Author Archives: HIP - Page 49
Beef About Wellington
DEBORAH RIPLEY Since arriving in Wellington Square in late 2016, I’ve witnessed firstly a gradual and then, more recently, a rapid decline of Wellington Place opposite. I knew I was…
Snowflake Meltdown
From 2006 The Snowflake Trust has operated as a charity providing shelter and physical support to those in need in Hastings and St Leonards. Between 2011 and 2020 the Trust’s…
West Hill Road Landslide –Whose Responsibility?
HUGH SULLIVAN On Sunday 5 November, after days of heavy rain, there was a slide of rock, debris and mud down the slope below West Hill Road that affected one…
Northeye Purchase: £9m Private Profit Revealed
Jeff Newnham A private finance enterprise, Brockwell Group Bexhill LLP (BGB), has made an astonishing profit in its dealings over the former Northeye prison site on the western edge of…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter Benefits injustice Your excellent article Huge Holes in Benefits Safety Net in HIP 238 described the terrible state we are in in this country, with people falling through the…
Pink Star Pilates
HELEN MURPHY & NICK PELLING investigate the P word Pink Star Pilates We should admit something: we thought Pilates was just another variant of yoga, probably a branch of transcendental…
Hastings Helps Hastings
ROBIN GRAY explains. The ‘Hastings Sierra Leone Friendship Link’ has been working since 2003 to improve the lives of the residents of another Hastings over 3,000 miles away, in West…
Thinking Inside the Box
JUDE MONTAGUE uncovers a slice of Social History I have been chasing history. Specifically, Hastings history. My research has uncovered the tale of the first woman ever to become a…
Clean Water Watch
A regular column to update readers on the damaging effects of the current management of water in Hastings, surrounding areas (and nationally) and what people are doing about it. If…
Word Up!
NICK PELLING & HELEN MURPHY find out about the town’s new adult literacy group. Isabel Hodger Do you know an adult who struggles to read fluently? The difficulty is really…
The HIP List #239
MUSIC 16 November 2023 Paul Eshelby (tpt) & The Jazz Organisation The NUR Robertson St, 17 November 2023 McNiff’s Folk Sundowner The Jenny Lind, 69 High St, Knewmi The Joint…
Invasion of the Dead Cats
ROBIN HOLTOM was struck by a line in the evidence of Dominic Cummings to the Covid Enquiry: “At one point in the autumn he told me to figure out how…
Cold Night, Warm Sax
VICTORIA KINGHAM at Barnaby’s on a new jazz night Geoff Simkins and Liam Noble Storm-tossed nights in Hastings aren’t the best portent for an evening out. After a flood, on…
Zero Gravity
VICTORIA KINGHAM on Dorsay Alavi’s exceptional biopic of Wayne Shorter March of this year saw the death of an extraordinary musician, and another small piece of magic went out of…
Crowning it All…
TOM BLASS on the Cable Street Rag Band Jazz is a funny world. It has its deities of course: Coltrane, Miles, Bird, Monk, Billie and Ella et al, towering above…
Quiet Realism Makes a Noise
HELEN MURPHY & NICK PELLING explore the David Tindle exhibition at the Kino Gallery. Nick PellingDavid Tindle: Blue Bed Sheets and Pillowcase (2006) When you think of British painters of…
Wreckless Eric plays the Pig
JUDE MONTAGUE On a dark October night, just before a storm, we stood on White Rock seafront watching for the main act to drive up. It’s a great moment before…
Voice, Community, Uplift
VICTORIA KINGHAM talks to Day Levale about a life singing and building a community Ed Barrett Day Levale, choir leader, is deceptively slight and unassuming. Bundled against the rain in…
Mike Hatchard: How Music Became an Extreme Sport
ROD WEBB Peter Mould Mike Hatchard is at it again. He’s not only a renowned musician and composer, but full of ideas for raising money. To celebrate moving into his…
BOOKBUSTER REVIEW: Weird Walk
By ‘Weird Walk’!Published by Watkins Books, 2023 rrp £ BY TIM BARTON The Weird Walk zine has been selling well at Bookbuster for a while now, and has reached issue…
Poetry Corner: To the thick of the forest
ROY DUFFIELD your black eyes and your ears that do not yield the right grain, they say are too poor to enter here, in this garden party debate, underfed by…
Climate Action in the Kitchen
EDWINA HUGHES As we start to focus more on the climate emergency, many of us are asking what we can do differe;lntly to live in a more sustainable way. Eating…
RUGBY: H&B struggle in lower league
After their relegation earlier this year, Hastings & Bexhill may have been expecting a more comfortable experience in the Kent 3 County League this season. It hasn’t worked out that…
FOOTBALL: United Resume Winning Ways
4 November:Hashtag Utd 1, Hastings Utd 211 November:Hastings Utd 3, Kingstonian 2HUGH SULLIVAN How much of sport is talent, how much is work, how much luck, how much self-belief? Supporters…
BLOOM OR BUST?
“£100m” for garden town project, but council cuts still impending HUGH SULLIVAN The cabinet of Hastings Borough Council (HBC) met on 6 November to debate a very mixed financial agenda.…
One Woman, Four Floods, No Justice
HELEN MURPHY & NICK PELLING investigate one woman’s struggle with Southern Water In the last edition of HIP (238), much was written about the seeming incompetence of Southern Water and…
Power to the People
KENT BARKER Will Hastings become part of the growing campaign to turn its streets and rooftops into mini renewable power stations? A number of local people have started to circulate…
All Rise
As well as being a regular HIP contributor, DAVID EP DENNIS has been appointed as Project Manager for Bexhill-on-Sea Town Council’s Wild Domesday Project. One of his main areas of…
Pigfoot Play Ellington
BEN THOMPSON at EHSAA “They never dance, some of them don’t tap their feet, some of them are actually asleep… but still it’s full every month?!” Such is the bewildered…
Tales of Anguish and Anger
The Quaker meeting house in South Terrace, where the religious Society of Friends has met for worship since 1865, had suffered severe flooding in January. The damage took seven months…
East Hill Lift Reopens
The East Hill Lift, claimed to be the steepest funicular railway in the country, has reopened following the completion of refurbishment work. The lift closed in October 2022 following an…
Gaza Protests Ignored by Local Politicians
Rod Webb A wide range of local pressure groups – led by Hastings & Rye Palestine Solidarity Campaign (HRPSC) but joined by trades union groupings, Amnesty International, refugee support groups…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Bonfire Symbols Dear HIP, I went to the Bonfire night for the first time and was really impressed by the organisation and great family atmosphere of the event. However, I…
Clean Water Watch
A regular column to update readers on the damaging effects of the current management of water in Hastings, surrounding areas (and nationally) and what people are doing about it. If…
Helping Hastings’Pets in Need
STEVEN SHORT Pet Pantry wants to help pet owners struggling with the cost-of-living crisis and needs your donations. You may have heard that there are currently more food banks in…
Interacting with Hastings History
WILL DAVIES, from Whalebone Films, explains how he has developed an interactive Hastings History Map. When I was young, I had an unusual picture book. It was a series of…
Valentino’s Vivarium
HIP Features Editor BEN BRUGES visits a Hastings vivarium that also houses people. Ben BrugesValentino with Amity - they often watch TV together Valentino Cerioli, five, can’t remember when he…
The HIP List #238
MUSIC 3 November 2023 McNiff’s Folk Sundowner The Jenny Lind, 69 High St, 5:00pm Cable St Rag Band Crown House, 57 Marina, 7:30pm Megan Leigh Mason The Dolphin Inn, 11-12…
Water Woes
BEN BRUGES castigates the woeful record of Southern Water and wonders whether the company should be abolished. Recently Southern Water, for the second time, smeared excrement all over Bulverhythe and…
Prehistoric Graffiti
KENT BARKER You might think that the use of stencils by street artists is a relatively modern phenomenon. Just look around Hastings and see our Banksys or Stewys, or the…