at not being offered a leading part, was jealous of Irving, and also drank too much. Ellen was to say ‘I gave him three-quarters of all the money I made weekly, and prayed him to go.’ Ellen’s relationship with her

Ellen Terry— THE ARTS

Ellen Terry

August ‘06 | THE TRAWLER

23

THE ARTS — Ellen Terry

actor-manager Henry Irving has never been proved — Ellen herself muddying the waters by telling one friend, for example, that of course they had had an affair, and by telling another that if Henry had heard of her death he would look shocked then say, ‘Er. who is there to go on for her tonight?’

Ellen was to work herself to the bone at the Lyceum, playing the major Shakespearean roles.

Her interpretation of these was often original: she played Lady Macbeth, for example, as ‘a womanly woman’, intent on supporting her husband.

When the Lyceum Company went on the first of many tours to America, Ellen was vaguely convinced that the women there would wear red flannel shirts and carry bowie knives and that she would be sandbagged in the street.

She wrote assiduously to Edy and Ted while away. Over the years, both children had taken occasional walk-on parts. Ellen idolised Ted, who had matinee idol blonde looks, whereas she had a more troublesome relationship with her brusque daughter, Edy. Ted, at 21, married a May Gibson, had four children and left her shortly after to pursue other women.

Edy and Ellen had a complex relationship, with both being jealously possessive if the other one became romantically involved. Ellen squashed a putative relationship Edy was having with an American, and then for no real reason put a furious foot down when Edy became involved with an English musician, who had a rather disfiguring birthmark on his face.

Edy went to live with another woman, who had featured in Vita Sackville West’s Love Journal, leaving Ellen irritated at losing her ‘handmaiden’. But Edy in turn was furious when in 1906 Ellen at the age of 60 married for the third time — a man younger than her own son, Ted. Edy’s jealous resentment played a major part in the swift marriage breakdown.

24

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Ellen was finding it hard to get parts at that time, yet needed the money as her children, all their lives, depended on her financially. Edy acted occasionally, designed clothes for the stage and later directed plays, while Ted was a stage designer, but both lost, rather than made money. Ellen went on a world tour lecturing on Shakespeare’s heroines. Meeting a fellow-actress in New York she said, ‘Look at me, 63 and on one-night stands’.

Ellen spent much of her later years at her house at Smallhythe, still taking pleasure in being driven around Kent and Sussex. Ultimately, when old and nearly blind, she would fling her shoes at her nurse to get her attention.

When she died at 81, everyone in the funeral procession wore bright clothes to celebrate someone who had magically brightened so many people’s lives.  Ellen Terry, by Joy Melville is published this month by Haus Publishing at £18.00 Ellen Terry Barn Theatre http://www.ellenterrybarntheatre.co.uk

HASTINGS PEOPLE

Dressing for pleasure

by Kate Lingard

WITH HASTINGS HOTTING UP FOR THE SUMMER, A NEW CLOTHES ARTIST IS IN TOWN,

RIMA SAMS. HONEY HABIBI, RIMA’S SHOP IN GEORGE STREET, IS MAKING ITS MARK WITH AN INTERESTING AND ECLECTIC RANGE OF CLOTHING AND ACCESSORIES. FROM

SMALL PEOPLE TO BIGGER ONES OF BOTH GENDER, HER SHOP IS A FASHION TREASURE TROVE OF CLOTHES FROM FAMOUS TO LESSER-KNOWN, BUT EQUALLY ADVENTUROUS AND EXPERIENCED DESIGNERS. THE

TRAWLER’S KATE LINGARD SPOKE TO HASTINGS NEW FASHIONISTA.

B

orn in London’s Portobello Road in 1968, Rima breathed in the heady, fashion-conscious air from the moment she was born. A natural osmosis must have taken place, as she was soon absorbing the diversity of the area, giving her a natural instinct for style. In those early years, Rima experienced a wide range of multicultural and different styles. By the age of ten, she had already modelled in local fashion shows for designers such as Tanya Sarne of Ghost. ‘By thirteen, I was already buying, selling and hoarding clothes’, says Rima. ‘I was obsessed with clothes, particularly vintage, how to put them together, my appearance -— there were so many influences’. Her first foray into business was a vintage shoe shop in the Portobello Road, Lost Soles, where Rima had success selling 60s and 70s shoes, ‘particularly sandals of various colours, and platforms. I also stocked a wide and interesting range of jewellery’.

Rima was itching to travel. At sixteen she took herself off to New York, settling in the Lower East Side, ‘a very colourful, artistic area’, which was heaving with bohemian artists. Clubs like Paradise Garage pounded to House music, then in its infancy. She worked as a ‘cigarette girl’ in The World, a bar in the area. ‘A friend made me a cigarette tray with a design of the New York skyline around it and I worked as a freelancer, buying and selling cigarettes — my own business, but I enjoyed the atmosphere — and people!’ By day she would trawl the famous thrift stores in the area, never losing her first love of fashion and design. She also tried her hand making hats, but instead of selling them, ‘I just gave them to friends’!

After two years in New York, she flew west to Los Angeles: ‘I’ve had a fairly nomadic lifestyle. I spent some time there, then went to Goa, came back via Spain, where I lived in Andalucia for two years, then six years in Ibiza’.

It was there that Rima opened her first shop – Rima’s — which attracted the hip and trendy crowd on the island, including style-setters such as Kate Moss and Jade Jagger,. ‘They particularly liked the beautifully embroidered and colourful Buba bags.’

(Rima has a selection of Buba bags in her shop in George Street).

Rima returned regularly to England with her young son, Mars, to visit her family in Hastings. It was during these two-week holidays that she gradually absorbed the Hastings atmosphere. ‘I slowly fell in love with the place each time I came here. It’s beautiful, edgy — and has mind of its own. It’s like a Borough of London by the sea, with such a broad and interesting range of people’.

Although she loves London, Rima had no desire to live there again. ‘I wanted a more easy, relaxed, lifestyle, and be with my family, particularly with Mars growing up.’ She favoured Hastings over Brighton. ‘I think August ‘06 | THE TRAWLER

25

FOOD

Table Talk

by M.A.D.

O

ne of the pleasures of moving to pastures new is to go on ‘foodsearching’ trips. There are butchers and bakers, grocers and fruiterers to find and, of course, one is always on the look-out for an inviting restaurant or coffee shop to alleviate the stress of moving.

I found myself no longer a devoted visitor but a resident of the Old Town just in time for the May Day celebrations. Outside the Fishermen’s Museum, Tush kept hunger at bay and his idea of batterless fresh fish can only be applauded. Not too sure if there couldn’t be an improvement Hastings People (continued)

Hastings is much cooler, in a more underground way.’ Rima would go as far as saying that she feels ‘quite at home with some crazy people I can really connect with’.

Rima Sams certainly seems to have settled into life in Hastings. She lives with Mars in the Old Town, and with Honey Habibi just down the road, she is finding contentment and success.

With beautiful dresses by Anami, oneoff, richly detailed pieces by Brigitte Axel Winspeare, and Fox’s handpainted skirts and boho chic bags, Rima remarks ‘I’d say around 90 per cent of the clothing I have is supplied by people I have met around the world over the years — like Zara Simon and Annette Olivieri’.

The ranges are sourced directly from 26

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on the choice of roll but overall an excellent contribution to the ‘takeaway, eat-on-the-hop’ food scene.

‘Fish & Chips’, quintessential British food, deserves a space all for itself and readers are invited to supply comments, thoughts, recommendations and above all Votes for the Best Hastings Fish & Chips for the next issue. Email to trawlerfood@yahoo.co.uk or text 07856561724 best HF&C and your nomination.

Having unpacked pots and pans the time came to go food shopping, ‘Where have all the food shops gone?’

No butcher, no fruiterer and only one baker in the Old Town? Plain eating, never mind healthy eating, is not going to be plain sailing. All hopes pinned on the twice monthly market I left early only to be struck by closed coffee shops at nine thirty, even ten in the morning. Where do holiday makers or lazy residents for that matter, go for their breakfast or the first caffeine hit? I have since discovered that the Mermaid does a mean albeit not healthy breakfast but do stick to tea. Whatever the black stuff is, it is most definitely not coffee.

At the market things started to look up. Carnivores take note: Food fore Thought could put many Smithfield traders to shame. Wickham Manor Farm produces organic and free range produce and game. Whether beef, lamb or pork the quality and the taste are superb. Need a special cut, a small quantity, need ideas for a party?

Ask and they will do anything to accommodate you. During almost thirty years in England I have rarely come across this high standard in food production and delivery.

Fancy a local brew to go with summer BBQ’s? Fallen Angel microbrewery offers a choice of natural bottle conditioned beers from their brewery. in Battle.

Expecting French visitors with the traditional cheese offerings I kept the cheese stall for a later visit.

I picked up a chicken & mushroom pie and a jar of chutney. The pie froze well and was well-balanced, the chutney full of flavour. Small comment: both would be welcome in a smaller size. They made me wonder why people buy the horrible massproduced stuff at higher prices in supermarkets. The vegetables were

the designers so prices are surprisingly affordable. Rima also stocks clothes and accessories by designers such as Maharishi, D.I.E. and Religion — as well as some Vivienne Westwood sunglasses. And for that personal touch, Rima has designed her own range under the name Honey Karibi.

For the guys, there are some select styles, including funky, one-off shirts

by Coconut Cowboy, with unique prints and rodeo-style piping. Also exclusive to the shop are Richard Heslops’ imaginative Hastings T-shirt designs for his label Maximus Fabulous. Rima takes pride in all the clothes she has in Honey Habibi so her customers will have something just that bit different, and of the highest quality. ‘I’ve always been a bit of an aesthetic snob’, she shyly admits.

Honey Habibi also carries a range of vintage and retro clothing. As Hastings fashionistas are aware — with shops such as The Wardrobe clothes agency and Retro Centre, both in the High Street — the Old Town is becoming a place to search for that one-off.

Rima is optimistic about the Old Town as a place where people will spend more time shopping — particularly now there is such a wide variety of shops. ‘I really think that people in Hastings will think twice about travelling to London or Brighton if there are more diverse shops on their doorstep. As for other clothes shops, Rima says, ‘It’s great to see them and I believe in healthy competition!’ With that generous remark, what more can one say. 

FOOD

not quite up to scratch but everyone deserves a second chance so I will defer comment for a future column in the hope that quality and service will have had a chance to climb to a more acceptable level. Having manned a busy Saturday Market stall I do know how hard it is to get up at an ungodly hour, load a van, drive for miles, set up a stall in all weather, attempt a reasonably enticing display, remember the change and engage with dozens of people. Still, it’s all part of the game. Perhaps a bit of healthy competition wouldn’t go amiss?

The asparagus grower from New Park Farm (Groombridge) brought very nice and fresh local asparagus, a pity his dog was not exactly customer friendly.

Two months on, I still haven’t found an exciting fruiterer. Fruitique in the Arcade is hit and miss, M&S’ unpacked selection is poor and overpriced, Morrisons tries but doesn’t quite make it, Judge’s in the High Street may be organic, but they could do with a bit of product care and remove what’s gone off. Trinity Wholefoods in Trinity Street only has a very small selection of fruit and vegetables; however the quality is more constant. Should you find yourself as far as Silverhill try Silverhill Fruit & Veg. On a good day it’s the best so far, on a bad one it drops to that same average to low level. I consider both Tesco and Sainsbury too far out of town to qualify for a visit.

The best things turn up unexpectedly. This is certainly true for Smiths on St. Leonard’s Sea Front. Three tables on the pavement, large windows, the serving counter at the back, giving all the tables a sea view. Little did I know it was the new kid on the block and I hope it will stay there for years to come! If, like me, you appreciate an honest coffee,

look no further. I have mine strong, black no sugar, but for the sake of this article I also tried their cappuccino and it holds with the best of the Italian ones. Needless to say I’ve made ‘Smiths’ not only my coffee local, but a regular lunch stop. The menu is small with changing specials, but wonderfully fresh ingredients, attention to detail in the presentation, knowledgeable staff with a passion for food and pleased to name their suppliers more than make up for it. The drawback (apart from the long walk from the Old Town): no wine licence yet and therefore they close around 17:30. Once the indispensable bits of paper will have found their way to the wall there will be an evening menu. If their wine list matches their coffee choices it will soon become a place not to miss. If you have a sweet tooth, try their Portuguese Custard Tartlets.

The freshly squeezed juice combinations are ideal for a vitamin top-up.

Closer to home Pomegranate deserves a mention in this first column. For those to whom it matters, ‘Pomegranate’ is a nonsmoking restaurant, but the puffers can take advantage of the outside tables.

On the downside, they close in the afternoon and the evening service doesn’t start till 19:00. A bit late if you want to catch a movie at the ‘Electric’ at 20:00. The upside is they still serve when everybody else’s kitchen is closed. My first visit was on a chilly, wet miserable night. My friend and I were feeling rather sorry for ourselves, having chatted the night away only to discover we were ravenous. The warm welcome dispatched the weather blues and the food took care of the rest. I should have tasted my friend’s warm goat’s cheese salad but I got so excited by my boeuf bourguignon that she’d polished her plate before I could get

around to it. Melting beef, the sauce a perfect blend of vegetables and wine served with steamed new baby potatoes.

No fuss, simple presentation and absolutely delicious.

We felt so uplifted we decided to order pudding. Unbeknown to us, the kitchen had been cleaned; the chef had finished for the night and was sitting across the road enjoying a pint. He promptly returned but we declined not without noting his dedication. A good excuse to return to try the vegetarian options and the puddings.  M.A.D. Food for Thought, Wickham Manor Farm, Panel Lane, Winchelsea Tel: 01797 225575 (Members of the Slow Food Movement/ Soil Association Organic Standard) Smith’s 21 Grand Parade St. Leonard’s Tel: 01424 715551 (Non-smoking inside) Pomegranate 50 George Street, Old Town, Hastings Tel: 01424 429 221 (Non-smoking inside. Please note booking is now becoming essential at week-ends)

Recipe MACKEREL It is important to buy mackerel as fresh as possible. If you can, buy it with the head on, so that you can see if the eye is still bright; if it isn’t, don’t buy it.

One way of cooking mackerel is to chop off the head and gut the fish, then make up a paste of mustard, lemon juice, garlic and rosemary.

Make some incisions into the side of the fish; rub the paste over the skin of the fish, working it into the cuts. Fill the body cavity with finely chopped onion and herbs. Wrap the fish in foil and bake it in a preheated medium oven for about 20 minutes.

Serve with boiled potatoes.

Mackerel can also be grilled and served, unlikely as it may seem, with a puree of gooseberries.  August ‘06 | THE TRAWLER

27

FICTION

Lesley Prince

Apparition Hoyle

by Pauline Melville

T

he first time he saw him co-incided roughly with the time that the lights appeared. The lights began appearing on the night of May 26th.

Ever since his wife died Freddie Hogan had slept with the television on in the upstairs bedroom. There was a television downstairs in the front room as well. He left them both on most of the time for company. That night he woke suddenly at 1.20 a.m. The noises sounded like a Second World War movie, distant gunfire, shouts of men on ships and the desperate cries of people floundering in the water. He heard the clipped voice of a radio operator calling ‘Operation Dynamo.’ Then he heard a man’s voice yelling ‘We’re not going. We’re not going.’ Then more screaming. At first he thought that the shaft of light must be from the television. He fumbled for the remote control on the bedside table and switched the tv off. The noises continued. The shaft of light became brighter. It was streaming in through the window. Half asleep, he wondered if it was a helicopter searchlight. Then he wondered if he could have overslept and it was sunlight. As he shook himself awake the light faded and so did the noises. He looked at the alarm clock, saw that it was only 1.30 in the morning and 28

THE TRAWLER|August ‘06

went back to sleep.

Earlier that afternoon Freddie had been drinking with two other fishermen in the Jenny Lind pub. They had been out the previous night fishing for Dover sole. From the boat Freddie had watched the golden elvers of reflected lights from Hastings town wriggling in the black waves by the shore. By the time they beached it was mid-morning and they were tired but Freddie persuaded the others to go with him for a drink. His stomach always lurched at that moment when he had to go home alone and face an empty house. He had only been a widower for a year and a half and could not get used to it. He kept them drinking as long as he could without buying too many rounds — he had a reputation for tight-fistedness. By then it was half past three and the publican was turning them out. Freddie had just sheepishly revealed the fact that his middle name was Nelson. Big Jim Smythe was laughing as they said goodbye on the corner of All Saints Street: ‘Me eyes are growing dim. Kiss me Hardy. And you too, Laurel.’ Jimmy grinned and gestured at a second fisherman who had been drinking with them, Matt Gillett a dour thin-

shouldered man from Dungeness. They all laughed. ‘Come and check the boat tomorrow, Freddie, before the tide’s in.

She’s a stunner now she’s been renovated.

Got all the latest G.P.S and mod cons — even a fish-finder.’ They had partexchanged their jointly-owned boat for a bigger one, The Seafaring Maid that had been lying unused for years.

Freddie was still smiling to himself as he turned into Tackleway. His was one of the last houses still to be occupied by a fisherman. The exterior was dull stucco unlike most of the other houses in the street which were second holiday homes, tarted up and sporting miniature brass door-knockers and ruched net curtains.

As he crossed over to his house he stopped in his tracks in the middle of the road. A figure was in his front room. A man was standing next to the sofa with his back to the window looking at the television. The man turned. He looked haggard and distressed. His hair was ragged like white flames around his head.

He wore a navy blue polo-neck sweater and he pulled the top of it down and pointed to the terrible scarring on his neck then turned away again. For a moment Freddie thought it must be another local fishermen paying him a call. But by the time he felt for the key in his trouser pocket and let himself in the man had gone. The back door of the house was never locked. Freddie checked to see if anything was missing. Everything seemed to be in order. He cooked himself some chicken nuggets. In future, he decided, he would secure the back door.

‘There’s a lot of them junkies about now.’ Said Jimmy when he told him about it the next morning. ‘They hang around the alley behind the old Observer building. There’s needles, syringes and all sorts there.’

The sun shone and a brisk wind blew as the two men clambered on board to inspect The Seafaring Maid. She had been re-fitted, re-varnished and overhauled.

Freddie whistled with approval as he checked the satellite navigation system, the newly installed fish-finder and VHF radio. In the cabin on the chart table were Reeds Nautical Almanac and the Admiralty

FICTION

Tidal Stream Atlas. Next to them was an old log book which the boat-builder had found in a cupboard. Jimmy picked it up: ‘You could show this log book to the fisherman’s museum on your way home.

They might like to have a look at it.’

The two men sat in the stern to eat their sandwiches.

‘If the E.U. bans get any worse we could maybe make some money taking channel swimmers across,’ said Jimmy.

‘Calais has those red waiting buoys outside the tidal gate. You can only get in an hour a half on either side of high water. Boulogne you can get in any time.’

On his way home Freddie walked past the tall black tarred net lofts and dropped the log book into the museum.

The curator looked at it with delight: ‘Come over here a minute.’ He led Freddie to the back wall of the museum which was covered in photographs. He pointed to one of the photographs of a man standing by a fishing boat drawn up on the beach. His body partly obscured letters which spelled out The Seafaring Maid and an RX registration mark: ‘That used to be the Hoyle’s boat.

And that’s one of the Hoyle family. See the cable-knit pattern down the side of the sleeve. Every family in those days had it’s own unique pattern so that if a body was recovered after a long time in the water it could still be identified. That’s the Hoyle’s pattern. They sold up their fishing business a long time ago though.

Something happened. I don’t know what. I’ll try and find out if you like.’

That night Freddie woke to see a column of light at the end of his bed.

He could see shapes inside it. The beam spread to fill the room with brilliant luminosity. He heard the thumping crashing sounds of two men fighting and swearing violently: ‘You’re not taking the fucking boat.

You’re not fucking taking it.’

‘We’ve got to go you bastard. Who’s side are you on?’

‘It’s our fucking livelihood. I’m not risking it.’

There was the sound of something

being hauled across obstacles and then a muffled splash.

Freddie began to sweat. He hid his head under the duvet. Gradually, the upheaval of light subsided.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Jimmy noticed Freddie half asleep at the wheel of the boat.

‘Just not sleeping.’ Said Freddie.

Freddie’s son had given him a computer and taught him how to use the internet. On Thursday when they had the day off Freddie looked up a spiritualist organisation. He hesitated and then called the number. An adenoidal woman called Doris from the Walsall Paranormal Society answered.

She informed him that, for a small fee, they would be able to scan his house from there in the midlands.

‘Scan it for what?’ asked Freddie.

‘Paranormal activity. Spirits,’ replied Doris. ‘It costs thirty pounds. We take credit cards.’

Reluctantly Freddie gave her his credit card number. That afternoon Doris called back: ‘We’ve done the scan.’ She said.

‘You’re a portal. Your house is a portal.

It’s a gateway for them. The spirits. Does the name Harry mean anything to you?”

‘No.’ ‘He’s trying to get in touch with you.

We could probably shoo them away but it would cost another two hundred pounds.’ Freddie was sceptical. He hung up convinced it was a scam. Anyway, he was unwilling to spend that amount of money. That night the room was full of light again at two o’clock in the morning. Lack of sleep was exhausting him.

When they took the The Seafaring Maid out the next day for a trial run the sky was cerulean blue and sunlight sparkled on the wavetops so Freddie found it odd that the boat seemed to be fixed inside its own square block of darker light. Big Jimmy was in the stern sorting out trammel nets from drift nets.

Freddie checked the electronic compass and left the boat on automatic pilot for a moment so that he could point out this mysterious phenomenon to Jimmy. But

when he went towards Jimmy there was something between them like a pane of opaque glass. He called out, but Jimmy clearly did not hear him and continued sorting the nets in the sunshine. When Freddie turned back to the tiller he was faced with a similar panel of opacity.

Pins and needles and an aching cramp crept up his left arm and the left side of his face. His limbs became leaden. Some sort of force field seemed to be preventing him from reaching the wheel.

At the same time the boat began to rock violently. Freddie could see the coast bathed in sunshine but it seemed that The Seafaring Maid was in its own cube of rainy grey weather tossing on choppy pewter waves. To his horror Freddie watched as something hauled itself on board over the side of the boat. It was a soaking wet grey figure and it staggered towards the wheel. Something was overriding the automatic pilot instructions.

The grey figure twisted the wheel to the port side and the boat turned. Soon they had reversed course and were within sight of the lightship that warned seamen of the Varne Bank below.

Freddie was confused. The lightship was flashing its red light. This it only did at night. In the daytime there was no signal. As he turned back the figure at the wheel spun round towards him. The figure had no face.

‘For Christ’s sake, Freddie.’ Jimmy was shaking his arm. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Have you seen where we are? Can’t you figure out the new automatic pilot?’

A dazed Freddie looked up at Jimmy: ‘What do you mean? Where are we?’

‘Just outside fucking Dunkirk, that’s where. I was working the nets. I didn’t even look up. I assumed you’d be ok with the new gear. What’s wrong with you?’

Jimmy took the wheel. Three hours later they were back at Hastings. Jimmy was furious and barely talking to Freddie. He just grunted goodbye after they’d beached. Freddie watched Jimmy’s back radiating annoyance as he trudged away from him along the front. Freddie went and stood by the Crazy Golf course.

August ‘06 | THE TRAWLER

29

FICTION

The curator hailed him. He was waving the old log book: ‘I’ve found out a bit more about your boat. The two Hoyle brothers who owned it had a terrible argument. The younger one wanted to take the boat over for the Dunkirk evacuations. The older one, Harry Hoyle, refused and said if something went wrong they’d lose their means of making a living. No-one knows exactly what happened but they went out and the younger brother never came back. There was a suspicion that Harry Hoyle killed his brother in a fight.

The brother went overboard anyway.

When the body came up fish had eaten his face away. I was right about the cable stitch pattern. It was the only way they could identify him. Harry Hoyle hung himself after that.”

Freddie stared after the curator as he hurried back along Rock-a-Nore in the bright sunshine.

Freddie thought seriously whether or not to spend two hundred pounds and ask that Doris woman to exorcise his house. No. It would be an unthinkable waste of money. On the spur of the moment he decided to visit the chandlers and fishing tackle shop. The boat needed two sea-anchors. In the dark interior Freddie examined a green conical plastic sea anchor shaped like a child’s shrimping net. He bought two of them for use as ship-brakes. The shopkeeper looked at the signature on the cheque.

‘Are you Freddie Hogan? Someone was just in here asking for you. A man with a white spikey hair and a big scarf wrapped round his neck. Can you imagine — on a hot day like this? Said you’d be coming in. Said your wife had sent him to collect you.”

Freddie went to the shop door and caught his second sight of the man with the white ragged hair waiting for him outside. The sun shone but the feeling of an icy cold hand seized his heart as he stepped out towards the man and into blackness. 

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THE TRAWLER|August ‘06

Books The Edgier Waters. 5 Years of 3:am Magazine, Snowbooks, £7.99 pp 350, (ISBN: 1905005202) :am is an online magazine for short fiction, poems and essays.

That such a thing exists is a boon to new writers, and to others that had been dependent on the support of small presses. It helps because it is – has become – a place where both readers and publishers interested in such writing will take a regular look. There are then routes to follow up the work of the different writers: this through their own individual websites, and mentions of their printed works. For the relationship is two-way, and The Edgier Waters, a collection from 5 years of the magazine in book form may attract new readers to it. That presumably is the intention.

The Introduction and Preface perhaps make rather too much of its boundary and taboo defiance: a defiance of ‘fashionabilty and market forces too,’ Michael Bracewell proclaims, especially when the very title Edgier Waters is from a Guardian puff for 3am, and when The Times, quoted on the cover, calls it ‘a dream publication for the young, literary and clued-up.’ The weakest pieces in what is necessarily an up-and-down collection are those which seem designed with shocking the parents in mind, and though the fetishizing of authenticity deserves the boot, strippers, prostitutes and junkies do seem to have become clichéd staples of ‘cutting edge writing’. Jim Ruland’s ‘The Stripper in her Natural Habitat’ seems terribly familiar, whereas the much, much shorter ‘Cured’ of Jim Martin, both stories of female anger and revenge has much more of a kick

3

to it, though good editing would have cut the final paragraph. Explanation and the rounding-off of stories, you feel, have little place in ‘cutting-edge fiction’. Other stories needed more space: the condensation of a William Gibson type piece mixing the genres of sci-fi and hard-boiled crime — ‘Maryland’ — was too much.

What is noticeable in both British and American writing, here is the male as a tosser, just not up to it, and this in writing by men. In the English material this often involves the self referential world of off-beat culture. In Alistair Gentry’s ‘Ecosystem Discovered in Saatchi’s Pocket,’ these traits are, intentionally or unintentionally overthrown when Rocco the number-one tosser of the story becomes the person of substance in his death. This English selfreferential world does work in other instances like in HP Tinker’s ‘The Morrissey Exhibition’ which, with a light touch has the singer’s miserabilism and fame set out as any other exhibition in which a new exhibit will be ‘the small earthquake experienced personally by Morrissey himself on 3rd July 2002 and which says more about celebrity — the capitalist version of the Cult of the Personality — than a whole genre of novels with this theme. It’s a real achievement to make something of satire which nowadays is so easily soggy. Better still is the sharpness under the apparent whimsy of Ben Myers’ ‘The Missing Kidney’.

The collection also includes two essays in appreciation of other writers, generous pieces on Stewart Home and B.S. Johnson. Paul Tickell who directed a film of Johnson’s Christy Malry novel — and is also refreshingly generous to its screenwriter — is right to pick out both the class rage and the prescience of the novel, but cannot resist the put-down of his own contemporaries to make his point, ‘Johnson,’ he says, ‘was an experimental writer but not in some nancy-boy post modernist way…’

BOOKS

Who is he referring to, some of the other writers in this collection?

Richard Marshall’s piece on Stewart Home argues coherently for a link back from Home’s work to the radical press, and its working class interests, and particularly to the work of Hazlitt, and his craft journalism and notes how difficult it is in our times ‘for a working class culture to flourish and elaborate itself.’ He is right to praise both Home’s persistence, avoidance of compromise and his own craft. But to Marshall this is not enough. For one thing he gives no historical context, nothing about that time of confident working class from the mid-fifties to seventies taking rebellion out of the hands of an elite bohemianism, or the role of political defeat on that mass culture. For another it depends on the put-down of others.

Home doesn’t need this.

A last word on the matter of ‘craft’.

Writing is not an easy business, and one would like to think that one learns, or has learned some things on the way. Most of all it would surely help for the writer to be appreciated for this as a carpenter or stonemason might be. It was good to see that this collection allowed the space for what might be called a conventional short story, Tony White’s ‘Afternoon Play’ but which is as well crafted as a goodfitting door and frame. John Barker johnny come home, Jake Arnott, Sceptre Books, £12.99, pp278 (ISBN: 0340840358) ake Arnott’s latest novel johnny come home is set like earlier novels in a period he cannot have known except as a child, but which is well-researched, and which cover those few years when anything seemed possible, and radical bohemianism stopped being an elite affair. It is a period that still haunts the rich and

J

powerful; that the poor and relatively poor might be happy, creative and intelligent is intolerable to them. The new novel is set in 1972. The backdrop is the start of the Angry Brigade trial. I was a defendant in this trial, and so with recall the period is alive to me. Life was very intense, and it is tempting to say Oh, he’s got this wrong or that, but he is very fair to the time, the libertarian left, and sympathetic to his characters.

This in itself is in sharp contrast to another novel written closer to the time, Doris Lessing’s The Good Terrorist. In this novel the dice are well and truly loaded, the protagonists are not just arrogant, careless, stupid wishful-thinkers, but sexually impotent as well. Once can imagine the critical response to this kind of treatment of a successful businessman; that this wasn’t art, it wasn’t fiction, it was polemic, whereas there are still hacks praising the novel. What stands out is how Lessing, the ex-Stalinist, hated the ‘counter-culture’ and its politics just as much as those who kept the faith like the father of the character Nina, and even he is treated with sympathy. Arnott is scrupulously fair in emphasising that the Angry Brigade was not a tight hierarchical group, but also that its SN8 Defence Committee was more politically important than those they were defending.

The tone of Arnott’s novel is elegiac and is set by the offstage character O’Connell, offstage because he has committed suicide but left behind him the potential for a trail of trouble, but also the way in which those who have lived in the same squatted house — Nina and Pearson — come to hook up with the other two main characters in the novel. It is through them — rent boy Sweet Thing and the singer re-invented as Glam Rocker, Johnny Chrome — that the sense of political defeat is linked to a regressive step in a music world that is once again one of manipulation, and this time by predatory gay producers. These are the

only really nasty characters in the novel (the character of Jonathan King is thinly disguised, as is DS Roy Cremer — an absurdly romanticized figure in writing about the AB — as the character Walker), and this has some punch to it given the importance of the Gay Liberation Front to the politics of the novel. The contrast of the two worlds also cuts the other way, the bombing of the fashion store Biba (claimed by the Angry Brigade a year earlier), is totally wrong in the eyes of Sweet Thing because Biba’s is easy for shoplifting exactly the clothes that can make him feel not just glamorous, but which are sensually pleasurable.

The four main characters are sympathetically treated but all, except Nina (he was all right after all the Stalinist dad, she is the most solid) are tragic, whereas she unexpectedly at last has an orgasm. They are tragedies coming out of different forms of desperation that are a result of different forms of exploitation, or as a result of what we come to see as O’Connor’s sentimental nihilism. But also as if tragedy was the necessary tenor of the times. It is here that difficulties arise, for it was also the very same time when the miners defeated the state at Saltley, and the leaders of so a dockers’ strike were released from Pentonville prison as a result of mass physical pressure that was not clandestine. The absence of even a passing mention matters given that Arnott is addressing younger readers with the very proper intent of giving a feel of that period of passionate politics. It leaves it a little unbalanced. The absence of the texture of pre-gentrified inner London, its egalitarian feel, is less important given that intent. In the end though, I did, as a fiction reader, wish that he allowed the characters to speak more for themselves, to give them a voice, rather than the authorial voice telling us so much of who they are and what they think.  John Barker August ‘06 | THE TRAWLER

31

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letters ‘When the wind blows...’

From Tidy Tom, Alexanda Park Dear Sir: With reference to Peter Roe's article ‘When the wind blows...’ in the March edition of The Trawler.

The point Roe fails to cover, like so many nuclear enthusiasts, is that uranium, like fossil fuels, is also a finite resource, and if we continue to use it at current rates we will have run out of that too in 100 years' time. If, of course, we start to use more of it, then it will last a correspondingly shorter time-span. And when we’ve run out of uranium, we will be facedwith the same situation we are starting to face now, only with a lot more nuclear waste to deal with.

And nuclear waste is a big problem — nobody really knows what to do with it at present. How old are the oldest man-made structures on earth currently? The great pyramids are about 5000 years old — but radioactive waste needs to be stored for at least 10,000 years in a structure that won’t leak — can anyone really guarantee that? Using nuclear is storing up problems for future generations. If, once uranium has run out, we switch to renewables, how can we possibly deal with radioactive waste which is incredibly energy intensive to process and store?

And how are other countries going to produce their energy? Will the UK and USA police the world preventing unauthorised use of nuclear power as they are already trying to do in Iran / North Korea? Who are we to say who can or can't use electricity? If nuclear is the way forward we can only expect a more unstable world as ‘unsuitable’ countries try to use it too.

The only attraction of nuclear is that we can maintain our current lifestyles with little impact on ordinary people; putting the problem off until we're all dead and some future generation get lumbered with the waste. This has 32

THE TRAWLER|August ‘06

only come about as the powers that be have started to realise that fossil fuels will become scarce in their lifetimes and need a handy replacement to tide them over for a while.

The throwaway paragraph at the end of Roe's article really says it all — we have some stark choices to make between long term sustainability in choosing wind power etc., and maintaining the status quo for just that bit longer by using nuclear power.

If we let global warming continue by failing to act — and it looks like we probably will as our governments are so spineless — the wetlands that the RSPB and their conservative / conservationist ilk are so precious about will have been lost beneath the sea anyway. It would be far better to build wind turbines in Cumbria, Romney Marsh etc., and the Severn Barrage at the expense of some wildlife habitat than to lose the lot in the long run.

Tidy Tom Editor replies: Current plans are for the site to be decommissioned, cleared and landscaped to return back to the shingle foreland by 2111.

Current Key Milestones (Decommissioning) 2006 Generation ceases — both reactors shut down 2009 Defuelling completed — removal of vast majority of radioactive inventory from site 2010 Demolish Turbine Hall — Turbine Hall removed to free the land for other decommissioning facilities 2014 Completion of ILW Store — new waste processing plant erected in place of the Turbine Hall 2021 Care and maintenance begins — all plant and buildings except reactor containment will have been removed 2103 Remove ILW Store — ILW store removed ready for final site clearance 2111 Final site clearance and closure http://www.nda.gov.uk/About_the_NDA—Locations— Dungeness_A—Dungeness_A_— _Overview_of_NDA's_Strategy_(945).aspx?pg=945

Recycling Councilors From David Russell, St. Leonards-on-sea Dear Sir: A correspondent to ‘the other paper’, a Mr. Mark Caiver, suggested that if there were away of ‘recycling councilors’, perhaps into fuel pellets, we should consider it. 1 think that this is a truly wonderful idea and I am pleased to say that the technology already exists. Thermal depolymerization is a process for the reduction of complex organic materials into light crude oil. In 1999, Thermal Depolymerization, LLC of Philadelphia constructed the first fullscale commercial plant in Carthage, Missouri where it is processing 200 tons of turkey waste into 500 barrels (21,000 US gallons) of oil per day.

This company claims that trials show that a typical 1751b man (councillor) could (theoretically, of course) yield 381b of oil, 71b of gas, 71b of minerals and carbon and 1231b of sterilized water. I have worked out that the oil, which would make excellent biodiesel will drive my diesel Mercedes 375 miles. This gives it a fuel consumption of 375 miles per councillor. Of course this is not very accurate because councillors do come in different sizes, some will undoubtedly reduce my car’s consumption considerably, while the skinny ones less so.

I notice that our council takes out of its ‘Culture’ budget, the sum of £46,000 p.a. for cremating the destitute (more than they spend on the Arts). Just think of the waste that this represents, in one year’s supply of the destitute I could run my car for the rest of its natural life as well as going a little way towards solving our water shortage problem and reducing council tax! The latest statistics show that the way our government is performing with poverty on the increase, the number of destitute is also on the increase and this promises an ever increasing supply of fuel. Eureka!

David Russell