What’s on Your Mind?
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Do it like Brighton and Eastbourne
Dear HIP,
Some good points were raised in your feature Is the Theatre Really Dead? in HIP 218.
I did a slide show at the White Rock about 12 years ago explaining the cultural regeneration of Shoreditch and how it would happen in Hastings. It now has happened, independently from the Council, but over the last few years the Council have talked about cultural regeneration as if they created it.
The next stage should have been to help organise/facilitate the creative forces into something more meaningful. This should include keeping large venues like St Mary in the Castle open so that theatre, music and dance groups can form, rehearse, perform and expand into companies that can thrive and attract funding in the way Brighton does.
Hastings also needs better communications about what goes on, where and when. A Council exists to protect the public realm, keep theatres open and encourage economic activity, be it cultural or otherwise. Visit Eastbourne to see how to do it.
Philip Oakley.
Overpopulation
Dear HIP
The news in HIP 219 that Clearsprings Ready Homes Ltd is going from strength to strength on the amount of asylum seekers coming to the UK and reported “to continue for the foreseeable future” is evidence of how the UK is blindly going into overpopulating the UK.
Britain is one of the most overpopulated countries in Europe. We are only an island, and yet we seem to be the aim for everybody to come from other countries as the country to aim for.
Possibly, the reason behind this is the unlimited hand-outs the UK is world famous for, the other reason is lower sentences almost across the board for crimes committed.
The government says it is determined to combat poor air quality, and yet continues to fill the UK up, and the drivers of the UK are threatened and cursed with ever increasing ‘congestion charges’ that threaten now to take in a larger part of the London-surrounding areas.
This seems to show a gross amount of error by the government (no change there then) to keep the people who are here safe and yet have absolutely no idea how or when to stop the influx of people who almost certainly will want to drive and heat their homes eventually.
Government shortsightedness prevails so evidently in this issue.
Derek Stocker.
Artist update
Dear HIP
We were very interested in your article about Toby Shaw (Staying Focused on the Image Trail in HIP 217). We went to his stall when the College had an open weekend, and bought quite a few of his cards of the Old Town. We later went to his home near the College to buy more.
When we were in Yorkshire for a holiday we spent the day at Leeds. There was an exhibition in the Museum of artists’ work from the College there. We bought several pieces including lino prints by Sarah Young, who later went on to do posters for the V&A Museum.
Other students were Carl Johnson, Anthony Theakston and Helen Moore.
Imagine my daughter’s surprise when she went to a craft fair in December at St Clements Church – who should have a stall but Helen Moore! They had a long chat: she found that Helen was now living and working in St Leonards.
It’s nice to know what has happened to these artists.
Mrs P Bichard
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