“Known for it”
In April this year Hastings was identified by the Office of National Statistics as having the third highest rate of deaths involving heroin and morphine misuse of all local authority areas in England and Wales. Only Blackpool and Burnley had worse records…
Drug-Abusing, Homeless and Dead
On 4th January this year the Hastings and Rother coroner’s office announced that there had been three deaths of homeless people in Hastings in eight days over Christmas. MP (and at that time Home Secretary) Amber Rudd was reported as…
FOOTBALL: Less games, less travelling, lesser opposition?
Last year the Ryman League became the Bostik League in a shift of commercial sponsorship that brought little change in playing arrangements – or fortunes – for Hastings United. Next season the seventh and eighth tiers of English football will…
TENNIS: Keen on pleasing god
Members of Hastings tennis club Amherst are lucky to have as their head coach Doug Keen, once a winner on the US Satellite Tour and at the age of 49 still an outstanding player and enthusiastic teacher. Luck? From Doug’s…
CRICKET Rain stopped play
On 14th August 1975 north London suffered a ‘storm of the century’ - 170 mm (nearly seven inches) of rain in three hours at its Hampstead epicentre, causing flood devastation – to bring a notably sunny summer to an abrupt halt. I…
INSTRUMENTALISTS GET VOCAL BACKING
The prospect of East Sussex Music (ESM) ending its instrumental teaching provision in the county’s schools by reason of a proposed withdrawal of funding by the Council (ESCC) has stimulated a furious campaign of opposition. A petition for these proposals…
CRICKET – MAKE HAY IN MAY!
Priory’s Early Fixtures Invite Strong Start For the cricketers of Hastings and St Leonards Priory the real summer starts here. After a Cup opener in mid-April, a warm-up game at Mayfield and a T20 bash last weekend, they play their…
HIP READ: Quietly Occupied by Rose Miller
Artist, writer and long-time St Leonards resident Rose Miller has written a first novel set in Normandy under German military occupation in the Second World War. It chronicles the life of a remote village which is taken over by the…
FOOTBALL: Dave Ormerod – Back on Board
It was on April Fool’s Day 2015 that Dave Ormerod, former postman, put his pension savings into buying majority shares in Hastings United. After two and a half years as chairman of the board he stepped down last November –…
Party Party
Bikers and Morris Dancers get it together for holiday weekend The Hastings Mayday Run, which celebrates its 40th annual happening this weekend, is ‘one of the biggest free-to-attend motorcycle events in Europe’ according to Bike 1066, organisers of trade and…