Changes: Lewes New School Turns and Faces the Strange
After a great deal of dedication and inspiration the pupils, teachers and parents alike, Lewes New School are proud to present their version of Bowie's 'Changes'.
This track was recorded in order to raise money and awareness for the New School Thinking conference that they are hosting in October. The conference has been set up to investigate the best practices in innovative primary school education.
Please visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsNVmOa5Pd4
Please comment, rate the video and spread the word. Then when the single is released on Monday 14th September, buy a copy from iTunes. Maybe it can be a top 40 hit!
The song was created entirely from the school community, except for the producers who ran the project as a workshop for the children. And the bass player is Herbie Flowers, who toured with Bowie in the 70s and has two grandchildren at the school.
Happy viewing.
Dahlan Lassalle
Lewes New School Changes Bowie
Lewes Free Press: 19th Century Online Version
Included as part of The British Library"s launch of the public version of its 19th century British Library Newspaper website, is a digital version of the Lewes Free Press.
The Brighton Patriot and Lewes Free Press was the brainchild of George Faithfull, a solicitor and leading reformer in Brighton.
When the 1832 Reform Bill enfranchised Brighton, he stood as a reform candidate and won easily.
Three years later, however, he lost his seat in the 1835 election.
As one of the factors that had contributed to his defeat was his lack of press support, he decided that he needed his own newspaper if he wanted a political future in Brighton & Lewes.
Thus, he established the weekly four-page paper The Brighton Patriot and Lewes Free Press with his own funds, the first 6d issue of which appeared on 24 February 1835 - less than two months after he lost his seat.
However, Faithfull did not fare any better in the next election in 1837 and after that the paper was of little immediate political use to him.
Moreover, the election marked the beginning of a change in the newspaper's readership.
Faithfull had originally used the newspaper to foster a common identity between his middle-class liberal and working-class radical supporters.
However, the contentious election served to break down this class alliance, with Brighton's working men forming the Radical Registration and Patriotic Association.
This group would later become Brighton's Chartist Association, and its working-class members became the paper's only remaining active body of subscribers.
The Brighton Patriot uneasily and selectively supported them until the summer of 1839, when there was a riot in Birmingham, arrests throughout the country and the Chartist Convention voted to hold a general strike.
These troubling developments, combined with a dwindling circulation, a libel suit and mounting debts, meant that the paper ceased publication in August 1839.
Search for The Brighton Patriot and Lewes Free Press
http://newspapers.bl.uk/blcs/basicSearch.do
Webbo
Brighton Patrio Lewes Free Press
Lewes New School offers route to avoid SATs
Lewes New School, a pioneering Primary school in Lewes, East Sussex, has opened its doors to pupils whose parents are concerned about SATs testing in Year 6 of Primary School.
Since it started in 2000, the school has never used SATs to monitor the progress of the pupils. Instead, it uses a rigorous system of ongoing classroom observation. Despite the absence of SATs, or probably partly because of it, children go on to local schools such as Priory or Chailey with their natural love of learning intact and are very well prepared for Secondary School life.
Till now, the barrier for many prospective parents has been the fact that the New School is not yet state-funded, so has to charge fees to cover costs. However, the Brighton-based Guerrand-Hermes Foundation (GHF) has stepped in and created a bursary fund for up to five children. This will mean that, depending on the parents’ circumstances, up to half the fee will be paid by the bursary fund.
Commenting for GHF, Scherto Gill said: “What this school is doing is amazing. We appreciate that the bursary would still leave parents needing to find around £900 a term. However, we’re hoping that by significantly subsidising the fee, we can tip the balance.”
In fact, the bursary fund will be open to children joining the New School from Year 3 upwards.
Head Teacher, Lizzie Overton added: “Because we’re free to dispense with SATs, it’s a bit like giving the kids an extra year’s preparation for Secondary School. The final year at a Primary School is typically one of endless practising for the looming SATs exams. Teachers and pupils alike come under massive pressure to perform well and genuine learning is all but stopped as the focus is switched to the tests ahead. Not at Lewes New School. We simply carry on our approach of educating the whole child and encouraging their love of learning.”
Interested parents should contact the school office on 01273 477 074 or look at the website lewesnewschool.co.uk Deadline for applications is June, 2009.
Dahlan
Lewes New School Nursery
It takes more than a village
However you feel about the festive season it's undeniable that we Lewesians are able to experience yuletide joys simply not available to the residents of lesser towns. We can open our presents while congratulating ourselves on the continuing rebel status of our community, and sip our local ale with its taste all the sweeter for the memory of past battles to keep it flowing. This year, we can also warm ourselves against the economic chill with the glow of self-sufficiency provided by the Lewes Pound, confident that those who have skipped town will wish they were back as they gaze at the portrait of Tom Paine in their Lewes Pound Collectors Packs.
Though I'm a fan of local businesses and think the publicity for them is great, a few weeks ago I wrote a piece in a rival organ expressing some scepticism as to the Pound's prospects. In the likely event that you missed it (though the seriously under-occupied among you can read it here http://johnmcgowanarchive.blogspot.com/2008/12/lewes-pound-article-from-viva-lewes.html), I was wondering about three things.
The first was if the Pound would actually catch on in a society full of other ways to pay for things and where we aren't (yet) dependent on barter. The evidence for the success of other similar projects is sparse. However, even if Lewes ends up being exceptional, my second thought was how difficult it is to find evidence that such complementary currencies lead to any more money going into local economies, as opposed to what is being spent already.
My main question though, concerned the environmental claims made for promoting local shopping, given that buying in local shops and walking to them are two very different things; and that we usually expect our neighbourhood stores to stock products from all over the world.
My article prompted a polite response from Transition Town Lewes restating their hopes for the Pound, while (to my ear at least) toning down some of the grander claims made for the scheme. One point they made a great deal of was the value of buying locally produced goods as a way to help the environment.
The reasoning goes something like this. Let's say the Lewes Pound becomes popular and we all start moving our spending away from Tesco, lots more people walk and (let's stretch it while we're on a roll), we all cut down on imported fruit, Australian wine, mobile phones, and rice. And flour. And sugar. Oh yes and tea, coffee, chocolate...
Other than speculating that the transition Lewes would thereby undergo is towards the Middle Ages, one might assume that such a rather implausible sequence of events would have a positive impact on our environment. After all if there is one thing we all know about the science of climate change it's that local is best. Isn't it?
The broader ethical issues involved in buying goods made in Bangalore or Bognor, and who is most worthy of your consumer patronage are maddeningly complicated and I don't propose to get into them here. If we just restrict our moral sensibilities to carbon footprints, it seems logical that the less distance goods have to travel, the lower the carbon emissions associated with them. But can you always know for sure?
If you think about where the components in a product made down the road come from, things immediately seem less straightforward. And that's before you get into which parts are recycled and recyclable and whether the recycling is actually environmentally sustainable.
Even if you leave manufactured goods to one side and concentrate on food, things are not much simpler. Buying English strawberries may actually lead to a carbon footprint many times the size of that associated with the punnet from Chile on the next shelf. This is because the energy going into a heated greenhouse can be far higher than a plane flight from the southern hemisphere where no heating is required. Of course not all British strawberries are heated during growth but how can you tell which are and to what extent? You may do your bit by buying English apples in February but how do you think they've been kept fresh and what do you think the carbon emissions associated with that might be? The distance a finished product has travelled can actually be a grossly simplistic way to measure environmental impact.
One solution to this is that we all take the trouble to inform ourselves more fully as to the background of what we buy. However, just how easy would it be for even the most committed environmental shopper get hold of such information? In an article in the New Yorker magazine earlier this year, journalist Michael Specter considered the experience of Tesco who launched a plan to mark all their products with a carbon footprint indicator. They rapidly worked out that the distance commodities had travelled was only a tiny variable in their calculations which encompassed all the factors I've mentioned above and many, many more. If one of the world's largest retail chains struggle to work out the carbon emissions level generated by their products, good luck to you next time you buy a few groceries.
Though it may have little practical value, the Pound, like some other Transition Town schemes, is at least a bit of fun which generates media interest. It seems clear that such schemes like do have the potential to motivate people and help them feel that they are involved in something which will help the community. Clearly people like to feel they can have an impact.
That last paragraph may give the impression that the Lewes Pound, despite its dubious evidence base and questionable environmental rationale, nonetheless has the potential to be important and relevant. I'm struggling to see it as either. Even if its uptake does increase, it seems to me that engaging people in this kind of scheme also has downsides. Leaving aside the likely disappointment when the impact of people's effort turns out to be less significant than they'd hoped, there is also the danger that by focusing on contributing in this way, we fail to pay attention to more pressing challenges. It is superfluous to point out that tough economic times are coming and thinking about novelty money may end up being distracting rather than helpful.
What than should the town's priorities be? The focus of the Pound campaign has been on retail businesses. Obviously this is important and it is apparently the new trend to demonstrate our patriotism through shopping. Though we're perhaps becoming a little swamped by shops selling luxury goods, many of these business do help the town to flourish. But if retail businesses and the town more broadly are to survive, and perhaps even become more diverse, Lewes also needs to think about how to encourage larger employers and different sorts of work. The truth is that we may only be able to do a limited amount internally, and outside investment will be necessary. I'm wondering how this sits with movements which encourage us to look inward rather than outward, and promote self-sufficiency as our future.
I look at the portrait of Tom Paine on the Lewes Pound. Even in the 18th century he didn't shy away from seeing the interconnectedness of the whole world. What would he think of the kind of place our rebel town is becoming?
John McGowan
Lewes Pound, Transition Town, Carbon Footprint, Environment
The Wonder of Woolies
When Country Mouse came to stay a few weeks ago, she asked if Lewes was a good place to buy her nephew a present. ‘A good place?’ I shouted. ‘A GOOD PLACE? We’ve nothing BUT gift shops. IT’S ALL WE’VE GOT!’
After begging me to stop yelling - they’re not used to loud noises and hysterical laughter in the sticks, apparently - she entreated me to take her the length of the High Street so she could examine every single one of the chi-chi gift shops, which is to say, every shop. She wandered around Wickle, flounced into Flint, breathed over Brats, rested in the Laurels, scampered round Skylark, and had a Mc-breakdown in Ada McKewski. I don’t think there was a small wooden thingy of great expense that we didn’t peruse, a single carefully crafted whatsit that we left unturned. And yet. The nephew’s gift remained elusive.
We had a well-earned tea-break in the Riverside café, and it was there that Country Mouse turned to me with the light of revelation in her eyes and said, ‘You know what I need to find?’ ‘Yes’, I sighed, gazing at my steaming feet and wishing I was somewhere far from any shops, such as Country Mouse’s own dear village, ‘You need to find a new nephew.’
‘No’, she cried, ‘I need something plastic!’
There was a sudden silence in the café, as everyone turned with a sharp intake of breath to gaze at the unwitting Country Mouse. Tea-cups rattled, forks froze half-way to lips, a waiter shed silent tears. ‘Yes’, my dear friend went on, not realising that she had made a terrible faux pas, ‘I need a Woolworths!’
I shoved a handful of Lewes Pounds at the waiter and ushered Country Mouse out of there, my coat over her head for her own protection. It was only when we got outside that I was able to say, under my breath so no-one else could hear, ‘You may not believe this, Mousey one, but we do actually have a Woolies right here in Lewes’.
The look on her face was a joy to behold. Emotions flitted across it: delight, astonishment, excitement and anger - the latter demonstrated by her hitting me with her umbrella and yelling, ‘Well why didn’t you say so in the first place?’
It’s not a long walk from the Riverside to Woolies but all the way she berated me for not taking her there straight away. ‘He’s a six year old boy!’ she said. ‘He just needs some plastic.’ And ‘Who’d have thought there would be a Woolies here?’ And ‘Oh my god there’s an Argos too!’
We swept in, past the Perry Como CDs and racks full of straight-to-DVD titles. We skirted the famous pick-n-mix which has oft been cited, on this website’s very own forum as well as many a lesser publication, as the training ground for every fledgling shop-lifter. Avoiding the nylon slippers and packets of Bob the Builder vests, we arrived at the marvellous plastic toy section. Every child in Lewes was here, gazing mutely, and sometimes not mutely, at the array of Ben Ten merchandise, High School Musical dolls, and Power Ranger lunch-boxes. It took almost no time at all for Country Mouse to select a brightly coloured something and hand over the £1.99 – a sum which wouldn’t have been enough for even half of the smallest wooden bauble in any of the other shops.
‘Woolies!’ she sighed happily, clutching the timeless red and white carrier to her chest as we strolled down a darkening street, ‘What would we do without it?’
What indeed?
Beth Miller
Woolworths, Riverside Cafe, gift shops
Outrageous Rascist Atrocities
I had the misfortune to witness the so called Cliffe Bonfire procession this year, and as a practicing Viking, I took enormous offence to a number of people I saw dressed up in my national costume ! This was obviously a premeditated racist attack on not just Vikings but indiginous Scandinavian people in general, and must be stopped. Furthermore, I was horrified to witness the wearing of so many stripey jumpers in what was quite frankly only a beret and a string of onions away from an attack on our French friends. From what I understand these thinly veiled racist attacks were taking place all over the town, with people dressed as native American Indians, Mongols, Greeks, Samurai.. the list is endless.
Why, oh why, do we allow these Xenophobic 'traditions' to continue. Having recently come down from London, and therefore more intelligent than you Lewes lot, and having witnessed bonfire once, I obviously consider myself an expert on the subject and see no need for any further investigation into its origins and traditions, and would heartily recommend that these racist atrocities are stopped forthwith !
Leif Eriksson
Cliffe Bonfire, Vikings, American Indians, Mongols, Greeks, Samurai
It’s another fine mess
Where in Lewes will they be cool if blackcurrant juice is spilled over the table? Twice? Where will they smile if there's more food on the floor than the plates? Where will they simply shrug if the crayon marks on the wall won't come off? I'm not referring to my own behaviour, by the way. I can usually keep my crayoning on the paper, anyway.
We've been taking our children (Thing One and Thing Two) out to eat since they were babies, in the hope that they will become like those French children one sees in Parisian bistros: hair and clothes unsullied by ketchup, they sit quietly between courses, say "please' and "thank you', and eat snails and brains. So far, the experiment is such a failure I can only assume that those French children are heavily sedated, or are grown-up actors pretending to be children just to mess with my head.
However, we merrily persist in outings to restaurants for one important reason: SOMEONE ELSE HAS TO CLEAR UP. Here's some of the places in Lewes where they do so without complaint (at least till we're out of earshot). This is of course a subjective list, so feel free to shout at your computer screen if you disagree.
Italian waitresses are traditionally supposed to welcome small guests with cries of "Bella! Bambino!', accompanied by cheek-pinching and bosomy cuddles. Stereotype further dictates that the children will then be whisked off to the kitchen, sat on the chef's knee and hand-fed pasta, while the ecstatic parents glug Grappa and read more than one sentence of the paper. While the Lewes Italian eateries are a little more reserved, as befits their British location, they are nonetheless easily the most tolerant of all Lewes venues.
Lazatti's positively encourages the little tykes, by offering a time every day when children go free if their parents are eating. The food's lovely, the atmosphere good, and the place clearly washes well as there has been no sign of our previous devastation when we make subsequent visits. The only downside is that the tables are quite close together, which means that if people without children sit next to us during happy hour (though why are they there then?), we spend the entire meal trying to prevent Thing One from engaging them in conversation about carbonated feet and Thing Two from spraying them in tomato sauce.
Of the chains, Pizza Express and Prezzo are mess-friendly. Though they don't go quite as far as Lazatti's freebies, they both have excellent children's menus and, crucially, plenty of space between tables. Pizza Express does very well with its classy desserts for kids ("Mummy, how come we are allowed a Sundae when it's a Friday?') The crayons and paper arrive instantly, balloons are given away at the end, and the food's not bad either. Prezzo isn't quite so quick off the mark with the crayons, but it does have sensibly sized pizzas for children, as well as great entertainment in the form of the enormous oven with its roaring fire and a chap chucking pizza dough about.
Of the non-Italians, Bills is an attractive option but you can't guarantee to get a table, which is deeply traumatic after you've struggled in there with bags, buggy, yelling children, and a migraine the size of the oven at Prezzo. If you can get to Bills on a weekend morning by 8.30am, you can get not only a table but a guaranteed full five minutes silence as your child devours the pancakes and fruit. I know that time in the morning sounds absurd if you don't have kids, but parents of small children will be thinking, as late as that? (Not that I ever do it – Him Indoors is in charge of Ridiculously Early Outings.) There are plenty of staff around to ply you with extra napkins for mission clear-up, and the general camaraderie of sharing tables means the chances are you'll be near relatively relaxed punters. Or if they tut, you can pretend they made all the mess.
Where else? Café Nero wipes clean, it's usually quite noisy so Thing One can talk at her usual excessive volume without shattering wine-glasses, and the window seats and milkshakes are popular.
Wickle looks like it will break into tiny pieces if you so much as let a small child go in there but actually the café bit is great because the grown-up can sip tea out of real china while the children can play with the beautiful toys. They are actively encouraged to do this by the friendly staff, who are clearly mad.
This one may surprise you, but afternoon tea at Shelley's – in the garden, or in their generally deserted lounge – scores quite highly: they do a nice line in fancy biccies, and last time we were there no-one frowned at Thing Two when he almost knocked over one of their bizarrely elongated vases.
Pubs. We've never gone in much for pubs-with-kids, particularly not those ones which say "Well-behaved children welcome'. Show me the parent who reads such a sign and says, "Gosh, we must go in there, my children are impeccably well-behaved', and I'll show you someone suffering from untreatable delusions. Or someone French. The pub might as well put up a sign saying, "Don't even think about it'. Pubs in general, no matter what they claim, don't feel that welcoming to families. Our worst ever meal out was in a pub (not in Lewes, I hasten to add), one that had a "family area'. It was terrible, from the disgusting food and the filthy carpet, to the total lack of service ("Please can you warm up my baby's milk?' "No.') If you know better, and there are tremendous child-friendly pubs in Lewes, feel free to shout at the screen some more. Or drop a line on the forum.
Indians, Chinese and Thai restaurants. I'm sure they would be very friendly but we haven't tested them yet, on the grounds that my children would doubtless reject the food as being too spicy or the wrong colour or too unlike baby-bels or something.
Most mess-friendly of all, though it's the wrong time of year, is the café at Grange Gardens. No-one even notices if you spill food and drink, and you're actually doing your bit for the environment, by feeding the birds and watering the grass. And the space between tables is ginormous.
Beth Miller
Lazzatis, Pizza Express, Prezzo, Cafe Nero, Wickle, Bills, Shelleys, Grange Gardens
Why I Love Lewes
Popped into Harveys for a 4-pint canister of Bonfire Boy. Then on to Waitrose to pick up some stuff for dinner. On the way out, was just changing hands with my shopping and managed to drop the canister of beer. It split in two, beer all over the shop.
Customers at the Vollie found it very amusing.
Called in at Harveys brewery shop to buy another 4-pinter, explaining what had just happened so the staff didn't think I was a p*sshead. "These things happen" said the manager, and give me 4 pints of Bonfire Boy for 'nowt.
Fantastic. I am now a devoted customer of Harveys Brewery Shop, recession or non.
An Economist
Lewes, Harveys, Bonfire Boy
Shoreham Ghost chasers
Money is being raised for a Leukaemia charity based at Great Ormond street hospital by holding Séances at pubs and castles in Sussex.
Shoreham Ghosthunter was formed in January this year and has so far passed on £400 to the London hospital. The aims of the group are to further their knowledge of the paranormal and help people at the same time.
For Halloween in 2007 the group were sponsored to stay at Newhaven Fort for 24 hours showing demonstrations of their methods to members of the public and raising money at the same time. Chris Isted, 25, from Shoreham, is the founder of the society and said: The event at Newhaven Fort reignited my interest in the paranormal. We try to help people move on and learn more about the spirit world.”
With Halloween fast approaching the society has plans to hold another Séance at The Priest House near The Ashdown Forest, premises that used to be an estate office for the Priory of St Pancras in Lewes.
Chris explained some of the unusual incidents that can occur. “At an event in Bramber Castle, near Steyning I was standing in the ruins of the castle on top of a hill beyond the moat when a woman's name, Isabella, popped into my head. The men in the group were chased down the hill but the women were left alone.”
“It can be draining because the spirits use our energy but it can also be enjoyable. The spirits try and put the feelings they have into us at these events. At Bramber Castle I felt happy because I could see the spirits of the children laughing and playing hide ‘n' seek. I am not afraid for myself at these events because I go in with a positive outlook and an open mind.”
The society has plans for a future event at Pendill Hill, a site that is known in the haunted world as a ‘very active' site and has been featured on TV's ‘Most haunted'.
The Lewesian
Halloween Ghosts Spirits Sussex Newhaven Priory of St Pancras in Lewes
Did he stink!
Oh there are too many stories. One of the funniest was at Fletching on their firesite amid the exploding cow pats. I was talking to friends when this rookie went off, and my friend turned away cussing and blinding, when he turned around I momentarily thought his glasses had melted, however my concern turned to hysterics when I realised it was a cow pat dripping off them. Did he stink!
I agree totally with Cliffe bimbo about her points raised regarding the night but would like to add that there are too many drunken people around town causing problems and the council should not allow pubs to operate as off licences on the night - whatever happened to the on street drinking ban.
Enoch
Bonfire, Fletching, cow pat
Leave your swords at the door
The first year I was in bonfire it was very, very wet. Everyone was soaked through, and the clouds of steam rising from the wet costumes as people stood round the fire trying to get warm made it like an outdoor sauna.
I discovered how very difficult it is trying to have a pee in a soaking wet costume that included a long skirt and a sword. Those portacabin lavatory cubicles aren't built to accommodate swords.
Annette Curtin-Twitcher
Lewes, Bonfire, Loo, Sword
Liquid lunch anyone
I remember that wet year, I went to our church hall for some food and when I looked down to get some money out of my purse a wave of water ran out of my hat onto the food on the table - I was not very popular.
We also had problems trying to light set pieces which had very wet tape match on - gave up in the end. The colour in the lining of my coat ran through 3 layers of clothes and stained my underwear too!
Enoch
Lewes, Bonfire, Food
Do you want ice in that?
The most horrendous (but sadistically funny!) thing I ever saw was in a packed pub at a Battle outmeeting when I was with the Cliffe. Not giving any names but one male member descretely p***ed in the ice bucket and put it back on the bar!!!!
Lewesianne
Bonfire, Battle, Ice
Bonfire memories
My first year in Bonfire I was given the job of carrying the 5 torch badge at the back of the procession, I'd never seen bonfire before, I still haven't got over the wonderful feeling of camaraderie you get looking down at the river of fire stretching from the Pelham down to the bottleneck.
As we got to the top of Lamport I was told that I would be leading the clergy down to the firesite, I had never experienced rookies before (London bangers are feeble by comparison) and soon I was doing the "Rookie Two Step" to the accompaniment of Paul Wheeler's raucous laughter.
Cliffebimbo, I was once asked "where can we get some paraffin?" by two members of the public who were holding homemade torches at our firesite!
Musher
Bonfire, The Pelham Arms, Rookie
Bonfire memories
I grew up in the Borough, and have taken part since I was a baby. When I was 21 I saw the light and joined Cliffe, and have been with them ever since. My funniest memory, was when I went to an outmeeting in Battle. One of the pubs there used to charge 1 to get in, so loads of us (literally feet away from the bouncers on the door), climbed through a small window at the front of the pub, to avoid paying. Unfortunately (and even though I was a lot smaller than I am now), I got stuck on the latch. Loads of people inside were pulling me, and the people outside pushing, when eventually, my trousers ripped, and I went flying through the air. Luckily, one of our members was in the way, so I had a nice soft landing!! This was the famous year of the pumpkin, of which one of our other members will have to enlighten you.
I love it, one of the reasons being, is that it draws the community together. What other hobbies do you have in which the elderly and the young, and those in-between can mix, with no regard to their age, social standing, occupation etc.
What would make it better is:
1. Fewer police
2. Fewer people coming into town
3. No street venders, allowing only for a handful of food outlets.
4. Stopping people walking in the procession, who can only be bothered to come out on one night of the year.
5. More chinese crackers
6. Allowing people to stand on Cliffe bridge (not allowed last year, for health and safety purposes.
7. Allowing bonfire members to be able to go in the police "exclusion/safety" zones. Surely me going up Station Street on my own is safer than walking down Friars Walk, carrying a torch, with hundreds of members of the public around me.
Final comment, why oh why, do members of the public have such a fascination with discarded torches???
Cliff Bimbo
Bonfire, Cliffe, Torch
Not Many of Them to the Pound
So I was with a few friends in a Lewes restaurant the other day, celebrating my birthday. No, I never mind presents being late, it's fine. Chocolates, flowers, anything glittery and expensive. Just send them care of lewes.co.uk. Anyway, the pink champagne was flowing (actually the pink Cava, in these straightened times), and Cricket-Girl said, ?I nearly gave you a Lewes pound as part of your present'. Oooh, the rest of us said, have you SEEN a Lewes pound?
Well knock me down with a chollah if she didn't whip one out of her purse there and then, and it was passed round the table to general amazement. Blackberry-Man offered to buy it from her for a fiver, but Cricket-Girl is honest to a fault and told him there were now many more pounds in circulation, thus dampening the previous ebay-generated hyper-inflation. The note got passed to me and I examined it closely, though that was mainly because I could see two of them, a 100% increase caused by too much pink Cava. It looked like real currency if you held it up to the light, and like toy money if you didn't.
?Do you know', and here Cricket-Girl dropped her voice to a whisper, which was awkward as the restaurant had foolishly agreed to play my new birthday CD which was blasting out ?Part Time Punks' at top volume, ?Do you know that I went into X Shop and they had been bullied into accepting the Lewes Pound?' She didn't say X Shop, obviously, she was more specific, but I'm being discreet, like.
?How do you mean, bullied?' we all gasped.
?The owner had loads of people coming in and being rude about them not taking the Lewes Pound, and people even saying they wouldn't shop there unless it was brought in.'
I was so appalled at the thought of our town, famous for its democratic insistence on democracy, behaving in such a fashion, that I gulped down considerably more Cava in one go than I should have.
?Ordinary punters were saying that?' I spluttered, ?Or was it whoever's in charge of the Lewes Pound?' I've never been very good at knowing who's in charge of things. I still have no idea what the difference is between the Town Council, District Council and County Council. For all I know, our bin collection is organised by the British Council.
Cricket-Girl put me straight. ?Transition Town Lewes brought in the Pound', she said, ?And there is absolutely no suggestion whatsoever that they have been hassling people into accepting it.' Well, that's all right then.
?But here's some really good gossip', she said, and lowered her voice still further, though by now the manager had ripped my CD off the deck and reverted to Mantovani, so I could hear just fine, ?Rumour has it that not only were no shopkeepers surveyed about whether they wanted the Lewes Pound, but there wasn't even a vote taken amongst the members of Transition Town.'
?Allegedly!' everyone yelled hurriedly, mindful of the dreadful import of any implication that the proud town of Thomas Paine should be involved in such an un-constitutional business. We all took a slug of Cava to wash the very thought out of our mouths.
Then Cricket-Girl made me give her back the pretty Lewes Pound. I wasn't going to keep it, honestly. Even if it should have been my birthday present.
Beth Miller
Lewes Pound, Transition Town, Thomas Paine
Lewes court complex
Lewes Crown Court is one of the town's most striking buildings and has been the scene of notorious criminal trials down the years. The recently held Open Day had record numbers of visitors with crowds queuing down Fisher Street.
The Building is a grade one, first tier Crown Court centre, so it can hold the most serious trials in the county and is the head of what is now a ten court centre, up from six ten years ago. The Lewes building comprises four courts; there are four at Hove and two more in Brighton.
The Lewesian asked Tyler, the security manager at Lewes Crown Court, why Lewes needs two court centres. He explained the demand for court space led to Lewes magistrate's court being built nearly 20 years ago in Friars Walk, to handle lower level cases. This court has been criticized architecturally as a monstrosity.
It is underused and runs well below capacity. Tyler said, 'my colleagues are required to man the court during its opening hours even if no cases are scheduled. If an incident occurs the courts are required to deal with it at the first available opportunity so the place needs to be ready to do this. Unfortunately, the practical effect is that they are often killing time.'
Lewes crown court has seen a number of high profile cases in recent years, amongst them, the trial of Roy Whiting, (convicted of the murder of Sarah Payne) dubbed by the media as the 'body in the box' case. Graham Coutts was also sentenced for the murder of Brighton school teacher Jane Longhurst.
The public are allowed to view cases at the court centre after passing through a security check and Tyler told The Lewesian, 'In a big case the atmosphere in the court can be electric and highly intense.'
One of the countries most notorious trials was held at the Lewes Assizes in 1949. John George Haigh was convicted of 6 murders in which he dissolved the victim's bodies in sulphuric acid before forging papers to sell their possessions and pocket the proceeds. Haigh was under the mistaken impression that police needed a body in order to successfully prosecute. Mr Justice Travers Humphrey sentenced him to death, one of the last times this sentence was passed in this country.
The Lewesian
Lewes Crown Court
A funny thing happened..
A funny thing happened to me as I walked up Cliffe High St on Friday.
My attention was drawn towards a worrying sight, the type that makes you cross the road. A man, in his 40's I would say, was shouting out angrily.
Not at anyone in particular it seemed, he was addressing his anger at himself and the language was almost as bad as it gets.
As he turned down Station Street, naturally, people did cross the road to avoid him, and once they had safely negotiated this potential hazard they would turn round and look at him, shaking their head and laughing.
He turned right at Southover Road, seemingly heading for the Grange, still spitting out Venom. He stopped at the bottom of Watergate Lane close to a white van and sat down by the water trough.
The guys from the van were fixing something but stopped to look at the commotion. They approached the raving plastic bag carrier and just talked to him, gently, for less than a minute. I am not sure what they said but it seemed to have some effect.
The previously furious character sat quietly for a few moments and then walked up Watergate Lane as quiet as a mouse, seemingly content.
Well the do say 'calmness can placate fury'
The Lewesian
Cliffe High Street, Rage, Station Street, The Grange
So Good They Named It Once
It's not often, walking round town, that you start to ponder the many ways in which Lewes is actually a lot like New York. In fact, it's never happened to me before. It probably hasn't happened to anyone before. But suddenly, on Saturday, there I was, thinking, hmm, yes, Grange Gardens is just like a very small, clean, safe Central Park. If you squint a bit. And the twittens are kind of laid out in a grid, really, aren't they? Just not a very conventional grid.
What, I hear you plead, led to this Manhatten-obsessed train of thought? I'm glad you asked. It was a small thing, really. I was trundling along the High Street, and I'd like to say I was minding my own business, but that's not true, because not only was I peering nosily into every shop window and smiling randomly at old ladies, but I'd also just caused a minor fracas in the bank, the details of which needn't detain us here. Anyway, in the midst of this not minding my own business, I was suddenly brought up short by an unfamiliar and extremely unexpected sight: a chollah in the window of that cheesy shop (as in, they sell cheese, not that they are naff and like Val Doonican).
A what? I hear you gentiles cry. A chollah: it's a plaited loaf, traditional in Jewish homes on a Friday night. Well you could have knocked me down with a chollah, as the old saying I've just made up goes. I haven't seen one of those since the last century when my dear old East End mum would mutter an ancient blessing over such a loaf on Sabbath evenings (and would be ably supported by my brother and I saying ?Get on with it, we want to watch ?Winner Takes All').
I bustled in to the cheesy shop and was about to seize a chollah, possibly two, for who knew when these times would roll round again, when a horrible thought struck me. This was Lewes, right? Not Manhattan, or Ilford, or Hove, even. Probably ? and here I let out a disappointed sigh ? almost certainly ? this chollah was nothing but brioche in rabbi's clothing. ?Is this brioche?' I asked the sales assistant, putting the full force of my disdain into the word so that it sounded as if I was swearing. ?No', she replied, ?It's chollah'. She pronounced it perfectly.
Strolling away with the bag under my arm (I only bought one in the end ? it's just a loaf of bread for god's sake, nothing to make a song and dance about), suddenly Lewes was lit with a more cosmopolitan light. My overdraft-related fracas in the bank now seemed like a vibrant and forthright exchange between two colourful and busy city-types, rather than an overheated scene of public humiliation.
And that wasn't all. Why yes! Like New York, we have an amazing array of shops, some of which even sell things you want to buy. We have restaurants with food from many nations, although mainly Italy. We have a melting-pot of people, from all over Sussex and the south-east, and if we don't have a mayor who preaches a zero tolerance regime, we do at least have a parking system which operates on the same principle.
So ran my thoughts, as I wandered home, imagining that the lone Big Issue seller was in fact a large number of witty pan-handlers, and that if I popped into Beckworths they could sort me out with salami on rye to go.
The chollah tasted of brioche, by the way. But it was very nice brioche.
Beth Miller
Grange Gardens, Beckworths, Cheese Please, Parking