The Pett Level Rescue Boat team, usually tasked with helping distressed swimmers and vessels, found themselves in uncharted waters on Saturday 4 July when they responded to an alert regarding an unusual casualty: a live octopus, marooned in the sand by the receding tide. Steve Hill, the Chair of the Launch Authority, told HIP that his members carefully recovered the creature before safely returning it to the sea. Another successful, albeit unusual mission, for the team of valued community volunteers.

While the sighting of this eight-armed cephalopod may still feel like a novelty for beachgoers, its presence is likely to signal the onset of a serious ecological upheaval in local waters. For the fishermen of Hastings, however, it represents a potential threat to their livelihoods.

The sightings of octopuses are becoming more common along the South Coast, particularly off Cornwall. Marine biologists explain that the sudden surge in sightings – a phenomenon known as a ‘bloom’  – is driven by environmental factors, such as a mild winter followed by a warm breeding season, supercharged by the long-term warming of our seas due to global warming.

The warm-water creatures make their way here from much hotter southern waters as sea temperatures rise. This migration is driven not only by the current marine heatwave, but also by longer-term climatic trends that are pushing sea surface temperatures 4–5°C above average in parts of the English Channel. So-called ‘heat domes’ exacerbate the problem by trapping the hot air to drive record-breaking air temperatures.

In the short term, some of us may bask in the tropical conditions and enjoy lazy afternoons on the beach. Yet it is becoming increasingly clear that the ecological shift scientists have long warned about is no longer a distant forecast but a present-day reality.

The rising sea temperatures along the Kent and Sussex coastline are already impacting traditional marine habitats, the very staples of the historic, shore-launched Hastings fishing fleet. The numbers of cod, Dover sole, plaice, herring, mackerel and skate fished locally are declining, as these species move further north to find colder waters. Seagrasses and kelp forests are also disappearing rapidly from around the English Channel.

The rise in octopus numbers is now beginning to have an impact on shellfish stocks, too. Octopuses are voracious predators of crustaceans, and as their population is set to explode, stocks of crab and lobsters are likely to be decimated. This will impact shellfish potters who use specialised baited traps (known as ‘pots’) to catch their quarry which are highly prized.

The octopus threat is only the latest blow to an already battered fishing fleet, which has seen the number of active beach-launched boats that make up the historic fleet in Hastings reduced to almost single figures.

Roland Kelly, skipper of the Senlac Jack, has witnessed first-hand the dramatic decline in Hastings’ fishing fleet over his 40-year career. When he first put to sea in 1986, he says the waters off the Sussex coast were teeming with cod, Dover sole and plaice, but those abundant hauls are “now a fading memory”. He blames the steady encroachment of large EU trawlers, “even within the post-Brexit six-mile limit,” of over-fishing and of stripping the inshore grounds of mature fish. As a result, “catches today barely cover costs” he says.

Add to that the bureaucratic nature of fishing quotas, whose rigid inflexibility makes them virtually impossible to meet, along with the prospect of extended Marine Protection Zones – a conservation initiative he supports for safeguarding critical habitats, yet whose expansion he fears will impose even greater constraints.

Mr Kelly believes fishing is a passion but “a passion too few young people seem to share today”. The restrictions have simply become too onerous and he asks is it any wonder “given the difficult working conditions, the financial uncertainty, and the bureaucracy why any young person would want to work the boats anymore.”

He acknowledges an ecological shift is under way in the English Channel with sea temperatures rising and traditional fish stocks depleting. He also believes the threat posed by the rise in octopus numbers, whilst real, is not the most immediate concern of local fishermen.

The longer-term shift in marine life will inevitably present opportunities, as new species arrive in local waters. Increasing numbers of octopus and blue fin tuna could, in time, he says, provide lucrative markets. But, he adds, there is no certainty that the octopus will stay if their supply of crustaceans disappears. New equipment will also be needed along with new skills, and new supply chains – all at considerable cost, and it remains to be seen whether these gains will outweigh the losses already being felt across the local fleet.

The rescue of the octopus in Pett Level was undoubtedly an act of kindness, but it also serves as a stark warning. Increasing numbers of octopus are a visible sign that global warming is real and that an increase in sea temperatures will have a massive impact on our town and on the very future of our historic fishing fleet.

Most people in Hastings know the sea from the shoreline. Surfers know it from the waves. Divers know it from below. But very few people realise that just offshore, beneath the surface of the English Channel, we have lost something extraordinary.

Historically, large kelp forests once stretched along parts of the Sussex coastline. These underwater forests supported fish, shellfish, crabs, seahorses and countless other species, while also helping to stabilise the seabed and absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Today, much of that ecosystem has disappeared.

Kelp is often described simply as seaweed, but it is much more than that. Kelp is a large brown algae that forms dense underwater forests in cold, nutrient-rich waters. Like forests on land, kelp forests create structure, shelter and food for entire ecosystems. Juvenile fish hide among the fronds, marine life feeds and breeds within them, and the whole environment becomes richer and more biodiverse.

INCREDIBLE ECOSYSTEMS

My own connection to the sea began long before the Hastings Kelp Project. I’ve spent most of my life surfing, diving and travelling around coastlines in Asia, New Zealand and the UK. Some of my earliest memories of underwater life came while snorkelling in Southeast Asia, where I first realised how incredible marine ecosystems could be. Over time, I also began noticing how much had changed – fewer fish, degraded habitats, and ecosystems under pressure.

That experience eventually led me into Environmental Science with the Open University and towards creating the Hastings Kelp Project.

The project is an independent community-led research initiative focused on understanding kelp ecology and exploring practical restoration methods here in Hastings. At its heart, it is about learning how kelp grows, what conditions it needs to thrive, and whether we can help support the recovery of these ecosystems along the Sussex coast.

We are currently developing a dedicated kelp research laboratory in Hastings with cultivation tanks, chilled seawater systems and environmental monitoring equipment. Working alongside divers, scientists and volunteers, we are experimenting with different approaches to growing local kelp species and studying their earliest life stages.

One of the many exciting areas of the project involves gametophytes, the microscopic reproductive stage of kelp. While mature kelp plants can grow several metres long, they begin life as tiny almost invisible organisms. By cultivating these early stages in controlled conditions, we hope to better understand how kelp develops and how future restoration projects could potentially be supported.

Although kelp restoration is still an emerging area of science in the UK, research around the world is showing just how important these ecosystems are. Healthy kelp forests provide habitat for marine life, improve biodiversity and may also play an important role in long-term carbon sequestration.

The decline of kelp along the Sussex coast is likely due to several pressures acting together over many years. Historical trawling activity, warming seas, poor water quality, storms and coastal runoff may all contribute to the loss of stable kelp habitats. Understanding those pressures – and how resilient kelp can be in changing conditions – is a major part of what we are trying to study.

FRONDS SWAY SILENTLY

For me personally, one of the most powerful experiences is diving through healthy kelp. It feels almost like entering an underwater woodland. The fronds sway silently with the movement of the sea, shafts of sunlight pass between them, and suddenly the underwater world feels alive again. Fish shelter within the forest and everything feels connected and dynamic.

That feeling is difficult to forget once you’ve experienced it.

But this project is not only about science. It is also about community. Hastings has an incredibly strong connection to the sea, and we want local people to feel involved in understanding and protecting what exists just offshore. Through beach days, volunteering, education and outreach, we are trying to make marine science something accessible and inspiring for the wider community.

The Hastings Kelp Project has grown far beyond anything I originally imagined. What started as an idea has now become a growing network of divers, scientists, students and volunteers all contributing towards the same goal – learning more about our local marine environment and helping support its recovery.

Ultimately, this is about hope.

It is about reconnecting people with the underwater world on their doorstep and showing that even ecosystems that have been heavily damaged are not necessarily beyond recovery. With enough research, collaboration and local support, there is still a chance to help bring parts of these underwater forests back for future generations.

For more information visit hastingskelpproject.co.uk

I am a 50-year-old carer from St Leonards. My working life is dedicated to supporting and caring for others. But outside of my profession, I find myself standing in stark contrast to that purpose – campaigning against a facility where thousands of young lives begin, only to end in scientific testing.

As often as I can I travel to Huntingdon to join a growing protest movement known as Camp Beagle. The camp, which has been in place since 2021, is not a formal organisation with offices or infrastructure. It is a line of army tents and camper vans set up along a busy B-road, directly outside the gates of MBR Acres. From here we bear witness to what happens inside.

MBR Acres is owned by a US-based company that breeds animals for research purposes, including mice, mini pigs, cats, and dogs. At the Huntingdon site the focus is on beagles. Up to 3,000 puppies are bred here each year.

These animals are born into a world they never leave. They are kept indoors from birth, housed in industrial sheds where they will never experience daylight, fresh air, grass underfoot, or the natural rhythms of the outside world. At eight weeks old, they are separated from their mothers and placed into small enclosures with other puppies.

What happens next is difficult to confront. According to information gathered through undercover investigations and a whistleblower who worked inside the facility, MBR Acres operates under a Home Office licence that permits the breeding and bleeding of animals on site. This means that puppies may be subjected to blood extraction procedures. In some cases, they are bled and kept alive; in others, they are bled until death. Their blood and body parts are then supplied for research purposes in what is described as terminal anaesthesia.

The living conditions are stark. Hundreds of dogs are kept on concrete floors, with only sawdust to absorb waste. There are no beds. Each enclosure contains a single toy, fixed in place with a chain. Water is not provided in bowls, but through bottle dispensers attached to the walls.

PUPPIES SOLD TO LABORATORIES

By the time they are around sixteen weeks old, many of these puppies are sold to laboratories. There, they are used in the testing of pharmaceuticals and agricultural chemicals. Before leaving the site, they are trained for the procedures they will undergo: to hold their heads in position for blood sampling, to tolerate masks, and to accept gavage feeding – a process in which a tube is inserted into the stomach via the throat to deliver substances directly.

Not all of the animals make it to this stage. Those deemed unsuitable for testing – because of size or other factors – may be euthanised, even if they are otherwise healthy. The whistleblower has alleged that training of the 10 to 15 workers on site daily is minimal and management inconsistent.

For those of us at Camp Beagle, these accounts have become the driving force behind our campaign. Our work is focused on three key areas. First, we maintain a visible, physical presence outside the site through daily protests and observation. Passing traffic cannot ignore us; our aim is to ensure that neither can the wider public.

Second, we seek to raise awareness. Despite the scale of animal testing in the UK, the breeding of puppies for vivisection remains largely hidden from public view. Through social media, public engagement, and outreach, we are working to bring this issue into the open.

Third, we apply political pressure. Campaigners have organised petitions and lobbied Members of Parliament in an effort to bring about legislative change.

Last month marked a significant moment in that effort. I joined fellow campaigners in a 66-mile walk from the camp in Huntingdon to the Houses of Parliament in London. The journey was timed to coincide with a parliamentary debate on a petition calling for an end to such practices.

The walk was both symbolic and practical – a way of carrying the voices of those animals who cannot speak for themselves directly to the heart of government.

Standing at the camp, day after day, is not easy. We have no access to mains electricity or running water. Power is generated through solar panels, and water is brought in containers. In winter, conditions can be harsh, with cold, damp weather testing the resolve of those who remain on site.

Dogs Crying Continuously

Yet people stay. They stay because once you have stood there – once you have heard the dogs crying continuously, once you have become aware of what is happening – it is difficult to walk away unchanged.

I often speak to workers entering and leaving the facility, hoping for dialogue, hoping for reflection. I also witness the vehicles that transport the puppies away to laboratories. For many of them, it is the beginning of the final stage of their short lives.

I do not believe animals should ever have been used in this way. Animal testing represents a profound ethical failure, and I question whether it is necessary when alternatives exist. To me, it raises serious concerns about both scientific validity and the use of public and private funds, particularly when non-animal methods are increasingly available. Above all, I believe it is fundamentally immoral.

Beagles are commonly used because of their temperament. They are gentle, docile, and less likely to show aggression. They are also of a manageable size. These characteristics make them easier to handle in laboratory environments, but they also make their situation particularly poignant.

For me, and for many others, this is about transparency, accountability, and an end to unnecessary cruelty. This is not solely about one facility in Huntingdon. It is about a broader system that permits the breeding and use of animals in ways that many might find troubling if they were fully informed. I believe that more people would question these practices if they were more widely understood. That is why awareness is central to our campaign.

There are many ways for the public to become involved. Visiting the camp is one option, even if only for a short time. Seeing the site first-hand can be a powerful experience. For those unable to attend, writing to an MP, sharing information, or supporting campaigns through fundraising are all meaningful contributions.

As I walked the 66 miles to Parliament, I carried with me a simple hope: that this issue will no longer remain hidden, and that the voices calling for change will continue to grow louder.

The transcript of the House of Commons debate can be found at: hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2026-04-27/debates/E58B5F78-ACDD-4354-9FD6-CBAB8F3115C3/AnimalTesting

Four close friends of mine have partners who have been diagnosed with dementia of different kinds. Molly’s husband Geoff was diagnosed with Lewy Body dementia – a progressive neurological disorder – last year. Geoff was a high-flying academic. For over a decade he was the carer for Molly who has Ankylosing Spondylitis of the spine and another condition. Their caring roles are now reversed.

Dementia is on the rise in Sussex. By 2030 the figure of those affected is expected to rise to almost 14,000 people.

Reform of adult social care has reached a critical point. But Government ambition for reform may yet perish on a hill called ‘Social Care Funding’. Since 1997 more than 22 reviews and reports have been conducted and, unlike with the NHS, there is still no streamlined well-funded adult social care system.

SEISMIC IMPACT

The impact on carers when their spouse is diagnosed with dementia can be seismic, while state support is variable. Adult social care does not work in the same way as NHS care. It has been a bolted-on, raggedy service, developed in response to people living much longer – alive but increasingly frail.

‘Adult Social Care’ is like a giant jigsaw puzzle that just does not fit together. Multiple, often ill-formed pieces of the service have been created randomly over time. It is not a properly planned and supported system, not in any holistic sense that can work well and in tandem to complement existing NHS health care.

Social Care was added much later on to a welfare system set up following the Beveridge Report in 1942. Eighty years ago, people died at a much younger age – the current average life expectancy is 82.6 years although recent studies this year show a healthy old age is reducing by 13 months in some deprived areas of the country.

Molly says her husband Geoff has been able to enjoy organised walking with a group. “He was reluctant to join in at first, but he really enjoyed it. Neither of us found the organised singing group as enjoyable though. But I am sure we will find other activities for stimulation. I like the fact there is a small carers support group locally which meets in a church hall once a month.”

DENIAL OF ANYTHING WRONG

Molly feels the most challenging aspect is having to repeat things so often to Geoff and also the extent of the help he requires. She also finds there is a denial from her husband that there is anything wrong. That’s tough for both of them to deal with. She has found the charity DISC is wonderful, helping support carers and people with dementia across the region. “Being able to talk to people who know about dementia and who are really listening to you is such a relief psychologically,” said Molly, “and practical advice is very useful – such as how to apply for attendance allowance and a lowered council tax bill.”

National charities such as the Alzheimer’s Society have a wealth of information on their website, and improving funding for research into dementia is one of their joint central goals. Meanwhile, science is progressing all the time. The New Scientist recently reported on developments into a better understanding of the causes of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Radical research has recently claimed the disease may not start in the brain but elsewhere in the body. Amyloid proteins found in the brain are thought to be an indicator of Alzheimer’s disease in some people, but this is now being questioned. Some scientists now say amyloids may in fact be a response to Alzheimer’s and not the cause.

Work is being done on the immune system, inflammation and more research into the effects of the shingles injection in middle age, which may have reduced the likelihood of dementia development in later life. But sadly, conclusions from such studies are still a long way off. This is not good news for the individual who wants positive medical intervention now. Meanwhile, Adult Social Care itself needs radical reform.

PRIVATE EQUITY AND CARE PROVIDERS

There have been many concerns about private equity firms being involved in care and the impact on economic stability and the quality of their business model. The Four Seasons failure was an historic case, and private equity was at the centre of the collapse of then leading UK provider Southern Cross in 2011. Investment firms have become notorious in sectors such as water and care, for taking over underperforming companies and loading them with debt, before using short-term strategies to maximise their profits for a quick return.

At a Nuffield Trust summit on 5 March, Baroness Louise Casey gave a blistering speech about creating a system that works once and for all. Casey has a reputation for competence and thinking out of the box. Compassion shone through her speech. Yet what real hope for reform is there?

“The story of social care so far is not one of neglect or indeed bad faith. We’ve gained stronger rights, better recognition and important legal protections,” she said. “But reform has remained underpowered. Commissions without delivery, rights without funding, national problems often pushed onto local councils. There is poor pay and conditions for the very workforce carrying it – a system which means some needs are barely met at all and others are met late and in piecemeal and random ways. We haven’t had our own Beveridge moment. Instead, we are left with a system with add-ons and workarounds. Sticking plasters and glue. Holding together something creaking, inconsistent and impenetrable.”

For more Information visit DISC Dementia Support based in East Sussex: discdementiasupport.org Bexhill Dementia Action: Bexhilldementiaactionalliance.co.uk Alzheimer’s Society: alzheimers.org.uk

The Casey Commission

The Independent Commission on Adult Social Care chaired by Baroness Louise Casey was established last year by the government to reform England’s social care system. Tasked with laying the groundwork for a National Care Service, the Commission aims to create a “fair and affordable” system, with initial recommendations expected in 2026 and funding plans in 2028. The independent commission started work last summer and Baroness Casey has so far recommended patient passports to fast -track help and the appointment of a dementia ‘Tsar’.

She is also due to produce a report this year with a plan for how to create a National Care Service Phase 2, which will look at how social care is funded in the longer term, is not due to report until 2028.

Demographics of Dementia

• Sussex has the sixth highest prevalence of dementia in the country.
• In East Sussex, there are an estimated 12,681 people aged 65+ living with dementia as of 2025.
• The number of residents with dementia is projected to rise to 13,960 by 2030, an 18.4% increase from 2023.
• Nationally, people with dementia occupy approximately 25% (one in four) of acute hospital beds.
• There are 120 providers of older people’s residential and nursing care in East Sussex across 165 services.
• The average cost for a dementia care home placement in the region is approximately £1,100 per week.
• There are an estimated 69,241 unpaid carers in East Sussex.

Source: the Alzheimer’s Society

A Freedom of Information request by the Hastings Independent reveals some statistical signs of improvement in local NHS health care.

Waiting times and the backlog are coming down. Patient to GP ratios are better, and the number of appointments for GPs has increased.

Ambulance waiting and handover times are generally better than last year. There are also fewer NHS vacancies. Although some targets are still being missed.

But what is your experience? What do you think about waiting times and access to GPs?

Please let us know in the Comment box below, and read the full story in issue 296 of the Hastings Independent out on 26 February.

A decades-long debate about how best to manage the Cuckmere Haven nature reserve in East Sussex may soon be concluded. A planning application from The National Trust and Environment Agency to re-wild a large area of pastureland could not only change how the iconic landscape looks, but end footpath access to an area loved by locals and visitors alike.

The controversial plan involves breaching a Victorian embankment on the west side of Cuckmere and flooding an area used for grazing. It has divided opinion among those concerned about nature and raises the question: what are we actually willing to sacrifice in order to prioritise nature?

The National Trust (NT) hopes to recreate a rare coastal habitat for wildlife, and increase biodiversity, whilst alleviating flooding upriver. It plans to restore Chyngton Brooks – a 100 acre area reclaimed in 1846 – back to intertidal saltmarsh and mudflat. Objectors, however, are angry that the long-established and much-loved riverside footpath along the embankment would be lost, with a second path on the western edge flooded for half the year. Others wonder whether allowing the area to revert to nature is about saving money on costly coastal defences.

BIO-BEADS BAKED IN

In light of Southern Water’s bio-bead spill, there is dawning public awareness that local nature reserves may not be as pristine as we think, with microplastic pollution prevalent along the coast. Given the urgent efforts of Sussex Wildlife Trust (SWT) to keep the beads out of Rye Harbour Reserve, it is ironic that at Cuckmere, just down the coast from Eastbourne where the spill originated, the NT is now looking to create a new saltmarsh which may have microplastic pollution baked in from the start.

Local volunteer Norm Warm, who has spent every weekend for six years clearing up around Cuckmere, says plastic pollution is nothing new. He estimates that volunteers have removed 16 tonnes of plastic to date. Microplastics are the most challenging to remove, especially from mudflat, and Norm is worried they will inevitably spread across the new saltmarsh on the tide.

Unnoticed by day-trippers, thousands of bio-beads and nurdles (pre-production plastic pellets), are already embedded in the mud and flotsam along Cuckmere River’s high-tide line. A 2022 survey by Strandliners found an average 1,028 bio-beads and 1,515 nurdles in a 0.25 square metre survey area. Norm has even found Bakelite, the earliest form of plastic, here. 

He feels more should be done to acknowledge the problem by those responsible for Cuckmere including the NT and South Downs National Park. But they say it originates from the river and the sea, beyond their jurisdiction. Much plastic pollution comes from commercial shipping and fishing jetsam. Rural fly-tipping is also on the rise; locals recently removed 20 full binbags from the Cuckmere River.

STEPPING STONES FOR WILDLIFE

I asked Henri Brocklebank, Conservation Director for SWT, if there’s a contradiction trying to keep bio-beads out of one saltmarsh while allowing them to enter a new hitherto unpolluted one? However, she supports the NT’s project: “New saltmarshes create stepping stones for wildlife along the coast”, and says we should not hold off creating new habitats because water companies “haven’t got their act together.” 

Saltmarshes provide vital habitats for birds and nurseries for fish and marine invertebrates and can absorb storm surges and act as carbon sinks. They have become increasingly rare in England, with over 85% lost since 1860. NT project manager, Amie Rai, did not say whether existing microplastics in the adjacent area had been surveyed, nor whether there are plans to prevent them entering the new saltmarsh but insists the project “does not introduce new materials or plastic sources”, and that preventing plastics entering the environment “is most effectively achieved through changes in production choices, design, and practices.”

FLOODING AND “MANAGED REALIGNMENT”

Cuckmere Haven is a complex area with many issues. Coastal erosion constantly threatens the iconic coastguard cottages. Despite residents’ campaigns, the Environment Agency (EA) stopped maintaining coastal defences several years ago but still monitors and clears longshore drift shingle from the river mouth to improve water flow. Alfriston, upriver, has suffered increasingly bad flooding in recent years, with 20 incidents in 2024 alone. Local groups have mobilised to dredge silt and repair embankments to protect homes and businesses.

DECADES OF DEBATE

The debate about how best to manage such issues has continued for decades. In 2001, the Cuckmere Estuary Partnership was formed by the NT, EA, East Sussex County Council and others to investigate ‘managed coastal realignment’ allowing the area to return to a tidal estuary. After years of consultation, environmental assessments and modelling, a planning application was submitted in October 2025. If permission is granted, the NT plans to implement the project by 2027 but the saltmarsh may take five years to establish itself.

The NT describes its plan as a “nature-based solution” to embrace rather than fight natural coastal erosion and the effects of climate change. Objectors point out that it may also be the cheapest option. The embankment which the NT plans to breach has, in practice, been left unmaintained for some time and is eroding with each tide. A natural breach could happen before a decision is even made on the footpath ‘Stopping Up Order’ which the NT intends to apply for in January 2026.

DIVERGING PATHS

The Open Spaces Society (OSS) is at odds with the NT over footpath loss at Cuckmere, despite the two sharing an historical founder. Octavia Hill, who started the NT in 1895, advocated public access to open spaces, highlighting another dilemma: is it more important to give people access to nature or preserve nature itself?

OSS’s Chris Smith, says the embankment footpath could be retained if alternative, slightly more expensive, plans for creating culverts or bridges were reconsidered: “The proposals for these heavily used paths are badly thought out. I urge people to object to the proposals and to ask the Trust to think again.” He is also concerned that another footpath at the western edge of the pasture which carries the King Charles III Coast Path and Vanguard Way will now be flooded for half the year. The NT is proposing to re-route it to a less scenic stretch higher up the field, reducing accessibility and amenity.

Locals, such as those living in coastguard cottages overlooking the Cuckmere, have a strong emotional tie to the landscape. Even the planning application acknowledges the footpath loss will “bear heavy in the hearts of those that have a fondness and connection with this area.” One respondent, Nigel Newton, wrote: “A riverside path and an elevated inland path are not interchangeable experiences.” He argues the path is “valued not only for its recreational function but also for its cultural and historic significance,” possibly being a 16th century smuggler’s route.

The marshland walk is a uniquely inspiring experience – an opportunity to commune with nature, bird-watch and an antidote to modern life. Many artists have been inspired by the area; Ravilious immortalised the river’s meanders in his watercolour of Cuckmere, displayed in Eastbourne’s Towner. The area attracts nearly 1 million visitors per year, with the Seven Sisters walk internationally popular for day-trippers – after featuring in films, TV shows, and even K-pop videos. Many artists have been inspired by the area.

Tourist hordes taking selfies is perhaps not what Octavia Hill had in mind when she championed access to green space for the masses, but it does raise a serious issue about balancing the needs of humans with those of nature. Of course, you must care about nature to want to save it. No one is arguing against the benefits of access to nature, but we may have to walk a bit further, get a bit muddier and miss out on that close encounter with an egret to ensure future generations exist. 

Find out more

Planning application website for Chyngton Brooks project ref SDNP/25/04080/FUL:

planningpublicaccess.southdowns.gov.uk

National Trust 

website for Chyngton Brooks project: 

www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/sussex/cuckmere-valley/restoring-chyngton-brooks-project

National Trust strategy www.nationaltrust.org.uk/who-we-are/our-strategy

Alfriston Clergy House www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/sussex/alfriston-clergy-house

Sussex Wildlife Trust

//sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk/news/heartbreak-and-hope-the-bio-bead-crisis-at-rye-harbour-nature-reserve

Open Spaces Society

www.oss.org.uk/about-us/our-history/

BHASS Explore (Beachy Head and Seven Sisters Extreme Plastic Object Removal) with Norm Warm: cleanups every Saturday and Sunday in Cuckmere Haven and around Seven Sisters facebook.com/bhassexplore

Strandliners surveys

www.strandliners.org/surveys/cuckmere-haven/

www.nurdlehunt.org.uk/the-solution.html

“Bin the Beads” – Petition to ban bio-beads started by Helena Dollimore MP: www.helenadollimore.com/binthebeads

Write to Helena Dollimore MP requesting she lobbies for the re-nationalisation of water companies: helena.dollimore.mp@parliament.uk – quote your name and address. 

Cuckmere Haven SOS group

www.cuckmerehavensos.org/campaign

Reading & learning:

Marine plastic pollution:

www.sas.org.uk/plastic-pollution/plastic-pollution-facts-figures/

www.mcsuk.org/news/how-to-reduce-ocean-plastic-pollution/

·      The Shaping of the Sussex Landscape by Peter Brandon, Sussex Guide, Snake River Press

·      Is a River Alive? by Robert McFarlane

·      Feral: Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers of Rewilding by George Monbiot

·      Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm by Isabella Tree

Eric Ravilious Collection at The Towner Gallery Eastbourne 

Tues to Sun and Bank Holiday Mons, Free

www.townereastbourne.org.uk/whats-on/the-ravilious-collection

Hastings Museum for geology and palaeontology

www.hmag.org.uk/explore/our-collections/natural-history/palaeontology/

www.hmag.org.uk/explore/our-collections/natural-history/geology/

When I first arrived on an empty Camber beach clutching a dustpan and brush on a wet and blustery Sunday morning, there were just a few people off in the distance from Strandliners and Nurdle. I arrived at the same time as three paid ‘volunteers’ from Southern Water which hadn’t yet taken responsibility and who seemed to know nothing about the spill or even the sewage system.

At first glance the wide stretch of sand looked as beautiful as ever. But as I gradually realised the little black spots on the strandline were not tiny pebbles but plastic pellets, the full horror of the spill revealed itself. There was a dead seal on the beach nearby and a higher-than-normal incidence of dead wildlife has been reported. As a nature lover and sea swimmer, I felt a stab of sadness. 

Gradually, volunteers of all ages began to turn up, armed with humble household tools – dustpans, sieves and rakes. Some had come from as far away as Lewes, aware that we share one coast and one ocean. County boundaries are meaningless to nature, after all.

Joel, the friendly and concerned coastal officer, single-handedly wrangled us – with the instruction to brush or pick up the peppercorn-sized pellets by hand. Consumed with a sense of futility, given the industrial effort required, I and some others began experimenting to find a better system. We bucketed-up seawater – worked out that the beads float, and began scooping sand into a fishing net over an empty bucket, pouring water over, and sifting out the beads. Like panning for gold.

It felt more gratifying, though depressing, to be gathering tens and hundreds of beads at a time than picking them up individually. Our small team collected several bin-bags of beads in a 3-hour period before we got too cold and retreated for lunch. It was heartening to see so many concerned citizens out working together for nature. We sat on our coats and shared around coffee and lemon drizzle cake and swapped numbers.

PUBLIC MEETING

“While it’s not Piper Alpha…”, as a participant admitted at the subsequent meeting in Rye to discuss the bio-bead spill, it is undeniable that the incident is a major environmental disaster – an oil spill in solid form. The meeting had been organised by Helena Dollimore MP with the Environment Agency, Rother Council and Southern Water – who only admitted to causing the spill two weeks after it happened.

There was a tense atmosphere and an undercurrent of anger from the beginning of the meeting, but Ms Dollimore’s call for respectful engagement – as “that’s how we do things in Rye”, subdued any emotional outbursts – though there was a collective groan when she announced that beads had been found in Rye Harbour Nature Reserve.

My cohort of beach cleaners – new friends made when we first trooped down to Camber Sands on 9th November after the call-out from Strandliners, felt deflated and unsatisfied after the meeting, soft-soaped with apologies and stultified by management-speak. As my esprit de l’escalier – the predicament of thinking of the perfect comment too late – kicked in, I thought perhaps it may have been better if we’d been a little less civil, even angry, on behalf of Nature who cannot speak for herself.

With the beads likely to litter beaches for years, even decades ahead, we will need our collective and righteous anger to fuel the clean-up effort. This may be the worst plastic pollution incident in the country – ever. Some progress has been made, spearheaded by Strandliners and Nurdle, with help from community volunteers but there is much back-breaking work ahead – millions of beads (of an estimated 160 million were spilled) are still out at sea, embedded in sand and seaweed and hidden in shingle – washing in and out with each tide. It can feel overwhelming.

Now, our group of new friends, from Rye Harbour and Hastings, have a ‘Pollution Pickers’ WhatsApp group and intend to do weekly beach cleans to make a drip-drip contribution to this Sisyphean task. We were there again with local hotel, The Gallivant, whose staff first discovered the beads on 4 November on one of their regular community beach cleans. Organiser, India Williams, told me that when she first saw them, they were so thick on the ground she thought they must be seeds or seaweed.

Normally they collect litter, packaging and plastic debris such as cotton buds and ‘fishermen’s kisses’ – offcuts from fishing nets – from the high tide mark. This time we rustled up plastic containers, shrimping nets, colanders and sieves, and got our amateur filtration system going, but it was tedious work. The beads are now diffused across the beach and the coastal officer told us that they are waiting for 6 December’s spring tide to float the beads up the beach where Nurdle plans to collect them, with the help of volunteers.

Working alongside us were teams in high-vis from subcontractor Adler & Allan using largescale sieves – one mesh filters out debris, then a finer mesh catches the beads and lets the sand fall onto the beach. “Sieving on an industrial scale” they said. Well, progress – but not exactly the spinning jenny. We need engineered solutions to this problem – and urgently. This is an SSSI, so conservationists are wary of simply digging up sand and seaweed and disturbing the fragile strandline ecology, home to many invertebrates.

NEGOTIATING A CEASEFIRE

Of course, the public section of Camber Sands is only a fraction of the length of the Dungeness peninsula. What about the long stretches fronting the MOD-controlled firing range and Dungeness nuclear power station? The coastal officer told me they are negotiating a ceasefire to assess the situation. Beads have been spotted on Dungeness beach and beyond – and inevitably they will find their way onto French beaches, as they have in previous spills, and into the wider ocean, leaching PCBs and causing untold damage to wildlife.

At the Rye meeting, John Penicud from Southern Water implied they could not have foreseen this spill – caused by the physical failure of a stainless-steel mesh “containment screen’, supposed to prevent beads escaping into the sea. Given their delayed response, they certainly don’t appear to have an adequate risk management or disaster plan in place for such an event. But it seems it was in fact foreseeable, given that this is not the first bio-bead spill from a sewage facility, with bio-beads polluting the environment for years.

I recently witnessed a dense mat of microplastics – bio-beads, pellets used in making plastic products called nurdles as well as polystyrene in the high tide line at Cuckmere Haven saltmarsh (which may soon be flooded by The National Trust) on a clean-up with Bhass Explore (Beachy Head And Seven Sisters Extreme Plastic Object Removal). This could be the legacy of the 2010 and 2017 spills in Cornwall, where South West Water continues to use bio-beads to this day; just this year, in September, Welsh Water spilled larger bio-discs along the Gower Peninsula. An outright ban on the use of all such plastics in our water systems seems long overdue.

I did question Southern Water at the meeting – and may have let some anger enter my voice as I asked about the logical inconsistency of their reporting. Surely, they either did not know about the spill until alerted by external parties – in which case how could they accurately identify the date of the incident and estimate the number of beads spilled? – or they knew earlier and chose not to report it. The answer given was that they did know the screen had cracked around the 27 or 28 October as daily inspections revealed it.

The Environment Agency told us there is an active investigation of Southern Water’s actions so they could not comment. Further questions clearly need to be asked of the company and its ultimate owner Macquarie who, in 2021, told Ofwat it would be “a responsible long-term steward of Southern Water”. Ms Dollimore, who has been doing excellent work on this issue, assured us she will be holding them to account. In the meantime, I’ll be counting bio-beads in my sleep.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Report sightings

Report sightings of newly washed-up beads to the Environment Agency on 0800 807060 quoting reference 2440833.

Report dead wildlife ASAP as they can only autopsy for beads before decomposition.

Report a dead seal or cetacean – whale, dolphin or porpoise – to Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP)  0800 652 0333 + info@strandliners.org

Report a dead bird to Defra 03459 335577 + info@strandliners.org

Join a beach clean

10am – 7 days a week at Camber.Volunteers meet daily in Camber Central car park for briefing. Especially needed after the spring tide – 6 December. Bring gloves, dustpans, brushes, sieves, colanders/nets and buckets for seawater to filter beads.

Lobby for change

Demand that Southern Water cease using bio-beads in all its facilities.

Lobby for a ban on all use of bio-beads and bio-discs in water treatment.

Lobby for re-nationalisation of the water companies.

Lobby for Extended Producer Responsibility for manufacturers of bio-beads and nurdles – requiring them to mark beads with unique identifiers so pollution can be tracked.

Write letters –
demand improved standards

Southern Water : FAO Lawrence Gosden, Chief Executive Officer heretohelp@southernwater.co.uk / 0845 272 0845

Macquarie Asset Management (owner of SW’s holding company Greensands Holdings): mediauk@macquarie.com, FAO Leigh Harrison, Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets, Ropemaker Place, 28 Ropemaker Street, London, United Kingdom, EC2Y 9HD

Helena Dollimore MP: helena.dollimore.mp@parliament.uk – quoting your name and address as a constituent. Request she lobby for the re-nationalisation of water companies.

Environment Agency: FAO Richard Penn, Environment, Planning and Engagement Manager enquiries@environment-agency.gov.uk

Defra (Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs): defra.helpline@defra.gov.uk  FAO: Emma Hardy MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Minister for Water and Flooding). Request re-nationalisation of water companies.

Independent Water Commission WaterCommission@defra.gov.uk, FAO: Sir Jon Cunliffe, Chair – request the commission be reopened to address the specific issue of bio-beads.

Ofwat (Water regulator): FAO: Iain Coucher, Ofwat Chair, mailbox@ofwat.gsi.gov.uk

Consumer Council for Water (CCWater): enquiries@ccwater.org.uk

National Trust: Object to the NT planning application plan to flood Chyngton Brooks at Cuckmere Haven as bio-bead pollution will be further disseminated and footpath access lostplanningpublicaccess.southdowns.gov.uk

What Can You do personally

Reduce – not just recycle. Use and buy less plastic; reduce single-use products; buy less packaged food; buy local and package-free (e.g. Wonderfill); never litter; get your friends to volunteer!

Other Contacts

Strandliners:
Insta: @strandliners
strandliners.org/bio-beads-at-camber

Nurdle: micro-plastic removal charity. Build your own bio-bead collector (trommel):
nurdle.org.uk/trommel-portal

The Gallivant: bi-weekly cleanups – with free coffee and cake after!
thegallivant.co.uk/events/community-beach-clean-25

Rother District Council: Sam Stone the coastal officer rother.gov.uk/news/coastline-clean-up-continues-following-pellet-pollution-incident

Cuckmere Haven area:
cleanups every Saturday and Sunday with Norm and Pam of Bhass Explore
facebook.com/bhassexplore

Sussex Wildlife Trust:
Rye Harbour Nature Reserve
sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk

Clean Water Action Hastings
facebook.com/cleanwateractgp

Surfers Against Sewage:
sas.org.uk

Marine Conservation Society:
mcsuk.org/what-you-can-do/join-a-beach-clean

CleanupUK:
cleanupuk.org.uk

Hugh Strange Architects undertook the restoration of a dilapidated Victorian hillside house in Hastings, transforming it into an environmentally conscious home by prioritising careful repair over demolition. Shortlisted for the 2025 Stirling Prize, the project navigates the technical and spatial challenges of working on a steep site while adding a multi-level extension that enhances light, views and landscape connection.

Hugh Strange, director of Hugh Strange architects, revealed his optimistic outlook on taking on this project noting that, ”It was more of a challenge…It was something I hadn’t done before, and I was excited by the challenge.” he told me. The project began in October 2021 and reached completion in June 2023, with a construction cost totalling £600,000.

Instead of the typical “tear down and rebuild” approach that often prevails for economy and convenience, Strange chose a path of deliberate environmental responsibility.”With every project, we consider how we can make it less environmentally costly,” he notes. This decision set the tone for the entire design process.

Strange adopted a frame-first approach – leaving room for on-site adaption rather than relying solely on a limiting construction schedule. “Usually we draw 90% CAD drawings and 10% hand sketched on site, but this was more like 60:40, using sketches to resolve issues rather than a fully resolved construction set.” This flexibility proved essential on such an unpredictable hillside site, ensuring that any emerging issues could be solved directly.

The original Victorian house had become neglected after nearly five years of vacancy. The later 1980s extension, cut off from natural light and oriented toward deteriorating concrete terraces, left the house feeling enclosed and gloomy.

Yet Strange and the client, Simon Basey, recognised its underlying potential – particularly the hidden coastal views. Rather than demolishing the existing concrete terraces, the team stabilised them using anchoring and patching techniques to reduce embodied carbon. The anchors secured the hillside walls so that a new extension could be built above, unlocking long-obstructed views across the landscape.

Strange also advocated for a traditional, low-impact building method by avoiding metal nails where possible and instead using lightweight timber beams that support one another – a construction approach that makes future disassembly far easier. “In the future, someone could take it apart if they wanted to.” Just as Strange and his team have done with the Victorian house. The result is a house that blends together Victorian heritage and modern architecture to create an interconnection of natural light and coastal views while maintaining its original history. Throughout construction, the team preserved the hillside tree, designing around it to maintain the ecological character of the slope.

Historically, Hastings grew from its lower western and eastern edges before Victorian expansion pushed housing up the steep hillsides – ultimately creating the setting for this particular house on  Milward Road. The transformation from the 1980s dark extension to a bright, open home is striking. What was once enclosed has become a network of open windows, natural light, and interlocking indoor–outdoor spaces.

In choosing restoration over demolition, the project demonstrates how thoughtful repair, low-impact materials, and being aware of the landscape can reimagine a forgotten house into a multi-layered, future-minded home.

The Hastings House was runner up in the 2025 RIBA Stirling Prize and winner of the RIBA National Award and RIBA South East Award 2025

When a young woman – we’ll call her Sarah – bought her first home, a charming 1930s semi in St Leonards, she was captivated by the potential of the overgrown garden out back. It was derelict, yes, but it was also expansive: full of promise for herself and her eight-year-old son. A place for play, for peace, for planting. A little slice of Eden in the suburbs.

What delighted her even more were the whispers from neighbours: foxes, they said, were regular visitors. And badgers too. Real ones. Being passionate about wildlife, Sarah and her son were thrilled by the idea of sharing their new space with these iconic animals – especially the elusive badger, a creature few are lucky enough to glimpse in the wild.

In British culture, badgers are more than just nocturnal diggers. They’re symbols of strength and persistence. In literature, most memorably in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, Badger is the wise, reclusive figure in the Wild Wood, a pillar of wisdom and authority, rough on the outside, but kind at heart. It’s no wonder many see them as guardians of nature, or even good luck. But not everyone sees them that way.

Across the UK, badgers sit at the centre of a long-standing debate. While they are protected under the Badgers Act of 1992, their suspected role in spreading bovine tuberculosis to cattle has led to licensed culls in large parts of the country. In other regions, including Hastings and St Leonards, badgers remain fully protected. The law makes it a criminal offence to:

• Kill, injure, or take a badger
• Damage, destroy, or block access to a badger sett (burrow)
• Disturb a badger in its sett
• Possess a live badger or its body parts
• The penalties are serious: up to six months in prison and unlimited fines.

Come spring, Sarah and her son rolled up their sleeves. They cleared rubble, pulled weeds, laid fresh turf, and turned the neglected space into a lush green sanctuary. They imagined a garden filled with laughter, play and quiet evenings among the flowers – shared, of course, with their wild neighbours. But Eden didn’t last.

Just days after the garden’s transformation, Sarah awoke to find strips of turf peeled up like old wallpaper. Undeterred, she re-laid the grass, gently stamped it down, and smiled at the thought of the badgers’ cheeky nighttime antics.

The next morning: more damage. Then more. And more.

Within a week, the garden had become what Sarah described as a “freshly ploughed field”. Two-thirds of the lawn was upturned: anything but paradise.

Sarah doesn’t regret sharing her garden with wildlife. “I love animals,” she says. “But I also love my garden. I just wish there was more help for people who want to coexist peacefully.”

She adds: “I spent a lot of money and time on my garden and now they are ruining it. I don’t know how to block them out. I’ve tried chilli flakes, sound frequency, and blocking the holes. I would never hurt them, and I’ve never seen them, although I have seen foxes.”

So I turned to some expert advice in the shape of our local charity, Wild Life Matters:

“Badgers in your garden are such a privilege, these beautiful mystic creatures have been around for 250,000 years – but then their habitat had no limit.” Scant compensation when your lawn suddenly looks like a boar has been truffling on it! What are they looking for?

“Up to 80% of a badger’s diet is earthworms and grubs (larvae). Worms live in your flower beds and lawn, and they are normally sucked up. Grubs are usually below your lawn and they are dug up. In the extended dry/drought conditions the ground is hard. The worms are lower. This key food source is hard to get, even with digging. The grubs are in the same place under the grass. If you water your lawn, it’s even better. Nice juicy worms and easy to get to the grubs.”

It appears there is no simple solution. You can treat the lawn with products that kill off the grubs. This might help. Some suggest a low electric fence. This is strongly opposed for the sake of other wildlife. Some suggest digging in netting and up the bottom of your fence. Yes, it mostly works, but you need to dig it in half a metre down. The problem is you then need to lay it 30cm outwards – good luck with the neighbours.

Our expert says: “Some suggest planting things like mint and garlic along the border of your fence. I’m doubtful. Some suggest scattering chilli by their point of access. This may help. Male urine at their point of access can work,as found in the badger cull fight.The badgers think it’s a territory warning. Sensor activated floodlights can work; you can set them just on the point of entry and it often deters, with the caveat that badgers live by scent with poor eyesight.” 

In summary, these visitors, may not return after winter when normal food availability is restored. The best solution is really strong fencing plus wire. Rarely practical.

A last point: in theory, wild animals shouldn’t be fed. In practice, particularly for urban wildlife, it can be a life saver, but on balance, giving them an alternative in your garden could change their target food like using a handful of peanuts or a couple of raw eggs. A few problems with this: they will always come back, your neighbours may not be pleased, and if you go on holiday, they will dig your lawn up unless someone else does it! So, this year is not typical:they may cease digging soon and never come back. Hope springs eternal… You can try the above. But in the meantime, enjoy the privilege of being badgered.

Badger Genocide?

• More than half of all English badgers are believed to have been ‘culled’ in the past 12 years.
• That’s nearly a quarter of a million badgers killed since 2013.
• 70% – 173,000 – were shot despite a government panel determining this was inhumane due to the length of time badgers took to die.
• Fewer than 5% of badgers tested after death were found to be carrying bovine TB.
• DEFRA’s data show there is no evidence that badger culling has had any impact on reducing bTB in cattle.
• The Protection of Badgers Act 1992 makes it illegal to kill or injure a badger without a license but allows Natural England to grant such licenses.

One in ten working age people is currently claiming sickness or disability benefit in the UK. It’s costing a fortune: £48 billion in 2023-24 and expected to reach £67 billion in 2029-30. However the government response has come as quite a shock to many people, particularly those most affected. The best way to help people back to work is apparently to remove or decrease their benefits. The thinking here is if you take away the lifebelt, most people will either sink or swim. Swimmers will go back to work. But what will become of the ‘non-swimmers’?

This ‘tough love’ or ‘cruel and immoral’ approach (you choose) suggests that most people claiming the benefits are scammers, shirkers or wimps. The problems with this approach are numerous. Disability benefits are not handed out freely to anyone who says they are feeling a bit under the weather. The Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is already harder to access than the former Disability Living Allowance. The old allowance relied on information from patients’ GPs, whereas PIP assessments are outsourced to private companies. Former PIP assessors have spoken out, describing the job as a ‘target system’ set up to fail the claimants. Both claimants and assessors have described the process as incredibly stressful. Simply travelling to a face-to-face interview can be a mammoth task for many, and yet vital points may be lost if they manage the journey.

Hastings resident James Oliver suffered from chronic liver disease which was beginning to affect other organs. He was in constant pain, bleeding internally and struggling to breathe. He was doubly incontinent and could barely walk. It would take him at least two hours to walk half a mile to and from the nearest supermarket. In 2016 he applied for PIP. He was assessed by a paramedic who awarded him zero points, thereby denying him benefits. When his request for a review was rejected, he appealed the decision. A letter inviting him to attend a court hearing was sent in August 2019, but it was too late: he had died four months earlier after collapsing on his way to the supermarket.

The case is shocking but far from unusual. Government data revealed that over 17,000 people died between 2013-2018 while awaiting decisions on PIP benefits. Furthermore, the BBC’s Shared Data Unit found that seven out of ten of those who appealed benefit decisions in the period 2018/2021 (mostly involving PIP) had been successful. This showed that most people refused help were found to be genuine cases of need when reassessed by the legal system.

An undercover Channel 4 investigation revealed that PIP assessors were paid £80 per client, but after the first eight, the rate went up to £160 per session and £300 per assessment from the 14th. One worker claimed he could earn about “20 grand a month” and that he sometimes filled in the forms before even seeing the claimant. Another was told to put aside his mental health training when assessing clients.

Thanks to pressure from end-of-life support groups like Marie Curie, people not expected to live for longer than 12 months can now claim fast-tracked benefits under what’s known as the ‘Special Rules’. This should serve as a safety net for those in most need. However the safety net seems rather threadbare. A Freedom of Information request revealed that around 100 people who applied for PIP from 2018-2021 under the Special Rules had died awaiting a decision. And things are unlikely to get better under the latest welfare reforms; framed by the government as a benevolent attempt to get people back to work, but described by disabled support groups as cruel and inhumane.

The goal is to make savings of £4.8 billion by 2029-2030, and £4.5 billion of this will be from cuts to working age sickness and disability. Articles and letters in the British Medical Journal have expressed concerns of the medical profession. One group claims that cuts “will worsen health and the economy”. They challenge the claim that this is a moral case which will get people back to work saying “high rates of inactivity in the UK reflect its almost unique failure amongst industrialised countries to recover population health after the pandemic”.

So what’s going on? The health of the nation has been in decline for some time but took a nosedive during and after the pandemic. One of the most obvious but least considered problems is what we call Long Covid also known as PACS (Post-acute Covid Syndrome). Symptoms include extreme weakness and fatigue, brain fog, cognitive problems, tinnitus, circulation issues, swollen veins, abnormal heart rate and blood pressure, chest pain, tingling sensations and breathing difficulties.

Analysis of 41 studies from 2021 concluded that worldwide, around 43% of people develop long-term symptoms following Covid infection. That’s a lot of people: an estimated 17 million plus in Europe and more than 2 million in England and Scotland. However the problem could be even bigger than we are led to believe as there is another group living with similar symptoms due to adverse effects from Covid vaccines. Their condition is known as PCVS (post-Covid Vaccine Syndrome) aka Long Vax. Many of these people were working before they developed the condition.

GASLIGHTING

The symptoms may make it difficult or impossible to work. The UK is not the only country feeling the impact: by 2023 the US reported a loss of 15 million from the workforce due to post Covid syndromes. To make matters worse, people living with these problems often find themselves abandoned by medical professionals: doctors may dismiss serious symptoms implying that the illness is imaginary. There is growing criticism of this ‘medical gaslighting’ of patients, ultimately a power game, with the most likely victims being women, minorities and the disabled.

Most people with complex neurological and auto-immune conditions like ME, MS or Gulf War Syndrome will have had this experience. The manipulation often extends beyond the doctor’s surgery, when affected people find themselves dealing with the ‘target driven’ assessment system. Those seeking compensation may have an even greater struggle. In 2024 the BBC asked “Is the system letting down people harmed by Covid vaccines?” The one-off Vaccine Damage Payment of £120,000 is only awarded to those deemed at least 60% disabled by the shot. It hasn’t been updated since 2007.

An analysis of international vaccine injury compensation schemes found great variation in treatment of claimants. Japan came out top, compensating 74.29% of cases; France paid out 27.42%. However the US compensated just 3% and the lowest of all was the UK with just 2.64% of injured people receiving compensation. The UK scheme is ‘all or nothing’ so that someone who is assessed as 59% disabled by the shot receives nothing, even if they require round the clock care.

These people join a very long queue for compensation in the UK including the 30,000 people infected in the contaminated blood scandal and the 40,000 or so women injured by the vaginal mesh scandal. With compensation so scarce, disability benefit is vital. But with thousands of PIP claims rejected annually, more and more people are being left to sink or swim.

For some, memories of Christmas include waking to a stocking at the end of the bed stuffed with inexpensive treats. Deep down in the toe there was often a pack of gold wrapped chocolate coins and a delicious orange. Christmas is of course the season for many varieties of oranges – including satsumas, clementines and tangerines. This is when they’re at their best, or at least it used to be. But what happened to our fruit?

Under the skin should be plump, bright orange segments full of delicious juice. But this is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. This Christmas we bought dozens of easy peel varieties from different stores. Incredibly, there was hardly an edible fruit amongst them. 

At best, the inside revealed tell-tale, white, fibrous segments, a sure sign that it has dried out and has almost no taste at all. And no taste inevitably means little if any nutrients. Perhaps even worse than the dried out, tasteless fruit was the number of apparently ripe oranges that smelt bitter and contained blue mould. Some simply disintegrated into liquid mush. 

Artificial Ripening 

Of course it’s not just oranges. Supermarkets have trained us to forget that fruit and vegetables have seasons. Or did we train them? If we fancy strawberries and cream in January, then we expect to find them on the shelves. But there is actually a price to pay and it may be bigger than we imagined. In order to speed up production, avoid potential losses from transportation delays and adverse weather conditions, most fruits are picked well before they are ready and then subjected to artificial ripening with various chemicals. 

We may imagine that all the substances used to ripen fruit are harmless, but unfortunately this is not the case. The fact that these processes and some of the chemicals used pose a serious risk to the environment and human health has been known for decades.

There is a long list of chemicals used to turn a raw fruit into an apparently ripe one, none of which has to appear on any label. At one end of the scale there is the use of ethylene, which is considered a more natural approach to artificial ripening. This is a synthetic version of a hormone that the plant cells produce to trigger ripening. It is, however, quite expensive and requires specialised equipment. 

Inevitably, some producers turn to cheaper and less safe chemicals including ethephon, ethylene glycol and calcium carbide. This last chemical is one of the most toxic products still in use – often illegally – and mainly in developing countries. Calcium carbide is an industrial compound of carbon and metal that reacts with water to produce acetylene gas, and which can be used to ripen fruit. Unfortunately the process also results in trace amounts of heavy metals including arsenic and other toxic and carcinogenic substances. Use of calcium carbide in the fruit trade is banned in many if not all countries, but the problem of illegal use remains. 

Natural Ripening

The natural ripening of fruit is a highly complex process, not all of which is fully understood. In nature the process cannot begin until the plant reaches full maturity. As the fruit approaches the ripening phase, it begins to produce the plant hormone ethylene. This triggers many different processes; enzymes break down starches into sugars and soften the cell walls. This process develops the flavour, sweetness, aroma and texture we associate with natural fresh fruit. 

And yet what is happening to most of our fruit is quite the opposite: fruits are harvested well before maturation and well before they are edible, then treated with synthetic ethylene or other substances, which trigger an artificial appearance of ripeness. This usually involves colour change from green to yellows, orange and red shades. These are indicators to humans and other creatures that the fruit is ripe and sweet and full of sustaining properties. The shock comes when we bite into our fruit only to find that it is hard, tasteless and altogether unpleasant. 

I dread to think how much ends up in household bins for this reason. However in global terms, over-exposure to ethylene during storage and transportation results in the loss and wastage of 45-50% of all harvested fresh fruit and vegetable produce.

Death Hormone

We are encouraged to consume our five-a-day portions of fruit and vegetables to reduce the risk of chronic disease. Good advice of course: fruit and vegetables, unlike a processed snack bar, contain plenty of stuff needed for basic body functions: fibre, minerals, antioxidants and vitamins. Well at least they should. But a fruit that has been picked in its unripe state has not had time to go through the many stages needed to result in a nutritious food. 

Our taste buds may warn us of this deficit, we may even find ourselves overeating in the search for the missing nutrients. Ethylene is sometimes known as the death hormone because the process of ripening leads ultimately to the process of decay.  So perhaps it’s not surprising that exposure to excessive amounts of ripening agents can have a negative impact upon fruits and other plants.

An artificially ripened plant often looks good on the outside while remaining raw and inedible on the inside. If this isn’t weird enough, then we also have fruits that are rotting on the outside while still unripe inside. So how are we to know what has been done to our food? Well labelling would be a start. This happens in France where many supermarkets give information about chemicals used on food. 

It’s true that most of these labels simply say that various chemicals have been used, without specifying which or at what stage of production. The substances could be pesticides, insecticides and herbicides in the growing period, but many more chemicals may be used after harvest. Fungicides and fumigants are often used to prevent or delay the appearance of mould and to control insects. Other chemicals are sometimes applied including algicides on berries, and of course the artificial ripening agents. This could amount to quite a cocktail. 

Toxic Substances

Here in the UK there is no information about the chemicals used in production of fruit and vegetables – or about potential residue. Some products warn us to ‘wash before eating’ but they don’t say why. Our best option is to opt for organic food, which allows some chemicals in specific quantities but prohibits the use of most toxic substances. 

So what about those Christmas oranges? The main reason for dried up fibrous flesh and lack of juice is the fruit staying on the tree too long. Was this why we had to throw all our oranges away? Well maybe, it seems that they may indeed be left on the tree beyond their best in order to coincide with market demands. However, in order to prevent the fruit from rotting, chemicals can also be used to delay maturation – a kind of artificial anti-ripening!

In HIP 263 we reported on the withdrawal of NHS funding from the Eggtooth Project, which provides mental health services to children and youths. It has now emerged that the adult and youth (16+) mental health agency Counselling Plus Community (CPC), which has been offering a wide range of therapeutic interventions to residents of Hastings and Rother over the past 32 years, faces a similar funding cut.

CPC is the largest counselling service in the area, receiving around 800 referrals for individual clients in 2023. It is currently staffed by three administrators, four clinical team members, 12 employed counsellors (all part-time) and 18 volunteers. It receives referrals from GPs, from Health in Mind (the NHS Talking Therapies service), from CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) and many local support services, as well as taking direct cases (word of mouth). 

CEO, Verra Papaspyrou, says that the ethos of CPC since 1992 has been to provide its counselling therapies on the basis of need “regardless of the client’s ability to pay for the service they receive”. Clients have always paid what they feel they could afford which “can be as low as zero where required”.

INCOME SOURCES

In the current year 2024-25 the service received a grant of just under £65,000 from the Sussex ICB (Integrated Care Board), which now administers NHS funding throughout Sussex. Short-term grants from the Police & Crime Commissioner, Children in Need, the Big Lottery, The People’s Postcode Society, the Henry Smith Charity and other sources for particular projects have regularly boosted the service’s budget in recent years by more than 200%. However, many of these are dependent on showing evidence of continued funding from the ICB and are directed to specific problem areas – for instance, survivors of suicide and those who are feeling suicidal, survivors of rape, sexual and/or domestic abuse, and those bereaved by suicide. For those afflicted with more general traumas that don’t fit into these categories, the ICB funds are crucial. 

In July this year Ms Papaspyrou says she received an email, “out of the blue” from the Head of Strategic Commissioning (Mental Health) at NHS Sussex. He informed her that the ICB was “exploring what the impact would be” if it discontinued its current level of annual funding. 

“No decisions have yet been taken,” he wrote, though he suggested that, as the service has low infrastructure costs (cheaply rented premises in Cambridge Gardens) that “hopefully Counselling Plus would be in a position to continue operating, albeit with lower levels of capacity to deliver activity than before”. He pointed out that there had been no formal funding contract between the ICB and the charity, hence no stipulated notice period for making changes. However, he warned that any anticipated change of budget might have “an effective date of 1 October 2024”.

RESPONSE TO ICB

Ms Papaspyrou arranged an immediate meeting and responded within 11 days with her own impact assessment. She pointed out that, in the short term, many clients were already on their course of therapeutic treatment or on waiting lists expecting to proceed via ICB funding. Furthermore, as soon as ICB core funding was lost, further external support based on this funding may be put at risk.

In the longer term, all clients whose problems did not fall within a specific area covered by project funding would have to pay the full cost. Obviously, many would simply be unable to afford it and would be unable to access professional therapy.

She also pointed out that 18 voluntary counsellors would lose their current placements, thus (at best) delaying their qualification timetable. “Counsellors are able to progress within the profession due to CPC placements which provide exceptional diversity and client presentation which is unachievable elsewhere.”

None of these arguments seem to have held sway with the ICB, save that it was accepted that existing funding should only be withdrawn on six months notice. Then there will be no phased reduction, but a total cut-off. And that seems to be that. Whilst there are ongoing consultations in the county for savings proposals related to Adult Social Care, there has been none of any substance for cuts to mental health funding, despite well-publicised rises in demand across the country.

APPEAL TO MP 

Getting no positive response from the ICB, Ms Papaspyrou wrote last month to Hastings & Rye MP Helena Dollimore. She pointed out not only the breadth of services offered by CPC but also its comparative cost effectiveness. Use of ICB funds in 2023 enabled a block of ten sessions for individual clients to be charged at an average of £118 all in. By comparison, she wrote, one session of private counselling locally has an average charge of £50-70.

Ms Dollimore has not as yet made any response, and indeed it’s difficult to see what influence she can bring to bear as an individual MP. The Sussex ICB covers constituencies across Sussex, and all areas are facing apparently unprecedented financial strain. Two weeks ago, Ms Papaspyrou received final confirmation that NHS funding will be terminated at the end of the financial year next March.

Ms Papaspyrou says that CPC is determined to survive the funding cuts, and that changes have already been implemented to ensure its continuation. It will be looking in the future for private donations as well as larger grants from existing sources. 

Recently an ex-client came in to hand over a cheque for a substantial amount.  He had had four or five counselling sessions in 2019 and wanted to offer thanks. “If I hadn’t had those sessions with you,” he told Ms Papaspyrou, “I wouldn’t be here any more.”

I originally came across the problems of damp and mould at the age of seven when my parents bought their first house, a five-storey Victorian pile backing on to Portobello Road in West London. It cost £1,150, and five of us lived in the bottom two floors including a semi-basement with plenty of damp. Dad soon installed a bathroom in what was probably once a scullery. Although he used thick corrugated cardboard impregnated with bitumen, the damp was coming through again three years later when we moved. The top floor had a strange isolated section of damp in a wall under a window which tenants used to climb out to hang up their washing. Wet wooden steps placed against the wall stopped it ever drying out. 

It is strange that, almost 70 years on, damp and mould are still so prevalent in our housing. At least it is now recognised that they lead to serious health issues. What is rarely identified is that damp or wet building fabric – walls, floors or roofs – have a significant effect on the thermal efficiency of a building because water conducts temperature difference much more. The highest risk is to timber because it is so absorbent. In the second house my parents bought, the ground floor was covered in dry rot. My dad ripped out the rotten wood, treated all walls and installed new joists and floor-boards. Although he had learnt the lesson of maintaining good underfloor ventilation, some bright spark had blocked all the air vents. This was before insulation became commonplace, so boy was that house cold!

Respiratory Illnesses 

Mould growth inside homes is a serious issue with well-known harmful effects on respiratory illnesses and allergies. A study in the British Medical Journal pinpoints the need for us to move to cleaner energy not only to save the planet but also because: “air pollution causes systemic inflammation and oxidative stress, leading to deterioration of cardiovascular and respiratory health and adverse effects on nervous systems, metabolism, and mental and reproductive health”.

Certain groups are particularly vulnerable, and lowering our carbon emissions reduces our energy bills and would make us a healthier nation. Some people think that technology like solar panels, heat pumps, wind turbines etc., will save us from global warming. Yet they do nothing to insulate our buildings to reduce energy consumption – or prevent damp penetration and mould.

Damp is caused by water penetrating different elements of buildings and being trapped there. Mould grows where there is excessive condensation. Modern life tends to produce lots of moisture: bathing, cooking, washing, tumble drying, and breathing – probably a necessity! Poor ventilation promotes condensation-driven mould growth, but then who wants the windows open on a really cold day? Moreover, many modern so-called damp treatments only treat the symptoms, cover them up, or provide short term fixes.

Here we come up against a modern myth about damp: ‘We never had these problems years ago because old buildings were built to ‘breathe’, letting moisture in and out again as the rain, sun and air pressure changed. Buildings were ‘vapour permeable’.  

The reality, however, is that old buildings were built by traditional, long-established methods and were not purposefully ‘breathable’. It could be argued that no properly constructed, specified and detailed building should be inherently damp. But then what is the definition of ‘properly constructed’? 

Quick Fix

This is exacerbated because many older buildings have been extended or laden with cheap and quick fixes, often by people who do not understand the root issues or are stuck in the belief that the old ways must be right. It is easy to say that older buildings, perhaps pre-Edwardian, are very different to ‘modern’ houses but innovation in building has been going on for centuries. It really began to take hold from the early 19th Century when much more iron, steel and glass was used and, of course, one of the main causes of damp, Portland cement, was invented by Joseph Aspin in 1824. Cement is responsible for many building failures in Hastings, particularly because it has been used to re-point soft sandstone walls, and also as a so-called ‘waterproof render’ on many external brick walls. Modern plastic-based paints are another criminal offender. If walls are to breathe, then finishes such as lime or mineral-based paints – widely used on the continent – should be used. Modern paints – latex, acrylic resin, polyurethane etc – came into use in the 1920s and were rapidly followed by other plastic and artificial rubber sheet materials which were intended to keep moisture out but invariably either failed, were installed incorrectly, or locked moisture in! Moreover, the introduction of new services into building often penetrates water barriers.

There had been various experiments with cavity wall construction in the late Victorian period though they were not always functional – cheap metal wall ties only came into popular use after about 1910. But cavities themselves are not a failsafe means of keeping walls dry. 

Ranking alongside Portland cement comes the widespread use of plastic gutters – often poorly installed and fundamentally of poor design. Maintenance is difficult due to lack of access. How many of us go outside in heavy rain to watch the water flood over the gutters onto our exposed walls? Gutters made of galvanised steel or extruded aluminium are much better, but of course more expensive, than plastic.

The first step in any thermal upgrade of a building should be to ensure that its head and feet are dry. Energy-sapping water will run down and also be driven up by osmosis and ground water pressure. And water, say from a broken cast iron downpipe outside, could also run sideways if internal timber or services assist its journey.  

Many things can go wrong with roofs but common failures are back or parapet gutters and where party or gable end walls rise above the general roof level. Chimney stacks also push up through roofs without effective damp proof courses, and cross ventilation of roof voids is often poor or blocked altogether by the introduction of insulants. Any flat insulated roof older than perhaps 30 years is unlikely to have a cross-ventilated void, leading to wet rot and damp penetration. Loft conversions, particularly those with flat-roofed dormers, are a classic case of early failure, damp and mould, let alone massive heat loss and are usually very hard to remedy without a complete rebuild.

Dry Feet

Keeping a building’s feet dry should be easier than dealing with roofs, simply because of accessibility. I am constantly amazed by how many houses I visit have hard impermeable surfaces, not only right up to the face of a building, but quite often even level with or above the internal floor. This is a recipe for disaster which will sometimes be accompanied by merrily splashing water against the wall every time the sink is emptied. External ground levels should be kept, where possible, at least 150mm – 6 inches – below internal floor level and should be of permeable materials such as soil or gravel. Thankfully, there are now some easy-to-use means of installing damp-proof courses into external walls and good tanking systems to apply to the inside of damp walls. Every situation is different though and requires close examination.

However, once damp penetration has been solved, insulation of the correct type is key to keeping the building dry, provided internal moisture can be controlled, and this is best done with a mechanical ventilation and heat recovery unit or units in the areas which produce most moisture. 

Although Bexhill’s original town is on a hill next to the old manor site, the area of Bexhill’s coast was once marshland used by rich clients to hunt wildfowl. In medieval times, the area now called Egerton Park and The Polegrove, was called ‘The Pell’, a large lake fed by a torrent (hence the term ‘pell-mell’ for rushing water.)

When Bexhill’s urban infrastructure was being designed, no regard was given to the long-term effects of natural drainage of the Pell headstream, especially in winter. The strategy has been to constrain the natural flow into rapid transit channels pinned by housing estates and a formal park with lakes. Woodland has been removed and drainage slopes have been concreted over, making water run-off even more rapid. Since then, Rother District Council has not made any effective move to prevent the almost annual flooding of Egerton Park by the Egerton Stream.

Domesday Solution

Bexhill Wild Domesday Project has identified that the Pell torrent, now named the Egerton Park Stream, flows through Sidley Woods into Egerton Park. The efflux of rainwater to the sea is enabled by a currently damaged and rusting tide gate onto the beach. The tide gate shuts when the tide is coming in and stays shut to prevent saltwater coming inland. This has the effect of damming the Egerton Stream during high tides. If high levels of rainfall occur, the stream overflows and floods the park. Sea levels are still rising due to global warming.

During the ‘Year One’ phase of the Bexhill Wild Domesday Project, the Sidley Woods section of the Egerton Stream has been closely examined. A visit has been paid to the area by an expert officer of the South East Rivers Trust, who has confirmed that the provision of leaky dams, pools and scrapes would slow the flow of water. This slowing may be sufficient to stop the flooding while the high tide gate is shut, by reducing the rate of water reaching Egerton Park.

The South East Rivers Trust have confirmed that they are willing to design the scheme and obtain a licence from the Environment Agency to implement it. No work can start until the end of the bird nesting season. The Sidley Woods stream bank edge areas are marshy, and this is an ideal location for the planting of black poplar saplings. This tree species has suffered great losses at present and is on the way to extinction in England. It requires the planting of male and female trees next to each other to ensure furtherance of the species. 

Other benefits of the Sidley Woods Project include the planting of berry-bearing blackthorn and hawthorn shrubs and the provision of a picnic table area for social enhancement. Path improvements to enable people with mobility disabilities to use wheelchairs safely in the woodland could also be achieved in a second enhancement phase.

Funding

To fund the project, a target total was set of £10,000 to cover the costs of equipment, including timber, stakes, a small mechanical digger, jackets and gloves for volunteers, insurance for volunteers to be obtained from Zurich TGV, shrubs, trees and picnic area tables and benches.

A crowdfunder was launched, and this immediately gained the attention of East Sussex County Council who emailed Bexhill Wild CIC to say they liked the project so much that they have confirmed in writing that they will pay £5,000 in match funding into the crowdfunder if it reaches half its aimed total of £5,000.

At the same time, 100 leaflets were distributed around Sidley by former town councillor Julie Norris, and this has resulted in some donations to the fund. However, many people in Sidley do not have extensive spare cash and so organisations are needed to help the crowdfunder reach its mid-aim thus generating the match funding from ESCC. 

We have until the end of December to raise the funds to ensure that we get the match funding from East Sussex County Council. Please follow the link to the Crowdfunder to support the project: crowdfunder.co.uk/p/bexhill-wild-1.

Garden for a Fashionable Resort

• Construction of Egerton Park began in 1888 by developer and building contractor John Webb on land belonging to 7th Earl de la Warr – Reginald Windsor Sackville.
•  The creation of lakes helped to drain the low-lying marshland. During the excavation of the boating lake the remains of an ancient boat and the fossilised bone of a dinosaur were discovered.
• The Victorian park contained the typical facilities of a fashionable private garden of the time; water features, shaded areas, lawns, bandstand and tennis courts, but was available for public use.
• Bexhill Corporation bought the park in 1901 and built a concert hall that later became the Bexhill Museum. A public bowling green and an indoor rink were added.
• The area to the west of Egerton Park – The Polegrove – was developed in the 1920s. By the 1930s housing surrounded the north, east and south sides. The model boat pond, rose garden and pergola were added and the swimming pool rebuilt. 
• After World War II, the town’s role as a fashionable holiday destination dwindled and the park mainly became an amenity for local people. In 1960 the swimming pool was extended and a sun terrace and cafe created.
• Subsequently the pergola and theatre were demolished to be replaced by the Indoor Bowls Club. In 1986 the swimming pool was filled in and the bandstand removed. 

Sources: Rother District Council/Sussex Gardens Trust

A striking image for anyone travelling through France this summer is the inversion of village and town names. Apparently unobserved, someone has been undoing the bolts on the backs of signs, turning them upside-down, and re-fixing them. And, perhaps most extraordinary of all, no one seems in any hurry whatsoever to turn them back again – despite the obvious insult to local civic pride.

It started off in the Tarn area of the Languedoc last winter and has now spread throughout most of the country. And the people behind this latest craze appear to be angry farmers. Agricultural protests are by no means new in France, but this latest round is pitting large agribusinesses against small farmers and, effectively, against an EU environmental initiative – the Green Deal.

Jean-Marie Rimbert, a 60 year old vigneron from the small village of Berlou in the Languedoc, says no one actually knows who is putting the signs on their head and that people generally don’t know what the protest is about. But he thinks that local mayors support small producers and so are content to leave the signs be.

The Green Deal is a multi-faceted programme which seeks to use subsidies from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to ‘tackle climate change, protect natural resources and enhance biodiversity in the EU’. One aspect of this is to develop a more sustainable system of agriculture in European Union countries, including an upcoming requirement to leave 4% of farmland fallow and to restore hedges – which are almost entirely missing over large parts of the French landscape. Coupled with moves to reduce food price inflation, improve animal welfare and reduce pesticides, it has angered the intensely powerful French farming lobby and unions.

France’s biggest farmers’ union FENSA (Fédération Nationale des Syndicats d’Exploitants Agricoles) has enormous influence within the country’s political establishment as well as a formidable lobbying presence in Brussels. It has persuaded the Macron government to accept policies known as ‘Agricultural Exceptionalism’, seeking derogation from some EU rules. According to the monitoring group Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) FENSA ‘did not utter a word on the need for CAP subsidies to be spent on supporting farmers towards more environmentally friendly practices’ and that it ‘opposes any hard, binding environmental measure at the EU level that would be tied to CAP subsidies, hoping it can sufficiently influence France’s own Strategic Plan’.

Faustine Bas-Defossez of the European Environmental bureau regards this as a threat to European democracy. “French farmers are trying to ride the wave of anti-EU sentiment — although they are the EU Common Agricultural Policy’s biggest beneficiaries,” she says. “They are making the EU’s Green Deal, which is supposed to ensure a transition toward a more sustainable society, a scapegoat,even though the deal has yet to have any concrete impact on the agricultural sector.”

The farmers’ perceived anti-democratic tactics of blockading the roads around Paris with tractors and threatening to ‘starve the capital’ earlier in the year led to government payments of €400 million (around £340 million) to address farmers’ grievances along with concessions on environmental measures.

Somewhat surprisingly, environmental groups in France have been anxious to be seen to support the farmers. Following the Paris ‘blockade’ a joint statement released by more than 50 green organisations – including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and Extinction Rebellion – said they “refuse to be labelled as enemies of the farmers”, arguing “environmental standards should not be attacked indiscriminately, but should be financed in such a way as to maintain incomes and make their application compatible with farming practices.” Sandy Olivar Calvo, agriculture and food campaigner at Greenpeace France went even further: “The anger of farmers is just and legitimate, and we share it,” he said, while backing demands for a ban on the sale of agricultural products at prices below production cost, minimum prices for imported food and strict controls on how much profit supermarkets can make on produce among other measures.

All this seems to be at the expense of smaller farming enterprises. France and Britain have similar populations of around 67 million people. But, according to respective government statistics, France has 456,000 farms compared with the UK’s 216,000. However, France has lost almost 300,000 farms in the past two decades and many blame the unions in general, and FENSA in particular, for protecting the big agribusinesses at the expense of small farmers. The huge cereals producers of Northern France are seen to dominate FENSA, leading it to oppose any major moves away from acreage-based subsidies – just what’s needed by small acreage farms elsewhere. 

Jean-Marie Rimbert farms around 45 hectares of organic vines on the hilly and stony ‘schiste’ ground around Berlou – within the Saint-Chinian appellation. His annual production is around 80,000 bottles, half of which he exports – mainly to Canada as well as North and South America. He says he has no particular gripe with the EU or the Green Deal – though the latter mainly benefits arable and livestock farmers in the north. “The CAP is proportional and therefore seems fair.” he says. But he is intensely frustrated by the huge bureaucracy involved in getting even simple things like agricultural diesel subsidies: “After a long day in the fields the last thing I want to do is to go online and deal with logins and passwords and complex forms.” When he retires in five years’ time, he thinks his wine ‘domaine’ will shut and the vines will return to nature – following the trend of small farms closing across the country

And yet, when you visit the vibrant weekly markets in most French towns, you get a rather different picture. Thousands of ‘producteurs’ appear to survive by selling seasonal fruit and vegetables as well as cheese and meat on a small local scale – and much of it is organic as they venerate and protect their environment. They seem far removed from the huge tractor protesting farmers of the north and their union representatives whose attitude to the Green Deal appears decidedly negative.

Who wouldn’t want to inspire children to climb trees in the woods, run in wild meadows, explore rock-pools along the shore, scramble over rocks, paddle in streams, pick wild fruits, grow food, light fires, play outside, get muddy, make friends, and fall in love with nature? 

But the UK is currently classified as one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries. We have lost a mind-boggling half of our biodiversity because of human activity. The evidence from the last 50 years, presented in Natural England’s State of Nature report, shows that on land, intensive farming and the continuing effects of climate change are the two biggest drivers of nature loss. At sea, unsustainable fishing and climate change are the major contributing factors.

We recognise now that mass industrialisation of food production has caused this huge problem. Some species have disappeared, soil has become depleted and pollution is having devastating consequences. The effects of climate change are becoming tangible all around us.

What has happened to the land, the species, and the soil, acts as a mirror for us. According to OFCOM UK, children aged 5-16 spend 6-7 hours a day on screens and 4 -7 minutes a day playing in nature. What’s happened to adults is similarly devastating. Our disconnection from nature is damaging our own health and allowing us to damage our environment. We must step back, reconnect with the land, with one another,and with our own true wild nature. 

Rewilding: “The planned reintroduction of a species into a habitat from which it has disappeared in an effort to increase biodiversity and restore the health of an ecosystem” Merriam – Webster dictionary definition

Rewilding is a way of supporting the land and sea to return to a better sense of balance; it gives space for the land to recover by standing back and letting nature heal itself. Rewilding is a way of relinquishing human control, of repositioning humans so that we are a part of – and not apart from – nature. Rewilding is a way to help nature to thrive.

Rewilders understand how ecosystems have been damaged and are proactive in finding ways to help nature thrive again. Their actions are sometimes controversial, but they have been shown to have dramatic impacts. Simply learning about the state of our planet from the internet or in books can only go so far. We want to help people remember their own deep connection with nature firsthand. 

At Project Rewild we aim to help children, adults, and families back into the wild, into a habitat from which we have almost completely disappeared: nature, the great outdoors! We aim to create deep emotional connections with the natural world around us.

“Time in nature is not leisure time; it’s an essential investment in our children’s health and also, by the way, in our own” – Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods 

We want children to play free and be wild. To do this we want to help everyone break down some of the barriers that stop children from playing outside. We want to support parents, families, and communities to work together, so we can all be outside more. We need to rewild, for us and for the future sustainability of our planet. For me, there is nothing more pressing, nothing more important than remembering that we are part of nature and not separate from it. Our very survival as a species depends on it.

According to the government’s ‘People and Nature’ survey we are spending less time in nature than at any time in human history. The spike in time spent outside during and after the pandemic, has now dropped back to pre-pandemic levels. 

Project Rewild is a Hastings- based nonprofit community organisation, aiming to reconnect and rewild us all. We have worked with thousands of local children in the last 6 years. Our work is free and accessible. Throughout the year, there are free school holiday groups in the woods, on the beach, and over the hills, available for local children

‘Take Action Man’ highlights the increasing need of men to have a safe space; to find themselves again and how to show up in this society with integrity. The work that Project Rewild is doing is phenomenal and will be life changing for many.” – Judith Coleman 

Our work is not just for children. We offer an array of adult groups to improve our health and wellbeing whilst spending more time in nature. We recently premiered the ‘Take Action Man’ documentary film made by Mark Hutchinson. Filmed over two years, it followed our local men’s group. Hastings has been identified as a key risk area for major mental and physical health inequalities in men. It is the most socially and economically deprived town in the South East of England yet enriched and surrounded by accessible natural spaces. 

This film looks at why this kind of project is needed for every man and how nature and ‘tribesmanship’ can help improve the health and wellbeing of men and the wider community.

Alongside the men’s work, our popular nature-based women’s group has just received funding for the next two years. We also manage two permaculture allotments and supply free food to children during our summer groups. We hope to expand our food growing and land connection work in the near future allowing us to support even more of our communities. 

“The way in which the project was presented was both humbling and awe-inspiring. I found it truly invigorating and heartening to see that such a community-focussed project exists within our small town.” – Travis Mains Marten, Mental Health Advocate 

You can join us fishing on the beach or in the woods for fire circles, foraging, bushcraft, seasonal celebrations, storytelling and sharing music and song. I was born in Hollington where I still live to this day.I care passionately about my home town, its people, and magnificent natural spaces. I grew up playing over in Church Wood and it has been one of my proudest achievements to help hundreds of children enjoy those woods again, hopefully creating the same emotional connection with it that I had growing up. 

Along with the team at Project Rewild, I always strive for accessibility. We never want money to be a barrier to what is our birthright, spending time in nature. We are all becoming increasingly time and money poor. That is why we want to help. We are not offering another kids club, we are offering an opportunity to transform the way we relate to the natural world, to others and to ourselves. 

projectrewild.co.uk naturalengland.blog.gov.uk/2023/09/29/state-of-nature/ gov.uk/government/collections/people-and-nature-survey-for-england

The south coast of what was to become England was formed after the last Ice age. The great rivers now known as the Thames, Seine and Rhine all flowed into an embayment – a large bay – to the north-east of Kent. England was still joined to Europe via Doggerland and a 21-mile-long chalk ‘land bridge’ – the Weald-Artois Ridge – about a hundred feet high that connected Dover’s white cliffs to those of Cap Gris-Nez south of Calais. 

As the glaciers covering the North Sea began to melt around 600,000 years ago, a huge lake built up behind the ridge. After 150,000 years the pressure became too much for the chalk and it started to breach, perhaps beginning with a giant waterfall that thundered down into what is now the Channel. The dam finally burst, creating a megaflood that threw the remnants of the glacial moraine in the form of millions of tons of stones and flints into the centre of the channel. This was to become the shingle that we know so well from our local beaches today.

Another source of shingle is from cliff collapses and erosion both in sandstone and chalk areas. The calcium chalk of Beachy Head slowly releases hard flint nodules, and the sedimentary sandstone areas give smaller brown pebbles, usually angular. Millions of tons of shingle sit in the centre of the English Channel and this is dredged and moved onto our seashores and beaches to safeguard low-lying land behind them – as in the Dymchurch sea wall that has protected the Romney marsh since Roman times.

Shifting shingle

The problem is the shingle doesn’t stay where it’s put. It is moved down the coast naturally by the prevailing currents and winds in a process known as longshore drift. This usually moves from Eastbourne towards Rye though just occasionally the wind from the east is strong enough to turn the waves in the opposite direction. But unless the shingle is moved back down the coast, it builds up barriers at the eastern end and denudes the sea defences to the west.

The artificial movement of shingle back along the shore is enabled or contracted by the Environment Agency. They stack up the stones at various points – for example the huge mound seen at Cooden Beach Hotel – then this is distributed by tractor vehicles between the wooden groynes. If not repaired, when groynes are worn or damaged by storms, the shingle moves faster along the coast. So, on top of the cost of dredging shingle from mid-Channel to place on our beaches there is also the cost of repairing the groynes. Most are made of wood, but some are stone. The sea is so powerful that either can be damaged.

Back in medieval times, there was a constant battle to save farmland. Many areas were repeatedly flooded, so a system called ‘bisket and trisket’ was developed to ensure that Pevensey Marshes’ recovered farmland was saved from the sea. This meant that every farmer had to ensure their land had a wall against the sea’s incursions and if that wall was not properly maintained then neighbouring farmers would do the work and charge the cost to the ‘lazy’ or ‘ill’ farmer who had somehow failed in his duty. However, there were some storms that no man could counter. The two Grote Mandrenkes (Great Drownings of Men) of 16 January 1219 (36,000 dead) and 1362 (25,000 dead) were both on the Feast of St Marcellus.

Now in 2024 we rely completely on the Environment Agency (EVA) to help the local councils and the coastal road and railway authorities. Responsibility for the coast from Rye Harbour to Eastbourne is shared by Thames & Foreland EVA Division, the Eastbourne Division of EVA, and Rother District and Hastings Borough councils.

EVA strategies

The Flood and Water Management Act 2010 places a statutory duty on the Environment Agency to develop a National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy for England. This strategy describes what needs to be done by all risk management authorities (RMAs) involved in flood and coastal erosion risk management for the benefit of people and places. This includes the Environment Agency, lead local flood authorities, district councils, internal drainage boards, highways authorities and water and sewerage companies.

A new policy has been developed called the 2020 Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy. This strategy’s long-term vision is for: a nation ready for, and resilient to, flooding and coastal change – today, tomorrow and to the year 2100.

The future 

The Environment Agency reported in 2019 ‘that over 5.2 million homes and properties in England are at risk from flooding and coastal erosion. In the Eastbourne to Cooden sector the number of homes at risk is ten thousand. Yet only a third of people who live in areas at risk of flooding believe their property is at risk. Many more people are affected when transport services, energy or water infrastructure are damaged or disrupted. For every household directly affected during a large flood, about 16 people suffer knock-on effects from losses of utility services.’

One sign to look for is the erosion of the concrete platform under the Mary Stanford Memorial Lifeboat House, where the sea is wearing away the land daily. There are many cliff falls along the coast and the Eastbourne Martello Tower base is being undermined as can be seen in the photo. Another area of concern is the foot and cycle path between Bridge Way, St Leonards and Glyne Gap where the sea regularly throws shingle onto the railway tracks and walkers and trains are hit by huge clouds of sea spray. So, we need to understand that global warming and climate change does have implications, not just for far-off countries with low-lying land but for us here in the UK where once the sea lapped the edges of early Cambridge, and Northeye, Rye and Old Winchelsea were islands in a vast and troubled sea. 

Pumping water

Shingle and groynes are the only defence so far proposed. If Eastbourne authorities decide to use concrete as a solution then, because no shingle will come round Beachy Head, the beaches along to Hastings will be stripped by the longshore drift. We also have taken away all our natural floodplains into pipes that enter the sea and so Hastings has had to have pumps installed to save the Priory Meadow Shopping Centre which was built over the top of a river. 

Inevitably we will have to use pumps more and more as the ground becomes supersaturated. This has already happened at Cooden Moat and Cooden Ancient Wood fields, which are ‘squelchy’ under foot because of the almost permanent raised water table. Let us hope that any future government gives the Environment Agency the funds it needs to keep us all safe from rising tides on our beautiful sea coast.

The giant trees of Beauport Park woods are huggable, but only if you have a happy herd of huggers holding hands. These trees are huge. Although Beauport Park Estate and Golf Course is private land, there is a legal East Sussex County Council footpath, number Bat/74/1 which takes you from the woodland entrance near the Blackhorse Hill (A2100) water tower, right through the wood to Kent Street. The path leads past the Roman Navy Bath House of the Classis Britannica iron bloomery – the third largest producer of iron in the Roman Empire. This trail will take you to the land of the giant redwoods. These awesome trees were planted in pre-existing ancient oak forest more than 160 years ago, firstly as a memory of Canada. Later, more great trees were planted as Victorian status symbols.

In the Iron Age the woods were part of the vast Andredsweald forest. Early owners of the 5,000-acre Beauport Park Woods estate within that forest were David Denham, who was distantly related to the Hastings Town Clerk, and Mayor John Collier (1685-1760). It was Denham who started to develop the estate, after which it passed to the Collier family. It became the property of Cordelia Collier and her husband, war hero General Sir James Murray (1721-1784), who fought in Canada. He named it ‘Beauport’ after a Canadian village. 

Planting Giants

The estate passed to Charles Lamb (1785-1864) who built a maze and a place for practicing medieval combat – a titling ground – and there was even a curling rink when the ice was right. It was during this later time that many of these great trees were planted, Wellingtonias and Sequoias. Of particular interest are the Monterey cypresses (Cupressus macrocarpa), one of which is nearly 12 metres (40 ft) in girth, the giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), one of which is 46 metres (150 ft) high and the huge Chestnut-leaved Oak (Quercus castanifolia), which is 29 metres (95 ft) high. The wood is a wildlife haven where deer, including stags, can be seen. There are woodland butterflies and many insects that depend on a range of plants, some of them rare. It is surprising that the wood is not a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

Coral Discoveries

A recent ‘expedition’ to the woods seemed to generate an amazing find of a plant never seen in East Sussex – coralbells (Heuchera sanguinea Engelm.), but when a set of clear photographs was sent to the recently retired Nevil Hutchinson, formerly the Vice County Recorder of the Sussex Botanical Record Society, he kindly and expertly identified it as a member of the cabbage family.

Not just any cabbage though – in fact it was the rare plant known as coralroot (Cardamine bulbifera (L.) Crantz). This is a rhizomatous perennial herb which grows in two habitats in Britain: on dry woodland slopes over chalk in the Chilterns, and in damp woodlands over clay in the Weald – hence the ‘find’ in Beauport Park woods – but we must not say exactly where!

Naming of Trees

So what is a sequoia and where does the name come from? The giant redwood is a conifer family, the cypress (Cupressaceae). The Austrian botanist and linguist Stephan Endlicher was fascinated by the work of the Cherokee named Sequoyah who had invented a way of writing that language – a syllabary. Endlicher described the giant tree (Sequoiadendron giganteum) and named it in honour of Sequoyah (1767-1843). Once the tree’s magnificent properties had been identified, with towering heights reaching sometimes to 311 feet, it became a ‘must have’ for the rich.

Do take the winding path through the woods alongside the golf club fairways.  There is a shimmering tranquil peace to be found as you journey through the land of giants.

From the Redwood Forest

Giant redwoods, Sequoiadendron giganteum, are the largest trees by volume on Earth. They are native to California and can grow up to around 300 feet tall and live as long as 3,000 years.

They were introduced to British country estates as Victorian status symbols by a Scottish grain merchant Patrick Matthew, who is credited with bringing the first seeds to the UK in 1853. Later a renowned nurseryman, William Lobb, imported and distributed a large quantity of seeds and seedlings.

The trees grow at similar rates in the UK as they do in their native California, despite the ecological and climactic differences.

Around half a million giant sequoia and closely related Sequoiadendron Sempervirens – coastal redwoods – are now estimated to be growing in the UK, compared to just 80,000 still growing in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains.

A recent Royal Society report said large Sequoias of more than 70cm diameter at chest height are disproportionately important in terms of ‘ecosystem service provision, particularly in terms of their carbon storage in aboveground biomass’ sequestering carbon at a rate of 85kg a year.

The study used non-destructive three-dimensional structural measurements performed either by specialised tree-climbing teams or terrestrial laser scanning to estimate the AGB – Above Ground Biomass – of individual giant sequoia.

Forests comprising giant sequoia and their near relative – coastal redwoods – are likely to be the most effective worldwide for carbon sequestration. The report says they accumulate AGB at a faster rate than any other vegetation, maintain high rates of productivity throughout their potentially very long lives and are fire-resistant because of their insulating bark.

There is increased interest in planting giant sequoias in the UK, given their potential carbon sequestration capacity and apparent suitability to the UK climate. 

nationaltrust.org.uk

Over the course of history across the world, there have been terrible outbreaks of diseases, and the local climate plays a part in spreading sickness. Science can now tell us what causes these diseases and, hopefully, how they can be prevented or cured. In medieval times, the causes of Black Death bubonic plague, Dengue Fever, Cholera, Typhus and Malaria were a mystery. People who became ill were said to be ‘elf-shot’. Nowadays we all have a responsibility to monitor and conserve our environment and to report certain infections.

LOCAL PLAGUES

Denge Marsh is a part of Romney Marsh in Kent. Its north-west boundary is the town of Lydd; to the south-east is Denge Beach and Dungeness. The area was one of the earliest parts in the region to be reclaimed, recorded in a charter of A.D. 744. Drainage dykes, known locally as sewers, were built to reclaim land and help remove mosquitoes that cause Dengue and Malaria. ‘Denge’ has the meaning ‘to beat’ or ‘strike’ in the Norwegian language, a little like ‘elf-shot’. 

In medieval times, Romney Marsh farmers and drainage workers suffered from ‘Marsh fever’ that had a malarial feel  as the area was plagued with Aedes mosquitos. Symptoms of deadly Dengue Fever include high fever, headache, muscle and joint pain, and a characteristic skin rash. On 11th December 2023, the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) explained that climate change was developing rapidly, with an increased chance of mosquito-borne Dengue fever coming back to England. This viral disease is currently prevalent in tropical and subtropical regions of the world, being transmitted through the bite of infected mosquitoes. One defence is to ensure you do not have any open-surface buckets or bins of stagnant water in your garden, where mosquitoes could breed.

BLACK DEATH

The Black Death, caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria injected by fleabite gave people a truly wretched death with groin ‘buboes’, vomiting, ghastly headaches and swollen tongues. Those who were dying in agony found their skin developing black patches. This awful disease came to England from Gascony via a ship sailing into Weymouth in June 1348. Although the Romans had developed sewers and ways to remove waste, these techniques were soon forgotten. During the medieval period in Rye, a large wooden tower was built stretching out over the sea and from this was cast human waste. Our sea fronts now have an echo of that crisis. The Environment Agency is monitoring all 15,000 sea outlets and conducting a criminal investigation to discover which companies are allowing sewage into the sea illegally.

The first major bubonic plague of 1348 led to the death of one third of the entire population of England (2 million) and one third of the population of Europe (25 million). In England, when the remaining peasants realised that they were desperately needed by the gentry to revive ruined agriculture, they asked for more money and this eventually led to the Peasant’s Revolt.

After King Henry VIII died in 1547, Hastings suffered from plague outbreaks  in 1563, 1590, and 1597, but enough people survived to carry on the work of the Cinque Ports and the fishing industry.

GREAT PLAGUE

In the Great Plague of 1665-1666, Sussex was still a truly filthy place with open drains, animal and human dung waste, and sewage carts attracting bacterially infected rats. The summer of 1665 was exceptionally warm, and by September across England, seven thousand people were dying each week. King Charles II and Parliament fled from London to Oxford. As rich people travelled, they helped to spread the disease. In February, as the temperature dropped sharply, the king and parliament returned to the capital. It seemed that the ‘evil spirits’ that caused plague were afraid of the cold. Rats and the fleas upon them seemed to be normal for the times. The specific plague bacterium was not discovered until 1894 by Alexandre Yersin.

THE PLAGUE SHIP

In 1822, rumours spread in the Newenden area that a Viking ship had been found. Local people knew that Vikings had raided Appledore with 250 longships in 897 CE, overwintering and causing havoc across southern England. They were eventually defeated by King Alfred.

Back in 1822, anything found in Sussex or Kent, made of wood and looking long and narrow, was seen as either a remnant of the Norman invasion- since Duke William had massacred the citizens of Old Romney on 20th October 1066 in retaliation for their killing of his longship crew on 28th September of the same year – or could be part of the great fleet of Viking longships that came to Appledore. This so-called ‘Viking Ship’ was 63 feet and 8 inches in length and 15 feet in breadth. After being taken to London and  exhibited for some time, it was broken up and tea caddies and boxes were made with it. 

Kent Archives Summary states: “About 1822, the remains of an ancient ship were found by accident in the former bed of the Rother near Maytham Wharf, W. of the Isle of Oxney on the Kent side of the boundary with Sussex. The vessel was clinker-built from oak, but not of British origin. When the vessel was refloated, the remains of a small boat were found about 16 feet from the stern. Earthenware pots and glazed tiles set up as a hearth were found in the after cabin of the larger vessel, and there were bones: a human skull, that of a man with several sound teeth and the bones of an adult, another skull, that of a child with several small child’s bones, the skull of a dog, the skull and horns of a goat or sheep and the lower jaw of a boar with its teeth and tusk.”

It was not Viking but probably Dutch, becoming derelict prior to 1623 because at that date, a complete stop was made to the navigation of the Appledore Channel. It is suggested that the crew might have been plague victims, accounting for human remains, and that the vessel was left, so was comparatively intact, blocking the river navigation channel. 

As climate change bites, so do we need to be aware of the dangers of insect-borne diseases.

Most of us love trees and understand the great benefits they can bring to help in mitigating the effects of climate change. Once established, they last for decades and need little or no maintenance. Trees absorb CO₂, and provide habits for wildlife. They give shade, significantly reducing the temperature of their surroundings, and they delay water runoff, thus helping to prevent flooding. So what’s not to like about trees? 

The one thing we can do quickly and locally to reduce climate change is to plant more trees. Hastings Borough Council (HBC) should be proactively pushing this agenda. It should be the number one long-term priority. HBC declared a climate emergency years ago. They set a target of net zero by 2030, so planting trees is an obvious part of the solution. 

Roads and verges are maintained variously by HBC, ESCC (East Sussex County Council) and some housing associations. We need these various organisations to work together: step up, recognise the requirement and take action. You can’t expect volunteers to be motivated if they are unsure about council approval.

If HBC used just a little of its public relations machinery – at practically no cost – to create interest in tree planting and maintenance, they could generate a veritable army of volunteers to do the legwork. I’m not suggesting the council needs to spend a lot (I know they don’t have any money) but regular PR on the subject and some admin help would generate a lot of interest. Without this proactive approach you’ll never inspire the groundswell of support that exists in Hastings – just awaiting the council’s leadership.

Along the coast, a charity, Make Eastbourne Green, has been set up “to double Eastbourne’s tree cover by 2030”. They’ve already planted more than 17,000 saplings. As their website, treebourne.org,says: “We’re working with the council and independently, to find sites – large and small – where we can plant trees. Our aim is to maximise the capture of CO₂ emissions before they can escape into the upper atmosphere and wreak havoc on the planet’s climate. In short, we plan to turn Eastbourne green.” Why isn’t that happening in Hastings? We could be a leading town in UK, with beautiful tree-lined streets, if the various public bodies could only get their acts together and support such a scheme. 

Hastings Borough Council’s 2023-24 Corporate Plan update makes no mention of trees; he earlier final climate emergency action plan of March 2022 mentions planting more trees in the cemetery and recycling of Christmas trees – nothing more!

The starting point should be HBC and ESCC stating clearly and unequivocally that they want more tree planting; that they will actively support applications if submitted by local groups and that they will work with volunteer groups to make this happen.

Unfortunately, I’m told by the Council:“The highway verges in Hastings are now lined with established young trees of various species, there is little space left unplanted.”and “We now have excellent tree cover within our streets.” Both these statements are demonstrably wrong.

Over the last three years I’ve been working in a series of gardens including my own. It’s been a trip observing how the seasons have altered and comparing thoughts with other growers. They have changed – dramatically. They have skewed. It’s less global warming (although that is arguably the cause) but more Climate Weirding, which even the most sceptical and dubious have to admit is factually evident and happening as I write. You only need to drive out of Hastings to the flooded flats and (more bizarrely) flooded hilltops to see that something is not right.

During this time, I have been putting my permaculture learnings into practice working with different clients and various plots with various degrees of success. In terms of scale, the plots range from small, terraced ‘all you can eat’ raised beds with natural habitat for wildlife, to semi-wilded formal gardens and a two-acre plot of lovingly unkempt, regenerated formal garden.

The big thing I have observed is that we are getting rainfall or temperatures that don’t correspond to the season. Plus we’ve haven’t had prolonged periods of winter frost, which means that what is usually subdued or killed is starting to affect the delicate natural balance. 

Sure, plants still die back: that is the nature of temperate annuals and perennials – it’s how they respond to the seasons. But as the seasonal climates get out of kilter, so do the plants. They weaken, become more susceptible to blight, attempt to blossom at the wrong time and whither. Random hot and cold spells mean plants don’t know which way to turn. I have observed plants come and go and then come back in two seasons, then wilt and perish because they don’t know what to do with themselves.

Because of Climate Weirding we are getting more rain – largely caused by the planet’s warming. For the scientific evidence you need only look at NASA’s website to see that the last ten years have consecutively been the warmest since records began. The Meteorological Office also says the last four years have consecutively been the hottest on record.

Warmer air creates more condensation which in turn leads to more, bigger and therefore heavier rainfall, which in turn devastates crops and plants and creates flash floods and potholes. The latter in particular demonstrate that we don’t have the infrastructure for what is happening. It’s an elementary cause and effect thing, more heat equals more evaporation, which creates more profound condensation and bigger raindrops.

I remember when I lived in the USA, there were storm drains on every street because of their more extreme rain and seasonal climates, which was a treat to witness when I was there. But now I see us contending with similar weather here, climates which match patterns previously only witnessed further south.

There’s too much green for the depths of winter, and it’s not right. Instead of dying of exposure for good reason as nature intended, critters, bugs and diseases should be suppressed by the cold and kept in check. Now, instead come microclimates which allow these unwanted pests to propagate and incubate and hatch. And I should not be swatting mosquitoes while enjoying my porridge in January.

Was it just a coincidence that, in the week that the Covid enquiry heard evidence about chickenpox parties, the government’s main health advisory body recommended the rollout of a chickenpox vaccine?

The former head of the civil service, Lord Mark Sedwill, later apologised for his suggestion in 2020 that the prime minister should go on TV and explain that it was “like the old days with chickenpox”, where people were going to have chickenpox parties: “The sooner a lot of people get this [Covid] and get it over with the better,” he is reported to have said.

The concept of a ‘chickenpox party’ is simple. Many parents want their child to get varicella, the chickenpox virus, at an early stage and so acquire natural immunity to the disease from then on. The symptoms are a rash that turns into itchy, fluid-filled blisters that eventually turn into scabs. It seldom lasts more than five days, and is considered a relatively minor, if unpleasant, illness in childhood, but more serious when contracted by teenagers or adults. Immunity from varicella also protects against shingles later in life. Shingles – herpes zoster – is produced by the same varicella zoster virus (VZV) that causes chickenpox. But the effects are longer lasting and often considerably more uncomfortable.

ROUTINE VARICELLA VACCINATION 

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has now recommended to the government that a vaccine against varicella should be added to the UK’s routine childhood immunisation programme with two doses, one at 12 and the other at 18 months of age. The JCVI says: “If approved, it would bring the UK into line with other countries offering routine varicella vaccination, including Germany, Canada, Australia and the United States, the latter of which has had a childhood programme in place since 1995”.

One might well wonder why? If the vaccination has been standard in the US for more than a quarter of a century, why not in the UK? And if we had good reasons not to follow the Americans, why change now?

In the 28 years the US has had its chickenpox vaccination programme, a large number of studies have been carried out. One (Goldman GS, King PG) found that a universal chickenpox vaccination programme was neither effective nor cost-effective and actually caused a ‘dramatic rise’ in shingles. It also found that the more people were vaccinated, the less effective the vaccine became as it reduced the natural immunity boosts which come from exposure to people shedding the ‘wild’ varicella virus. The wild virus also has been shown to protect against brain tumours (Canniff J, Donson AM et al).

INCREASED RISK OF SHINGLES

Another (Wu PY, Wu HD et al) supported the findings that vaccinating children against chickenpox increases the risk of shingles in teenagers and adults. Conversely, adult exposure to children with chickenpox actually protects them against shingles. While cases of chickenpox did decrease with vaccination, cases of shingles not only increased, but occurred in people who were younger.

As with all public health initiatives, there has to be a cost-benefit analysis. Here, though, the cost is not just the financial one but the possibility of side-effects or adverse reactions. They must be weighed up against the absolute benefits of saving lives. Smallpox, for instance, was such a deadly disease that you had a 30% chance of dying if you contracted it. That’s to say that three people in every 10 who got it did not recover. On the other end of the scale, you are very, very unlikely to die from chickenpox if you get it. 

A recent study – Severe complications of chickenpox in hospitalised children in the UK and Ireland (Cameron JC, , Allan G et al) showed that over a year only 133 (0.8 per 100,000) children needed hospital treatment. Of those, just eight died – and most of them had other underlying conditions.

Now it might be argued that if you could save the lives of eight children by vaccinating the 600,000 who are born in the UK each year, it could be worth it. But would it still be worth it if that meant increasing the risk of shingles in the population? The death rate for shingles is hard to determine, but government data suggests that about 50 people die from it each year – though they tend to be over 70 years old and may well have had other health problems.

Nonetheless, you could read these statistics to suggest that to save 133 children going to hospital with chickenpox where eight might die from complications, you are – according to the US studies – dramatically increasing the likelihood of Shingles which is more likely to be fatal.

SIDE EFFECTS

But it’s not just a question of fatality. Vaccines can have side effects that occasionally cause severe damage to health. 

There are currently 80 people taking legal action against AstraZenica claiming they were injured by the Covid vaccine while 148 people have been awarded payments under the government’s Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS). 

AstraZenica said their vaccine had an “acceptable safety profile” and regulators around the world consistently state that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks of extremely rare potential side effects.”

Few serious side effects to the chickenpox vaccine have been officially reported, but a US vaccine information website – ImmunisationInfo.com – which is certainly not an ‘anti-vax’ site, says: “The chickenpox (varicella) vaccine often causes fevers and a mild chickenpox rash. Very rarely, vaccines against chickenpox can cause serious side effects like seizures or brain reactions.”

EVIDENCE FROM THE USA

So the question remains, why would the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation now be recommending a rollout of the chickenpox vaccine given even the remotest possibility of side effects, when the illness itself does such little harm? Add to that the apparently widespread evidence that the vaccine causes an increase in shingles in adolescents and adults which is often more serious than chickenpox in children, and the decision does seem to lack logic. Though Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, Chair of the JCVI, says “We now have decades of evidence from the USA and other countries showing that introducing this programme is safe, effective and will have a really positive impact on the health of young children.”

One further issue is that, according to the British Medical Journal, the plan is to add the varicella vaccine to the existing triple measles, mumps and rubella shots. There has already been some disquiet among parents about lumping those three together. If the prospect of a fourth being tacked on were to further reduce the take up of the MMR, it could well impact on the government’s decision.

Would it be overly cynical to suggest that the main beneficiary of the rollout of a varicella vaccine in the UK would be ‘big pharma’ – who would be selling the NHS an additional million plus doses of its product each year?

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 news of other projects – particularly in East London – in the hope of generating support here. 

The story of the Community Interest Company Power Station in Walthamstow is a quite extraordinary one. Two artists and activists, Hilary Powell and Dan Edelstyn, camped out on the roof of their terraced house throughout November and December a couple of years back to raise money and, perhaps more importantly, to raise awareness of their project.

Their goal is to install solar panels on 150 rooftops in their street and to make the electricity available to residents and local subscribers. So far they have raised £115,000 through Crowdfunder alone, enough to complete Phase 1 of the scheme with panels on 25 properties. The plan is to cooperate with other local organisations – schools, businesses, social housing and community buildings. As they say: “We got tired of waiting for the government to take action and responsibility … we’ve seen the energy markets going crazy. 27% of people in our own borough of London – Waltham Forest – are in energy poverty … We decided we would set about building a renewable power station on our street.” 

They calculate that with an average retail price of a 3kW solar system at around £6,000, and with just over 22 million houses in Britain, it would cost £133.56 billion to fit every one with solar panels. But that would meet 100% of all domestic electricity needs in the summer months, and nearly two-thirds in the winter. In comparison, Britain has nine nuclear power stations. The latest one being built is expected to cost more than £30 billion. On that basis, nuclear power stations ‘cost’ £270 billion and provide just 15% of our energy needs.

COMMUNITY SOLAR

The local model is already working in the United States with about 1,600 Community Solar projects up and running. There, it seems to be more industry-led with photovoltaic and renewable energy systems shared by a number of electric customers, including homeowners, renters, businesses and non-profit organisations. Electricity savings and other benefits from the solar project are split among its shareholders and solar subscribers at a rate based on the level of investment. It has required a change in the law, and shared renewables legislation–specifically for community solar–has now been enacted in 22 states, with others soon to follow.

In the UK, a Local Electricity Bill is currently making its slow way through parliament. It’s designed to enable local projects here to generate clean electricity and supply it both to local people and to the National Grid companies at a realistic price or, as the bill puts it: “on fair terms”. It would also require larger energy suppliers to work with community schemes to sell the power they generate to local customers for a ‘reasonable’ fee. The parliamentary bill has cross-party support from nearly half of all MPs (326) including Hastings member Sally-Ann Hart. The campaign group behind the bill, Power For People, has also persuaded the government to provide a £10 million fund to help community power groups to start up and expand. However, until the big companies are forced to work with them, they face an uphill battle and might be left with the situation facing Power Station in Walthamstow. They can finance or help get solar panels onto roofs but can’t sell surplus power back to the grid at a financially viable price, and they face formidable barriers even to share the power within their community.

Part of the attraction of Hilary Powell and Dan Edelstyn’s vision, though, is the empowerment of the disenfranchised. It’s a cruel irony that the people most affected by fuel poverty are those least likely to be able to afford the £6,000 for a renewable system. And, as they are more likely to be renters rather than homeowners, they have little or no incentive to improve their landlord’s property. Edelstyn admits: “only one private landlord is on board with the scheme so far, and it’s proving difficult to get others interested because – even if the costs are covered – they say there’s not much in it for them. After all, they don’t pay the fuel bill….their tenants do.”

PRINTING MONEY

One intriguing aspect of the Walthamstow scheme is a secondary method of raising funds for the project, and it’s one that might well appeal to the artistic community in Hastings. The concept is simple. Invite artists to design and ‘print’ money and then sell this artwork and donate the proceeds to the project. So if someone created fifty £20 notes and sold them at face value they’d have raised £1,000. Buying a small work of art for £20 isn’t really much of a stretch, especially if you know it’s going to a good cause. And there’s just the possibility that the artist you bought it from will become established, and your banknote might become worth rather more. The antecedents of this idea came in 2018 when Edelstyn and Powell printed their own banknotes, sold them as art works and used the proceeds to buy up second-hand payday-loan debts at heavily discounted prices. This ‘debt’ – worth more than £1m – was stuffed into a van which they blew up near the Canary Wharf Financial Centre in London’s Docklands. Examples of their banknotes have been bought by the galleries and museums including the V&A and the Bank of England Museum, while a documentary about the project raised further revenue and has been nominated for awards.

It may be some time before they realise their ambition of getting solar panels on every house in Britain, but at least Hilary Powell and Daniel Edelstyn have made a start. And with the Local Electricity Bill making its labyrinthine way through parliament, they might just find they’ve hit the zeitgeist. As they say: “If the government really had the interests of the people at its heart and wanted to address the climate crisis and provide energy security, wouldn’t it concentrate on providing renewable, locally produced energy for all at scale and insulating all the housing stock?” 

Working as a colour therapist and colour profiler I always find it so interesting learning about colour choices; how they affect our moods and reflect the people we are. Have you ever chosen your clothes the night before and got up in the morning and decided they just aren’t right? We would say, try and choose your clothes on the day in order to feel the right colour. Have you decided to decorate a room in a certain colour and then completely changed your mind when you get to the paint shop? It happens! 

We all love colour, whatever shade or tint, whether you are drawn to the colours of nature or bright colours, light pastel colours, some love the blacks, greys and muted tones. Whatever your choices, these are the colours that make us happy in the moment we look at them and, in that happiness, we begin to feel the natural healing power of colour.

But first I’ll explain a little bit more about colour therapy, which is working with the visible rays of colour and the healing energy contained within each one. It’s all about achieving balance between the mind, body and spirit in order to promote harmony between each one. Once this balance happens, we can work towards a state of good health, but you don’t have to be ill to feel the benefit of colour therapy. We are always striving towards a feeling of wholeness and good health; colour therapy encourages us to look at our innate natural healing process. 

We take in light through our eyes and skin, also drawing in light energy through our chakras (a system of body energy centres, vortexes of energy if you like). Certain colours, like blue, can calm the mind, while yellow can stimulate mental activity. As we need a balanced diet for optimum health so we need a balance of energy from the spectrum colours. 

Colour vibrations have a strong influence on our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being. They affect our moods; some colours are uplifting and inspiring while others we might find a little bit depressing or sad. How many times do we hear the expressions, ‘I saw red’, ‘green with envy’, ‘feeling blue’; maybe you’re ‘singing the blues’? Colour speak is incorporated into our day-to-day speech without us even thinking about it.

We can use colour to aid creativity and learning, balance energy and release blocks, as well as to help alleviate emotional and physical conditions. We can also think about why we need certain colours in our lives, why we’re drawn to them and why this need changes at times. A colour therapist can show us how we can use these colours for healing, health, inspiration, relaxation and protection. 

We have been healing with colour from the earliest of days. Some ancient cultures knew how certain colours affected them; they spent almost all of their time within nature, absorbing living colours. The ancient Egyptians built healing halls of colour in many of their temples. If someone needed healing, they would be sent to the temple by a physician to stand in a colour healing room. The sunlight which entered the room would be refracted into a spectrum of colours and each room became a certain colour frequency. First Nation tribes of America, Buddhists, ancient Greeks, Indians, and the Chinese all believed in the healing power of colour.

Life Path Colours: A big part of my work with colour and the workshops I run are on life path colours. We all have one from the spectrum, and colour profilers work with red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, rose and gold. Whichever colour you are is the colour that will stay with you all your life. Mine is violet which I have learned to embrace, choosing my favourite shade and treating it like a good friend. You don’t have to wear your life path colour if you don’t want to, just embrace it. For instance, if you’re red, you may be the person who says ‘let’s do this’ when others say ‘I don’t think we should’, a blue person may be able to tell a story that will fascinate and entrance people, while orange is often the life and soul of the party. 

Learning who we are helps us realise why we do things a certain way, often differently from others, and brings with it an understanding of not only ourselves but other people in our lives. There are, of course, different aspects to each colour which will be experienced from time to time but with this comes a balance of energy. The life path colour is just the tip of the colour mountain, which is fascinating. There is so much more out there! For example, in all of the colour work I do I incorporate crystals. Each colour has its own set of stones as well as music, fragrance, flowers and solarised water.

For information on workshops message me via Instagram.
or through my website. Roma Clark, Registered Colour Therapist, Colour Profiler, Crystal Healer, Member of the Association of Holistic and Complementary Therapists
Colourcrystal.co.uk
Insta: roma_colour_crystal
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The assault on the environment by Rishi Sunak looks set to continue as Thiamethoxam – a toxic neonicotinoid pesticide banned by the EU – seems likely to be approved by the government for use in the UK for a fourth consecutive year.

The decision, enabled by Brexit, is being taken as wildlife campaigners warn that harmful neonicotinoid pesticide levels can already be found in rivers around England.

Neonicotinoids are a toxic pesticide, used particularly on sugar beet crops. They are known to be deadly for honey and other wild bees. 

Research released this autumn from the Rivers Trust and Wildlife and Countryside Link show that 10 percent of English river sites tested by the Environment Agency had traces of these neonicotinoids – also known as neonics.

Rivers in the South East of England, including Kent And Sussex, were among those with the highest neonic concentrations.

Nationally a fifth of all sites tested had neonics at over four times the safe EU levels. Half of all sites were above the level deemed safe for aquatic wildlife.

Pesticidal Brexit

With the UK no longer part of the EU, the government can make its own rules on pesticides. Environmental campaigners say 36 pesticides that are banned by the EU are potentially allowed to be used in the UK.

The signs are not good for the decision on Thiamethoxam. Sunak appears wholly unimpressed by arguments over the environment as demonstrated by his roll back – some say screeching u-turn – of net zero measures.

Meanwhile legislation known as the Retained EU law Bill is coming into force following a government decision in May to scrap the proposed sunset clause, which would have automatically revoked most retained EU law at the end of 2023. Now 600 pieces of EU legislation will be analysed separately. The government gave a commitment at the start of the summer not to water down environment protections in the process. However, most environmental laws in England and Wales derive from the EU, so there is considerable concern that any changes to legislation could weaken protections for wildlife, habitats, and water, including laws on air pollution and rules to make developers offset the impact of increased sewage from new homes. Given Sunak’s recent approach to environmental issues, the prospects are far from encouraging.

Oils Not Well

Sunak’s decision to grant a licence for the 500 million barrel Rosebank oilfield in the North Sea has won him at least one prominent supporter – Donald Trump. He said Rishi Sunak was “smart” to weaken climate targets to achieve net zero. The former US President praised the PM for having “very substantially rolled back the ridiculous Climate Mandates” and said the US should do the same to stop this “scam” before it was too late. Mind you, whether the British PM really wants or needs support from a man facing 91 criminal charges across four indictments is a moot point.

Losing the Plot

He was probably more impressed with what, at first glance, looks like the tacit support coming from self-appointed climate guru Bill Gates. Some have questioned whether Gates might in fact be going a bit Microsoft in the head with his latest semi-literate intervention into the debate. “If you try to do climate by brute force, you will get people who say; ‘I like climate but I don’t want to bear the cost and reduce my standard of living’”, he told a New York Times symposium on the subject recently. Gatesean rune-readers see this as a slight policy change from the billionaire. Hitherto he’d been a bit of a CC alarmist: “The earth is warming; it’s warming because of human activity, and the impact is bad and will get much worse. We have every reason to believe that at some point the impact will be catastrophic.” His proposed solution is for a ‘technology-driven’ approach to global warming. Our PM might like to ponder whether that could involve investing in clean renewable energy rather than burning more fossil fuels from massive new oil fields.

Rosebank Reaction

“The Greatest act of environmental vandalism in my lifetime” 
Caroline Lucas MP, Green Party

“Rishi Sunak has proven once and for all that he puts profits of oil companies above everyday people” 
Philip Evans, Greenpeace UK

“How can the British government even consider pressing ahead with new drilling when we can see what the burning of fossil fuels is doing to the climate and to people?” 
Greta Thunberg

“This is no less than an act of war against life on earth…”
Chis Packham, Environmental campaigner

“We won’t revoke any licences that were granted before we came into power.” 
Keir Starmer, Labour leader

“The UK is stepping up and delivering on our climate commitments, both by decarbonising our own economy and supporting the world’s most vulnerable to deal with the impact of climate change.” 
Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by crystals, rocks and stones, picking them up from the pavement or the beach and digging them up from the garden even! Every once in a while, a little coloured stone would appear that made my collection even more precious. Looking back, some of the coloured stones were probably crystals washed up from who knows where, which added to my excitement on finding one. I grew up, still fascinated by these ‘rocks’ and started collecting crystals. At the time, I didn’t know how to choose, cleanse or programme them, although I do think crystals choose us. It seemed natural that I would have some sort of calling that involved crystals, and this has led me to become a crystal healer.

Healing with crystals goes back centuries to the ancient Egyptians, who had an advanced system of healing using gemstones and colour. Ayurvedic medicine, which originated in India, has and still uses gemstones: this entails grinding gemstones into a fine powder and combining them with liquid, which is then taken by the patient in a prescribed dose. If I make a gem essence I never grind crystals up, I work with the whole crystal. (Please don’t try making gem essences at home without the guidance of a qualified crystal healer as some stones are potentially dangerous and can be toxic when taken in this way). 

What is crystal healing?  

In a nutshell, crystal healing treatments realign the body’s energy field, working with the chakras to promote an overall feeling of well-being. The crystals are placed around the body and set up specific and complex electro-magnetic force fields. This energy acts to re-polarise any fields that are out of sync., redistributing the correct energies to restore harmony and balance to both the physical and subtle bodies. The therapist’s hands are never laid on the body as the therapist works through the crystals.  A treatment will do one or more of the following: clear negative and blocked energies, replace negative energy with positive vibrations or strengthen and build chakra energy.  

The mineral kingdom receives its life-force energy from the sun and from other planetary sources. Crystals and stones emit powerful vibrations and frequencies which affect our whole being. They can expand spiritual development and awareness as well as balancing and attuning mind, body and spirit. We are now just beginning to realise the potential of crystals and stones as interest grows in alternative forms of healing. We are learning that precious or semi-precious stones generate healing vibrations acting on the body’s energy field, that go through the healer to the client or can be placed on specific parts of the body that need treatment.

Crystals and Colour Therapy

Crystal healing combines well with some other therapies – including colour therapy. I use some aspects of colour therapy during my crystal healing treatments and vice versa as crystals and colour work very well together. In fact, during healing sessions I work a lot with the chakras which all have their own colour frequency and that attracts the strength of the colour vibration; in itself this is a very powerful healing quality. The crystals we choose to balance and realign these chakras relate to a specific chakra: for example, the crown chakra, colour violet: I would use amethyst or clear crystal quartz, but you can also use diamond or alexandrite. And so each chakra has its own colour and its own set of stones that can be used.

There are also many stones used for conditions that are physical, emotional, mental and spiritual, whether it be for calming, revitalising or to inspire. Each symptom has its own colour and crystal to help the healing process, and each gemstone has its own colour energy and different healing qualities.

Each of my treatments begins with measuring and cleansing the aura and then a chakra balancing and realigning session before moving on, if necessary to a healing treatment for a specific reason.  

If you would like more information on any of these complementary therapies: chakra balancing and realigning, crystal healing, colour therapy or any of the workshops I run, please contact me through Instagram. Roma_Colour_Crystal

Always ethically sourced!

Roma Clark, Crystal Healer
Colour Therapist, Colour Profiler
Member of the Association of Complementary and Holistic Therapists.

‘Climate alarmism’ has reached fever pitch. Or ‘boiling point’ given the recent UN assertion of ‘Global Boiling’. These headlines, coupled with relentless climate propaganda, have induced a state of fear in humankind, and it can be difficult to think rationally when fearful. So is there really cause for alarm?

The current level of CO2 in our atmosphere is measured at approximately 425 ppm – parts per million – or around 0.04% of the atmosphere. However the level of CO2 has been far higher than it is now. According to RA Berner in the American Journal of Science, levels of CO2 were around 4,250 ppm (0.4%) when the ancestors of the plants on which humans rely first evolved. If the level of CO2 falls below 150 ppm – around 0.02% – plants, and subsequently humans, die. That’s right, arguably we need more CO2 not less!

The Earth’s climate has always changed, irrespective of human behaviour. We alternate between ice ages and warm periods. The last ‘Little Ice Age’ ended around 1850. Before that we enjoyed a ‘Warm Period’ from around 950-1250 AD when temperatures were higher and the level of CO2 in the atmosphere was lower than today. And current temperatures are not ‘breaking records’. The hottest officially recorded temperature was 56.7°C at Death Valley in the USA in 1913. This decade records only reached a milder 54.4°C.

In the 1970s, scientists predicted another ice age. That was changed to ‘Global Warming’ in the 1980s. However that term also had to be changed as, on average, the planet is not necessarily warming. It depends on an arbitrary starting point. If you take the ‘Little Ice Age’, as the International Panel on Climate Change does, it has warmed slightly. If you take the Medieval Warm Period, it has cooled slightly.

From the fearmongers’ perspective the latest term, ‘Climate Change’, coined in the mid 2000s, is better as it allows for any unexpected weather event to be cited as evidence … necessary for climate alarmists since evidence is not on their side.

But hang on, don’t 97% of scientists agree that humans are causing global warming? Well, no they don’t. That statistic was manipulated. Of the 11,944 papers reviewed, 7,930 took no position on the subject and were arbitrarily excluded. If one were to simply add those papers back in, the 97% figure would fall to 32%. Another review, by David Legates et al, concluded that just 0.3% of the scientists in those papers actually believed that humans cause global warming.

Most people won’t have heard of the ‘World Climate Declaration’ (WCD) as it doesn’t conform to the mainstream position of catastrophic climate change and so isn’t mentioned in mainstream media. However the WCD has been signed by over 1,600 of the world’s leading scientists, including two Nobel Prize winners. And what does the WCD say? Amongst other things it says there is no climate ‘emergency’.

Sixteen hundred scientists may not be that many. But bear in mind that signing the WCD is to effectively end your career and reputation as a scientist. That’s why most scientists don’t speak up. And because funding is often only available if you ‘tick the climate box’. Those that do speak out are usually vilified as loonies or far right extremists. 

Why shouldn’t we question ‘the science’? If we didn’t, we’d still believe the Earth was flat. Or that we’re heading into an ice age! Surely debate is healthy? Why then are people who question ‘the climate science’ labelled ‘deniers’? Does that term remind you of something?

In April 2022, Melissa Fleming, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications, said the UN had teamed up with Google to ensure that no contrary arguments to the mainstream climate ‘crisis’ narrative could be accessed on the search engine. Why would the UN do that? Why stifle debate? Why stop ‘science’ from being examined? Isn’t that how we learn? Hasn’t ‘science’ and our understanding of the world in which we live over the centuries changed? If the science was settled, why does it fear counter arguments?

I will end on a happier note. Like many people, you may have believed the relentless propaganda that we are running out of polar bears. Well, we aren’t. polar bear numbers declined to around 5,000 by the 1970s. However this was due to hunting, not ‘climate change’. So, in 1976, polar bear hunting was banned. And guess what? Polar bears are now estimated to exceed 30,000. Sadly you won’t see that fact in the media.

visit www.clintel.org to view the World Climate Declaration.

Has the UK Government given up on Climate Change? The 2008 Climate Change Act commits the UK government to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 100% of 1990 levels (net zero) by 2050. But every pronouncement from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak seems to counter that aspiration. Last year the country’s Carbon emissions actually increased – by 0.9% – compared to 2021. The 2008 Act established the Climate Change Committee to monitor progress. Its latest report this summer criticised the government for a lack of urgency, with the following key findings:

• Policy changes are not happening at the required pace to meet future targets.
• Action is needed in a range of areas to deliver on the Government’s emissions commitments.
• Expansion of fossil fuel production is not in line with Net Zero.
• There has been continued airport expansion … there should be no net airport expansion across the UK.

Critics argue that not only is progress too slow, but a number of policies actually run counter to the net zero commitment, re-enforcing former minister Zac Goldsmith’s assertion that Sunak is “simply uninterested” in environmental politics: The review of ultra-low emission zones and low traffic neighbourhoods; promises of hundreds of new oil and gas licenses for the North Sea; the go-ahead for a massive new coal mine in Cumbria; the rolling back of timetables for replacing old gas boilers and fossil fuel-burning motor vehicles. And as for reducing air travel, Sunak has used RAF jets and helicopters for domestic travel more frequently than any previous prime minister – every eight days on average. He even took a helicopter on a visit to Norwich recently – a trip of just over 100 miles.

The only good news is that his anti-environmental stance seems extremely unpopular with the public. A recent poll showed that 82% believe that Climate Change was important to them, and almost two-thirds don’t believe Sunak is committed to the UK’s targets. It’s almost as if he doesn’t believe people are causing Climate Change in the first place.

Our spine is key to our ability to move. A flexible spine will take us to any place we desire, yet most of us do little to protect it and keep it in good health and only pay our back attention when it is causing us pain.

Consider what we have in the spine – 33 bones with muscle attachment, nerves, blood vessels, ligaments, tendons and fluid all in a spectacular cantilevered structure that holds the body upright. Each bone forms two joints, the spine of the chest includes the ribs, the atlas holds the skull, and the tailbone is neatly tucked in at the bottom. It is a fantastic piece of engineering allowing dynamic movement in all directions.

Modern living requires the spine to remain in a very few arrangements that require little more than compression and retention of posture, such as sitting in front of a screen, in a car, on a sofa.Little surprise that back pain is a major cause of distress in our society leading to millions of hours sick leave (2018 figures show about 20% of all sick leave was due to musculoskeletal problems).

The challenge of staying supple and mobile

Youthful activity, such as dancing and football, automatically provides the range of movement needed for a healthy spine.  As we get older, the spontaneity of leaping about fades and is replaced by habits of standing, sitting and holding our head in deeply held muscular patterns. These are useful to sustain our daily lives, our work and our capacity to keep going all day, but these habits also give rise to tensions and can be a cause of stiffness and even pain. 

For many entering into the later part of life, there is also the collection of bumps, knocks and restrictions that have been collected over time. When you add to these the loss of bone density as the natural process of bone cell replacement slows down, the bones become fragile.

Many of us find ways of managing our spine health very well.  The boom in yoga classes since the 1970s shows how helpful this has been for many people.  Similarly pilates and other brands of exercise have had an appeal.  Perhaps for you it has been running or a regular team sport that has done the trick. Whatever activity we enjoy and works well for our body, there will come a time when we just don’t manage the spine so well. The yoga class of 10 years may not deliver the muscular re-alignment it once did, nor the run around the park be so smooth. 

Whichever stage of life, keeping the spine mobile is essential to your overall health and ability to live a full life.  And there are lots of ways to adapt our modern lives to keeping our body flexible and ready for the next adventure, be that competing in a marathon or getting out of the bath.

After many years of never feeling the slightest back twinge, I now identify clearly with the ‘gardeners’ back’ and know full well when I have ‘done too much’. As a Personal Trainer and a teacher of The Feldenkrais Method I work with people who have complex back pain. Together we unravel the deep-seated holding and tension to find how to soften in all the right places.

Exercises to Prevent and Relieve Pain In the Neck or Frozen Shoulder

One part of the body becomes painful, sore and even immobile. Commonly a stiff neck or severe restriction in the shoulder can make life a struggle. Here are a few ideas on how to free up the upper spine.

The cervical spine or neck joins the chest where there are many muscle attachments, muscles that are used to hold up the head, raise the arms and use the hands. Little wonder this place is often sore.

To work with a sore neck it is important to relate any movements to the whole of the spine. 

Try lying on your back, either on a mat on the floor or on a firmish bed, get comfortable, take some minutes to allow the head to settle using the least amount of support under the neck. Bend the knees so the feet stand.  Using the feet and the muscles of the abdomen, lift one side of the pelvis, then lower and lift the other side.  This lifting can be just enough to slide a leaflet under a buttock. Continue to do this movement softly so that you can roll the pelvis from side to side.  

Notice the effect of gentle rolling on your breath, the middle of the body and the chest. Rest. Come back to the movement and begin to include tilting one knee out to the side as you lift the opposite buttock. Do the same on the other side. Let the weight of the leg open the hip joint softly and then use your muscle power to bring the knee back to middle. Carry on doing this in a gentle fashion, then rest. 

How to Prevent and Ease Back Ache 

Chronic and long-term back pain can significantly impair the quality of life. Some regular attention to the spine will improve the function and over time enable you to manage the stiffness and pain.

Come to lie on one side, draw up the knees together making a 90-degree angle.  Have something under the head for support to align the neck with the rest of the spine. Rest. Bring both arms out in front of the body with the palms together. Slide the top hand a small amount to take the fingertips forwards to touch the mat or bed, and bring the hand back to have the palms together. Keep the arms straight while you do this so that as you increase the range of movement you begin to roll the ribs and rotate the spine. Come over to your back and rest, then turn onto the other side and do it all over again.

Spine health determines our mobility, looking after our backs will help every action, every step we take and how well we sleep. A few movements to roll the spine can significantly improve your mood as well as your spine health.  

Catherine Pinhorn Body Moves Hastings facebook.com/bodymovesHastings

The current trajectory of carbon dioxide emissions means that global temperatures could increase by as much as 4.4°C by the end of the century. RICHARD PRICE says that scientists think if that happens, the planet will be able to support fewer than a million people.

On a particularly hot day in June, Alex Booth, a Hastings seven-year-old, complained to his mother that he was worried about El Nino and the heat. His Mother replied: “It’s no good telling me I can’t fix it. If you’re worried, write about it.” She packed him off to school and he told his teacher, who helped Alex create a weather news report.

He wrote:“El Niño is the warm phase of a larger phenomenon that affects the Pacific Ocean and the global climate … El Niño has an impact on ocean temperatures, the speed and strength of ocean currents, the health of coastal fisheries, and local weather.”

He was quite right. For oceans, small changes in water temperature can have devastating consequences. Marine heat waves cause ecosystem collapse and mass mortality of fish and shellfish. This year global sea surface temperatures continue to rise – an anomaly rapidly breaking records. 

Scientists are concerned that tipping points have been crossed – critical thresholds which, when exceeded, lead to large and often irreversible changes in the climate system. Heatwaves in 1997, 2015 and even hotter years in 2024/5 have a time-lag effect, accelerating the amount of oceanic heat which is predicted to cause a ‘Super El Niño’.

Sea ice at poles is vital because of the ‘albedo’ effect. Light-coloured ice reflects sunlight back into space, regulating air and ocean temperature and circulating ocean water. Scientists say that loss of sea will also trigger a tipping point. In February 2023, sea ice around Antarctica reached the lowest level ever observed. The continent is losing ice mass at an average rate of about 150 billion tons per year. Greenland is even worse at about 270 billion tons per year.

The Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) is the difference between the amount of energy from the sun arriving at the Earth and the amount returning to space. EEI is now at a record 1.36 watts per square metre, which has been equated to 11 Hiroshimas of excess energy per second accumulating in Earth’s climate system over the past three years.

Europe is currently experiencing an extreme heatwave that is causing wildfires. Here in the UK, we have just experienced the hottest June on record. A heatwave across the western United States broke all-time records in multiple states, with temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit for days on end in some places. Since March, Canada has been experiencing an ongoing record-setting series of wildfires. Smoke from millions of hectares of burning forests drifted across into the USA where on 30 June, the US capital was engulfed in thick smoke. 

Ironically a stratospheric wind anomaly is developing over the Equator which is expected to impact the weather along with the El Niño even in the next winter season making it colder in Europe, Canada and North America as a polar vortex is likely to develop.

Species extinctions are accelerating. Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history, with grave impacts on people around the world now inevitable.

Action on limiting emission and adhering to the IPCC’s targets has been ineffective. World governments have constantly misled their citizens that the problem is being dealt with. However, emissions of CO2 and methane continue to rise. The situation is clearly an emergency yet global action is ineffective. We are locked into the paradigm of economic growth. Legislation prevents change. In 1994, the UK government along with several other European countries signed the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT). The ECT allows oil and gas companies to use secret corporate courts to sue governments. When the Italian government introduced a ban on offshore oil drilling, it was sued by UK-based oil and gas company RockHopper, who won £210m.

I am sixty years old and realise that the world that I grew up in no longer exists because the climate has changed. Seven-year-old Alex may be experiencing the coolest summer of his life. When he reaches adulthood, what will the global temperature be? Surely any responsible government would not allow this to continue.

Given the scale of the climate crisis as outlined on this page, KENT BARKER asks what we can and what we should do to combat it.

Let’s be quite clear, this government has an absolutely appalling record on combating climate change. Even before Sunak effectively washed his hands of Net Zero, the Tories had given £20bn more in support to fossil fuel producers than those of renewables over the past eight years – a fifth of that money given directly to the fossil fuel industry to support new extraction and mining. It’s given the go-ahead for a new deep coal mine in Cumbria. It’s extending licences for dozens of new North Sea oil and gas fields. It’s slashed subsidies and grants for domestic solar panels. Onshore wind farms have been on hold since David Cameron, in 2015 as a former minister, accused the PM of effectively blocking any chance of their reintroduction. Now his government appears to be reneging on commitments for gas boilers to be phased out. 

It’s no wonder that groups like Just Stop Oil have resorted to direct action to protest and publicise the situation. The question is, do you approve of their methods? If you are an arts-lover you may be angry that activists have glued themselves to paintings or thrown tomato soup at old masters. If you are a sports fan you may be irritated that your snooker, rugby, tennis, golf or cricket has been disputed by clouds of orange powder. If you are a motorist you might fume at delays caused by protesters climbing motorway gantries.

On the other hand, you have to admire their dedication. Since April last year, more than 2,000 people have been arrested and 138 have spent time in prison according to Just Stop Oil. Many more face harsh retribution as the government’s Public Order Act begins to bite. It gives the state widespread new powers to prevent protests, extends suspicionless stop and search, makes ‘locking on’ a new criminal offence, introduces ‘protest banning orders’ against citizens, and lowers the threshold defining disruptive protesting.

So who here are the heroes and who the villains? Or in the words of the 17th century rhyme: “The law locks up the man or woman/Who steals the goose off the common/But leaves the greater villain loose/Who steals the common from the goose.”

EMMA LEECH

I was a young woman in my early twenties in love with a musician, a guitarist called Ray Jeffery. Like so many young rock’n’roll free spirits, he had a dark addiction to drugs: heroin. The twisted path like a vine weed wrapped itself deep into our heart and minds, taking over our life. 

Sadly Ray didn’t overcome his struggle with the drug, and he died from an overdose, a day before going into rehab. It was 1990. My life turned on its axis never to be the same again, the trauma and grief spiralling me out of control, alcohol and rock music drowning out and numbing the pain of losing my soul mate, best friend and first love.

As a lost soul seeking to heal, I ended up in the US, where I hitchhiked my way from New Orleans to Texas, California and Las Vegas. Following my love of blues guitar, and rock’n’roll, it was a road trip that would test my survival instincts to the core, meeting street musicians, escaping drug dens, hitching rides from alcoholic truck drivers into Texan deserts: feeling like I was in a Tarantino movie.

On my return three months later, I walked into a shop in Teddington High Street where I got into conversation with the owner, a wonderful woman, called Angela. Her shop was an oasis of calm and spirit, selling everything from djembe drums to healing crystals. The rainbow clothes on display contrasted with mine – I always dressed in black. We talked openly; I told her of my grief, and she asked me if I’d heard of a dance healer called Gabrielle Roth. 

“No,” I replied.

But her name stuck with me… and I was to meet her a year later when she came to London from NYC to teach a class in 5Rhythms – of which she was the founder.

I’d always danced, danced freely; it was a place I felt the most relaxed. I was never confident with the social banter; the dance floor was where I felt at home. But this dance was different, I walked in to over 200 people in Battersea Arts where Gabrielle Roth was guiding us into deep expression. Her Jamaican drummer providing us with the tribal beats that rocked us deep into our bones.

That’s when I felt safe, held by the drums, seen, free to be real, to be myself fully in all my heartache. Suddenly all the pain held inside had a place to pour itself, into the big wide-open compassionate arms of the great mystery, the dance itself. It took a while to overcome my self-consciousness, but once I started moving, and with the masterful guidance of Gabrielle Roth, I was soon being danced by something so much bigger, and ‘being danced’ was deeply healing.

From that moment in 1991, I followed Gabrielle Roth for twenty years, studying with her to overcome my grief, before becoming a teacher of her 5Rhythms practice myself. I’ve now been dancing and teaching for over 30 years. It has become my life path to bring movement to humanity to offer space to explore what it is to be a human being. A healing art. 

There is much written about 5Rythms, from the organisation website it is described as: “A dynamic movement practice – a practice of being in your body – that ignites creativity, connection, and community.” 5rhythms.com. It goes on: “While a seemingly simple process, the 5Rhythms practice facilitates deep and unending explorations, moving the dancer beyond self-imposed limitations and isolation into new depths of creativity and connection.”

Each of the Rhythms offers a different quality of energy that opens up a dance that is fluid, fiery, edgy, wild, jazzy and zen. In name, the five rhythms are: Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness. 

No steps to learn, improvised, spontaneous dances are unveiled. The self-consciousness is overcome by giving our fascination over to our body’s movement language. Every dance is unique, we dive into the unknown mystery that reveals us to ourselves in our diversity, there is nothing that can’t be danced, a safe place to study what it is to ‘be’ a human being.

Learning to live with grief is one thing, moving on is another. As part of that journey I am making a film documentary with Rod Morris, an award-winning local film maker, exploring grief, loss and hope: the aspect of hope is Ray’s guitar (handmade by Tony Zemaitis, who made guitars for the likes of Keith Richards and David Gilmour) which had until now been shut away in its case like a coffin. The guitar is now being played again for the first time since his passing, and I dance to the music it plays. That music is supplied by fellow guitarists who tune in to the instrument and play from their hearts.

The production costs are being crowdfunding to enable the film to be completed. If you resonate with the story and would like to donate, please follow the link indiegogo.com/projects/let-it-play.

Hastings is jam-packed with art and creativity with numerous galleries and a choice of exhibitions, shows, classes and workshops available most days. While we are lucky to have an array of fine art, that is, art created purely for its aesthetic value, Hastings also offers many opportunities to take part in art and creative projects designed specifically to enhance mental and physical health. Arts on Prescription at Art in the Park and Creativity on Sea are two examples of local groups that organise around creativity for well-being. 

Taking part in such activities can promote healing and enhance overall quality of life in several profound ways:

10 WAYS ART AND CREATIVITY CAN BOOST YOUR HEALTH 

Reducing Stress and Trauma

Creative activities provide an outlet for self-expression and emotional release, effectively reducing stress levels. Engaging in creative pursuits promotes relaxation and helps us to channel our emotions in a constructive manner. By focusing on the creative process, we can experience a temporary escape from daily stressors, leading to a calmer state of mind and improved mental well-being.

We all experience some levels of stress and trauma throughout our lives. Whether everyday worries and anxieties or deep traumas, these are held in our subconscious memories and throughout our bodies, impacting systems such as tension in our muscles, organ health and immune system. Regular, habitual creative practice can help undo the stress and trauma held in our bodies. 

Stress Reduction and Immune Function

High levels of stress have a damaging impact on our immune system, making us more susceptible to illness. Engaging in creative activities has been shown to lower stress hormone levels, thereby bolstering immune function. By reducing stress and promoting relaxation, creativity indirectly supports physical health and strengthens the body’s defence mechanisms.

Enhancing Problem-Solving Skill

Engaging in creative endeavours stimulates the brain, fostering flexible thinking and improving problem-solving abilities. Creative thinking helps us to explore solutions and approach life challenges from different angles. Creative activities can positively impact other areas of life, helping us to become more adaptable and improve our decision-making skills.

Boosting Mental Acuity

Participating in artistic activities involves mental engagement and cognitive development, as we learn and enjoy new skills and methods. Research suggests that creative pursuits stimulate neuroplasticity, meaning our brain is more able to find new connections. This enhances memory, attention span and overall mental acuity. Regular engagement in creativity and art can reduce the risk of cognitive decline over the lifespan and can help in neurodegenerative disorders, such as dementia.

Increased Self-Confidence

Creativity nurtures a sense of accomplishment and self-efficacy. When we engage in creative activities, we see our ideas come to life, leading to an enhanced sense of self-worth and confidence. Creating something unique and meaningful can serve as a powerful self-affirmation, boosting self-esteem and promoting a positive self-image.

Enhanced Emotional Resilience

The act of creation allows us to express and explore our emotions in a safe and constructive manner. Creative outlets, such as writing, painting or dancing, help us process our feelings and gain insight into our emotional landscape. This helps us develop emotional resilience which can be particularly beneficial in times of stress, trauma or grief. Creative expression offers a way to navigate difficult emotions and promote healing.

Improved Mood and Happiness

Engaging in creative activities triggers the release of endorphins, commonly known as ‘feel-good’ hormones, which elevate mood and induce a sense of happiness. Art and creativity provide a positive and enjoyable experience that promotes a state of flow, where we can feel fully immersed and deeply focused on the task at hand. This state of flow fosters a sense of fulfilment and contentment. Experiencing this regularly can contribute to overall emotional well-being.

Pain Management, Rehabilitation and Living with Chronic Health Conditions

Creative activities have been shown to be effective in helping manage pain and facilitating rehabilitation from physical conditions and injuries. Art and creativity not only distract from pain but also promote emotional well-being, enabling us to better cope with chronic conditions or during the recovery process.

Social Connection and Community Engagement 

Art and creativity have the unique ability to transcend cultural, linguistic and societal boundaries, fostering connections and promoting empathy. Art exhibitions, community art projects and collaborative endeavours bring people together, encouraging dialogue and understanding. The shared experience of engaging with art nurtures a sense of belonging reducing feelings of isolation and promoting social cohesion.

Engaging with art in cultural and therapeutic contexts can foster a sense of identity, belonging, and cultural pride. Cultural art forms, rituals, and performances contribute to the preservation of traditions and heritage, promoting a sense of rootedness and connection.

Art plays a crucial role in raising awareness and advocating for mental health. Through artistic expression, individuals can challenge stigma, share personal narratives and promote conversations around mental health issues. Art exhibitions and community events centred on mental health not only provide platforms for self-expression but also promote education, empathy and support networks.

Longevity and Active Ageing

Numerous studies have linked engagement in creative activities to increased longevity and healthier ageing. Participating in creative pursuits helps maintain cognitive function, fosters social connections, and instils a sense of purpose. Whether it’s painting, writing or learning a musical instrument, staying creatively active has been associated with a more fulfilling and vibrant life in older adults.

The integration of creativity into our lives has far-reaching benefits, positively impacting our cognitive abilities, emotional well-being and physical health. Engaging in creativity provides us with an avenue for self-expression, stress reduction and personal growth. As we harness our creative potential, we unlock a powerful tool for enhancing overall health and quality of life.  

Art, in its myriad forms, has the remarkable ability to heal, inspire and transform. Whether through personal creation, appreciation of others’ works, or community engagement, art enriches our lives and enhances our health and happiness. By harnessing the power of art, especially within a group and social setting, we can tap into its therapeutic qualities, promote mental and emotional well-being, facilitate physical rehabilitation and foster social connections. 

Embracing art as a vital component of our health and wellness journey can bring us closer to our authentic selves and create a more harmonious society.

For more information about art and creative groups for well-being, visit the Facebook pages @artintheparkaop and
@creativityonsea and the
website artsonprescription.org

“You dance like a sack of potatoes tied in the middle. Your mother is wasting her money on these lessons!” These were the harsh words I was told by my ‘Miss Norma,’ a formidable ballet mistress. I was just six years old, and these words have stuck with me throughout my life, along with a narrative that I cannot dance that I have carried with me through dates, nightclubs, social events and anything else relating to dancing.

At the end of last year, I organised a community variety performance and, among the acts, were the ‘Let’s Ballet Ensemble Silver Swans’. Silver Swans is the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) initiative to get people over 50 returning to ballet or even taking up dance for the very first time. Through the rehearsals, I got to know ‘swans’ and Annie Blocksage, their wonderful teacher and choreographer and, by the final performance, I was persuaded to give dance another go myself. I fell in love with it from the very first class. Silver Swan ballet classes follow the same structure as any class, starting with barre work, moving to the centre for more exercises, adage (short sequences of steps and arm movements) and dance repertoire. But positions, steps and moves are adapted for the maturing body to enhance stamina, suppleness and poise while avoiding strain and injury.

Though I have certainly moved on from my sack of potato days, which feels wonderful, I will never be a Darcey Bussell but that’s one of the beautiful things about learning to dance later in adulthood. You will never be that prima ballerina and that means there isn’t the pressure to try to be so and compare yourself to others. It is all about having fun and being the best you can be for yourself only. That doesn’t mean to say you can’t progress. I recently watched the delight on the face of a 70-year-old as she unpacked her very first pointe shoes, a moment I hope to reach eventually too. 

Annie Blocksage, owner, director, teacher, choreographer, and all-round inspiration at ‘Let’s Ballet Ensemble’ says,

“Ballet is a great way of expanding your field of expression, having fun, and allowing your inner beauty, desires, and passion to be fulfilled. Gaining discipline, strength and expansion using graceful movements to classical music.”

Annie chose to specialise in teaching Silver Swans ballet because she feels so passionately that the dance she loves so much can be enjoyed in our later years, especially for those like me who were discouraged and put off dancing when we were younger. 

“I’m focusing on getting my generation to move, improve, strengthen, and stretch and enjoy a happy lifestyle” 

How Dance Can Improve Your Life and Health

The health and well-being benefits of dance in later years are at the heart of the Silver Swans. 

Scientific research shows that 75% of our health and well-being relate to our lifestyle, with only 25% explained by genetics and inheritance. Being active is one of the most effective ways of protecting our health, especially as we age. Research has shown dance to be among the most effective forms of exercise.

• Joining a dance class can:
• Increase your energy levels
• Reduce stress
• Support weight loss or maintenance
• Reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease
• Slow ageing by improving the immune system
• Release neurotransmitters and hormones that can increase feelings of happiness and reduce symptoms of depression
• Improve balance, resulting in fewer falls later in life
• Promote new connections in the brain, through learning dance steps, sequences, and choreography, increasing cognitive ability and memory (which can help stave off dementia later in life)
• Help you meet new people and expand your social circle

As Annie explains,

“Ballet is more than exercise. It is art in motion. It gives you strength, flexibility, poise and grace. It is a great cardiovascular workout; it is like a moving meditation. It is joyful and fun, and you leave with a smile. Come and have a go. Your first class is free.” 

Let’s Ballet Ensemble Silver Swans beginners and improvers dance classes for the over-50s are held at Studio Two, Ore Community Centre on Monday afternoons, Monday evenings and Tuesday evenings. All genders are welcome. No experience is needed, and younger people are welcome too if they want to come and give it a try. 

For more information call Annie on 07704711772. 

Hastings has been basking in glorious summer sun over recent weeks and, while sunny days boost our physical and mental health in many ways, they can be detrimental to our sleep.

Melatonin, a hormone that helps us to relax for sleep, relies on darkness. Once the sun comes up, secretion stops so the body can prepare for the day. Due to the longer daylight hours in summer, the time of melatonin secretion is shorter than in winter, and this can have a big impact on our sleep.

Sleep is essential for our health. It helps our bodies to heal and repair and supports almost all the systems at work throughout our bodies: immune system, skeletal, nervous, muscular, and hormonal. Sleep also helps regulate our moods, our capacity for concentration and learning, our memory, our cardiovascular health, our appetite and our energy levels.

Awareness of the importance of sleep has increased in recent years with studies on the relationship between inadequate sleep and a wide range of disorders, including obesity, type-2 diabetes, and dementia to name a few. Unfortunately, knowing the importance of sleep doesn’t help us achieve it, and ironically tracking how much (or more likely how little) we are getting can trigger anxieties that only worsen our stress levels and sleeplessness.

The vicious stress-sleeplessness cycle

Paying too much attention to our sleep deficit can sometimes worsen it: stressing about sleep makes it harder to achieve, and sleep deprivation makes us more susceptible to stress. The more we worry about sleep, the higher our stress hormones rise, and too much of the stress hormone cortisol can stop us from drifting off and can wake us up in the far too early hours. 

Breaking the cycle of anxiety and insomnia is best treated by addressing both issues concurrently; alleviating tension throughout the day and entering a state of relaxation just before bed. By getting a good night’s sleep we can be better prepared to deal whatever the next day throws at us. 

Better sleep without medication (or smartphone apps)

One way to help alleviate tension and promote relaxation is to practise the Feldenkrais Method, which uses small, slow, subtle movements to become more aware of the body and promote wellbeing. 

By becoming aware of the areas of tension we hold within our bodies we can focus on gentle movements and techniques that release and relieve them. 

Gentle movements to relieve tension in the upper back and neck

We carry a lot of stress in our shoulders, neck and upper back. This exercise promotes awareness of how we commonly hold tension in our anatomy and how to release it. 

Sitting with both feet flat on the floor, feel your contact with the seat of the chair. Slowly bring your chin toward the chest and slowly look up. Repeat this small movement allowing the breath to be soft and exhale as you lower the chin inhale softly as you lift your head. Rest.

Bring one arm across the chest to hold under the armpit around the shoulder blade or shoulder joint, then cross the other arm to hold the opposite shoulder blade or shoulder joint. Give yourself a hug and gently squeeze as you turn your shoulders and head to one side. Breath gently as you come back to the centre, then go to the other side. Release your arms and rest.

Rest both palms on your thighs with soft elbows, slowly lift one shoulder a small distance toward the ear, and then slowly lower the shoulder. Repeat three or four times. Rest. Now do the same with the other shoulder. Notice if one shoulder moves more easily and go slowly to make the movements as smooth as possible. Rest.

Resting the palms on the thighs, make a small circle with one shoulder. Go slowly and after a few repetitions change direction. Rest. Then slowly begin with the other shoulder and rest.

Sitting with both feet flat on the floor, bring one arm across the chest with the hand under the armpit to hold shoulder blade and cross the other arm to hold the opposite shoulder blade or joint. Squeeze gently and turn gently to one side, to the middle and the other side. Undo the arms and rest.

Grounding meditation to relax the mind and alleviate anxiety 

Taking time to focus on the sensations of our bodies and breathing can help combat symptoms of anxiety and prevent stress building throughout the day. This can be practised during the day or just before bed.

Find a comfortable position lying on your back, sitting in a chair or standing and give yourself five minutes of quiet.

Bring both palms to your lower belly around the belly button. Rest your arms and shoulders. Begin to notice the movement of breath in your abdomen. Slowly increase the inhalation to ‘fill’ your hands. Repeat three or four times and rest. 

Rest your hands on your chest and allow the shoulders and elbows to be soft. Notice the movement of breath in the chest and slowly inhale to ‘fill’ the chest. Repeat three or four times and rest. 

Check your position and adjust to be as comfortable as possible. Close your eyes and begin to notice the movement of breath. Bring one palm to your belly and one to your chest. Slowly increase the inhalation of breath. Notice the movement in the belly and chest. Take three or four breaths and rest. You can do this several more times in different positions and then rest.

Bedtime sleep preparation to ease into sleep

If you struggle to initially drift off this is a great technique to relieve the stresses of the day and prepare your mind and body for a restful good night’s sleep.

To aid relaxation before sleep, come to lie on your back, in bed, with a thin pillow under your head (or none if that is more comfortable). Bend your knees so that your feet are flat on the mattress, arms by your sides. Notice how your back feels, your shoulders, your neck. 

Close your eyes and begin to notice your breath. When the body has settled into a soft breathing pattern, slowly tilt your knees to one side, to the middle and to the other side. Go only a small way to each side, pausing as you come back to the middle. Repeat eight or nine times, then rest. 

Bring one arm across the chest with the hand under the armpit and take hold of the shoulder blade around the back. Cross the other arm to hold the other shoulder blade. Gently turn your chest to one side, to the middle and then to the other side. Repeat eight or nine times and rest. 

Bring your arms to your sides and notice how your back feels, your shoulders and your neck. Allow yourself to inhale and exhale softly three or four times, then rest completely. Then sleep!

Catherine Pinhorn is a local personal trainer specialising in older adults. She is also a trained practitioner of the Feldenkrais method. She offers classes as well as one-to-one personalised sessions at the Wellington Centre, Wellington Square, Hastings. For more info or to book contact catherine.pinhorn@gmail.com

SARAH MILNE

Recently, almost every event listing in Hastings mentions a ‘gong bath,’ or ‘sound bath’ and many of us relish the opportunity to unroll our yoga mats, don our eye masks and snuggle down under our blankets while a sonic sea washes over us.

Sound therapy is currently growing in its recognition as an effective and enjoyable complementary therapy for physical, mental, spiritual and emotional well-being.

Sound travels through the air in waves. Different pitches of sound travel in different frequencies, or different-sized waves. These frequencies have a direct impact on the 50 trillion or more cells that make us who we are and how we experience the world. The minerals within our cells carry an electrical charge. These charges travel in vibrations throughout our bodies. 

According to the biologist, Bruce Tainio, a healthy body resonates at a frequency of 62-70 MHz. This is disrupted by stress as well as environmental pollutants, including noise and electromagnetic waves. Sound waves travel through water, including the fluid in our cells. Sound healers use vibrations emitted by the instruments or vocal tones to penetrate the body at a cellular level, affecting the nervous system, brainwaves, energy centres, and energy fields. This stimulation can help release energetic blockages, reduce stress and tension, promote relaxation, and restore balance within our body, mind, and spirit.

Sound therapy is not a new concept but rather a practice deeply rooted in the history of human civilization. Ancient cultures across the globe recognised the profound impact of sound on the human body and psyche. From the sacred chants of Vedic tradition in India to the use of Tibetan singing bowls and Aboriginal didgeridoos, sound has long been employed as a therapeutic tool.

In ancient Egypt, priests and priestesses used sound in their therapy rituals, combining vocal toning, chants, and various instruments to restore balance and harmony. In China, traditional medicine incorporates the use of acupuncture with sound therapy through the stimulation of specific acupuncture points with sound vibrations. Native American shamans utilised drums, rattles, and chants to induce trance states and facilitate therapy.

GOOD VIBRATIONS

The fundamental principle behind sound therapy is the concept of resonance. Every object, including the human body, has a natural frequency at which it vibrates. When the body is exposed to certain sounds or frequencies, it synchronises with their vibrations, leading to a state of balance and harmony. Sound healers use various techniques and instruments, each producing different types of sound vibrations. These include singing bowls, tuning forks, gongs, drums, rattles, and even the human voice. 

Experienced healers select a sequence of different tools in harmony and discord to create a sonic journey for group well-being and therapy. Qualified sound healers can also work with individuals, selecting tools for their specific frequencies and qualities based on the therapeutic aims of the session.

While scientific research on sound therapy is still emerging, anecdotal evidence and preliminary studies suggest benefits include:

• Stress Reduction: Sound therapy techniques induce relaxation responses and reduce cortisol helping to reduce stress, anxiety, and tension.
• Pain Management: Sound vibrations can promote the release of endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers.
• Emotional Therapy: Sound therapy is believed to assist in emotional release, balancing emotions, and fostering a sense of inner peace and well-being.
• Happiness: Sound vibrations can promote the release of serotonin – the happy neurotransmitter.
• Improved Sleep: Sound therapy can promote deep relaxation, aiding in sleep quality and reducing insomnia.
• Enhanced Focus and Creativity: Certain sound frequencies, such as discords have been associated with improved focus, concentration, and creativity.

MY JOURNEY IN SOUND

After some wonderful experiences in recent group sound baths, I was keen to find out what an individual sound therapy session would be like. We are lucky to have several talented sound healers in Hastings, including Maria Christofi of The Sound Apothecary, who very kindly invited me for a private session in her home therapy studio.

At the heart of a good sound therapy session is enabling the client to feel they are in a comfortable and safe environment to be able to relax and let the sound wash over them and flow through the body. Maria certainly provides that through her warming studio and beautiful moments, like tucking you under a cosy blanket as you enter your sound journey. This is a focused therapy session and touches like this certainly helped me to relax and feel safe enough to open myself to wherever the sound took me.

The session began with Maria helping me to explore a barrier I was experiencing in life and how this feels in my physical body and the space around me. I was then asked to focus on this as we moved into the sound. Maria starts her sessions with brass bowls and a sound she calls a ‘sonic hug,’ getting you fully relaxed and safe for the introduction of the crystal bowls. These can help you to travel through your unconscious mind and experience ‘oceanic boundlessness,’ the ability to let your mind expand and travel beyond conscious control. 

I found myself back in my childhood, reliving memories I had forgotten. I then saw visions of myself in woods and fields. I experienced a huge sense of freedom and felt part of nature. I sensed the barrier I was focusing on being lifted and replaced with an urge for adventure. At the end of the session, Maria uses drums and then shakers to clear any resistance and bring me back gently into the present time and space. I was surprised at how strongly I felt I had been outside of her beautiful treatment room, outside of myself. We discussed what I had experienced and how the blocks I had described at the start of the session now felt to me. I was provided with some simple sound exercises to do at home to reconnect myself with my experiences during the sound bath.

I found it an incredible experience, made more wonderful by Maria’s care and ability to make you feel like the most special person in the world during your time with her. For me, sound therapy was a powerful way to explore something that is difficult to get a conscious hold of and put into words. I know I will be back for more.

Maria Christofi is a graduate of the British Academy of Sound and a member of the Therapeutic Sound Association. You can find her on Instagram at the_soundapothecary – learn more about her group sound baths and individual sound therapy sessions.

Frankly I feel conned. Back in the 1990s I was persuaded to swap my petrol car for a diesel.  It emits much less Co2 I was informed.  Much more environmentally friendly.  Plus you get more miles to the gallon (gallons? Remember them?) so you are burning less fossil fuel. Excellent news. I can proudly sport my green credentials on the bonnet of my VW. Until we discover that VW have been cheating, and their engines are not nearly as clean as they claim.Then we’re suddenly told ALL diesels are much more polluting than petrol engines.  It’s the particulates you see. And now my car and I are pariahs.  Daily I expect my membership of Friends of the Earth to be rescinded and to have ‘he’s a dirty polluter’ graffiti sprayed on my passenger door. So I sell the diesel. 

Rudd abolishes grants

But not to worry. There are so many other ways to go green. PV solar energy for instance.  I’m told – by the salesman admittedly – that with enough panels on my roof not only will I be pretty much self-sufficient in electricity, but that on sunny days I’ll be putting power back into the grid and making money via the feed-in tariff. Plus there are generous grants available. But just seconds before I place the order, the then Hastings MP and Environment Secretary, Amber Rudd abolishes the grants and the government ends the feed-in tariff. Instead of the investment paying for itself in few years, it would now take decades.  Next thing I hear is that the nice salesman has been made redundant as his firm folded. Overnight the thriving solar industry, employing thousands or even tens of thousands of people all helping to save the planet, has collapsed because of the government’s about- face. 

OK then, there must be another way to green up my life?  I know, let’s replace that old central heating boiler.  Sadly my ancient, leaky house isn’t suitable for a heat pump so I’m thinking of going down the bio-fuel route.  The only question is which fuel?  Pellets sound good. They can feed the boiler automatically to provide constant heat.  But back then the UK didn’t actually produce its own wood pellets – they all had to be imported – with the consequent transport pollution.  And the process of actually making them is pretty energy intensive. Trees have to be cut down; taken from forest to factory; reduced or chipped; dried; ground down though a hammer mill; heated; compressed and then cooled.  They are then bagged up (often in plastic) and transported to me.  Doesn’t sound very ecological if I may say so.

Industrial sized expansion vessels.

So it’s wood chips or logs.  Chips have to be – er – chipped – then kept absolutely dry, or de-humidified using copious amounts of electricity.  Much easier, surely, to install a log boiler. With a massive hot water storage tank. And industrial sized expansion vessels. And several miles of expensive copper pipework.  The nice salesman says you just have to burn a batch of logs to heat up the water in the tank and that will run the radiators all day. Plus there are generous grants to help pay for it all.  Except there aren’t.  Because the government ends them before I’ve got my second mortgage and paid for the system to be installed.

Then comes bad news and good news and then bad news again.  First, it takes ages to heat up the water in the tank, and it doesn’t last all day. So effectively you have to be burning logs most of the time you want the central heating on. This consumes vast quantities of wood.  But the better news is that there is a new grant available in the form of the RHI – Renewable Heat Incentive.  It’s quite generous and will pay for the installation of the system in around about 10-15 years.  But then the government moves the goalposts again. Suddenly I have to obtain my logs from an accredited biomass supplier. With the concomitant costs and transport pollution.  After much research, vastly bureaucratic form filling, and the payment of a membership levy, I myself become an accredited biomass supplier.

Huge white elephant

For a few years all goes according to plan. A good deal of wood cutting, splitting and moving is involved and a lot of time going out in the cold to feed more logs into the hungry beast.  But almost all my heat comes from the log boiler and a woodstove. And the fuel – wood from my garden – is effectively free.  But then … the boiler breaks down and the Czech manufacturer can’t supply the spare parts, and the UK supplier and service company goes out of business.  So I am left with a huge white elephant taking up most of the outhouse.  It’s not all awful though because I still have my woodstove and an apparently inexhaustible supply of logs, and the original back-up oil boiler.

What’s that creaking sound? It’s the goal posts being moved yet again.  Now, suddenly, burning wood endangers health – it’s the particulates, you see. Wood boilers and stoves are no longer desirable and may, indeed, be banned.  Daily I expect my membership of Friends of the Earth to be rescinded.

Mind you, out in the country I think there will be a revolution if the government really does try to ban woodstoves.  Everyone I know has one – or two.  Hundreds if not thousands of people make their living supplying logs or sweeping chimneys or installing liners, or selling the stoves themselves.

But for we who really wanted to be green, there is a dilemma. We knew that burning wood does emit Co2.  But we were assured that it would be ‘carbon neutral’ as, during its life, a tree absorbes as much carbon as it gives out later when being burned. Now we find we could be harming the health of our neighbours and their children.  We dumped the diesel because of the particulates.  Are we really going to have to abandon our wood burners for the same reason?

With sunny climate and long beaches, Hastings has long been looked upon as a place of health and wellbeing. From the late 1700s, through the Victorian and Edwardian eras, our town was a fashionable destination for the wealthy to convalesce and recuperate sitting in the sun, dipping in the sea, even ‘taking the waters.’ With our current sewage concerns, it is hard to believe that drinking Hastings’ seawater was once believed by physicians as a cure all for most ills.

While most visitors to UK’s seaside towns still come away with an enhanced feeling of wellbeing, in July 2021 Professor Chris Whitty’s Chief Medical Officer’s Report revealed the very opposite for many of us living in coastal regions. His Health in Coastal Communities Report revealed towns, including Hastings and St Leonards, have among the poorest health outcomes in England, with lower-than-average life expectancy and high rates of major mental and physical health conditions. Health inequalities in seaside towns had been hidden and overlooked because statistics had historically been merged with wealthier inland areas. Whitty called for a national strategy for coastal health, stating, “If we do not tackle the health problems of coastal communities vigorously and systematically there will be a long tail of preventable ill health which will get worse as current populations age.”

Last month, Whitty reiterated his call, naming Hastings among the coastal towns experiencing a “deepening health crisis,” whose problems have only increased since his 2021 report and now risk being “left behind.” Latest statistics show life expectancy for men in Hastings at 78.02 and women 81.75, compared with national average of 82.9 for women and 79 for men (Office for National Statistics 2023). While health inequalities affect us all, a closer look into the statistics reveals a deeper discrepancy for men. Average life expectancy for men in Hastings and Rother is five years shorter than for areas like Kensington and Chelsea that enjoy the highest life expectancies. More shocking is that men living in the most socially deprived areas of our town are expected to have a life 11.5 years shorter than those in our more affluent areas, the biggest life expectancy disparity in South East England.

MEN MISSING OUT

Inequalities in men’s health and life expectancy in Hastings and Rother has become a key concern and priority for Darryl Gale, Director of Public Health for East Sussex Council. His department have begun funding several projects aiming to reduce the discrepancies. These include Hastings and St Leonards Men’s health and Wellbeing project, aiming to place men at the centre of decision making and policy changes around health care and local services, and Men’s Mental Health in Hastings Project run by Mind in Brighton and Hove.

This spring Mind hosted a Men’s Wellbeing Festival bringing together projects they have funded to increase health and wellbeing for men in the most socially deprived areas of Hastings and St Leonards. These included Arts on Prescription, Creativity on Sea, Hastings United Walking Football and Take Action Man at Project Rewild.     

At the festival, I met Darryl Gale who explained men’s life expectancy in our region has fallen in recent years due to violence, suicide, drugs, alcohol, self-neglect, and self-harm. Though excellent work through community projects initially led to improvements, the upward trend has now plateaued. One of the key concerns highlighted by Professor Christ Whitty is a lack in availability of medical care, caused by a shortage of medical professionals choosing to live and work in our region. Whitty has called for more training opportunities and incentives for health care professionals to settle in coastal towns.

Darryl Gale believes community support and groups like those funded by Mind are as, if not more, important than clinical provision. He told me, “Some men will actively seek out medical or mental health support, but many more are afraid of stigma so won’t go near any organisation that says, ‘health,’ but will do something like sports, outdoor activities, or arts. Here they can start building fitness and get together with like-minded people.” Gale believes loneliness and isolation among men in our community is leading to mental and physical poor health through factors such as stress, drugs, alcohol, lack of exercise and poor diet. “Everyone needs to feel part of wider group, a family, household, or community, or just to be known by the people in the street, to nod heads to you. It’s important.” 

LAND OF IMMORTALS

To say community groups and a sense of belonging can be more important than clinical health provision is a big claim. However, researchers have found building community around shared interests lies at the heart of the Blue Zones regions of the world, where people live the longest, happiest lives. Okinawa, a Japanese Island in the East China Sea was once called the Land of Immortals. At the last count, 1 in 1,470 Okinawans were over 100 years old, with nearly 6% of the island’s population in their 90s. Researchers have found genetics account for a third of this longevity of life. The rest is down to a combination of good diet and a good social life.

Okinawan society is structured around people coming together in a way that enables everyone to retain a sense of value as they age. There is a great emphasis on ‘moai’ groups, mixed age interest or hobby groups. Most Okinawans are members of several moai, providing them with purpose, emotional connection, and social support. Dan Buettner, author of several books about the Blue Zones, believes this sense of belonging and looking after each other helps these regions enjoy, not only the longest and happiest lives, but the lowest rates of cancer, heart disease and dementia in the world. He believes, “Loneliness is as bad for you as smoking.”

Perhaps Hastings can learn lessons from Okinawa to improve our health inequalities. Darryl Gale believes, “A really good aspect of Hastings is that you can sit outside on your own with cup of tea and someone will talk to you.” He urges us all to “Smile, say hi, be genuine and break down loneliness.”

The summer term has begun, and young people across Hastings are currently entering their final months in school. It’s a stressful time of exams and future planning. For some, like my son William, the next few weeks of his life are simply ‘petrifying’ with the prospect of trying to navigate an adult world they don’t feel suited for, that they don’t understand and that doesn’t understand them.

William is one of 700,000 people in the UK living with autism, or autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). More than one in 100 people are diagnosed to be on the autism spectrum. Around 5,500 of these people live in East Sussex and 1,000 in Hastings. According to the National Autistic Society (NAS), the actual prevalence is likely to be much higher. Despite these numbers, a widespread lack of awareness and understanding causes discriminating ideas which impact heavily on social lives, career aspirations and positive life experiences for those living with ASD.

Autism is a lifelong developmental disability which affects how people communicate and interact with the world. For people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the world can be a bewildering place. The social rules and nuances many of us take for granted are misunderstood, if noticed at all, leading to extreme anxiety and social isolation. The struggle through life can be further complicated by crippling sensory overload caused by an oversensitive brain unable to filter the maelstrom of information around them. This can lead them to experience a meltdown or shutdown, and further judgement from society

EARTH AND AUTISM AWARENESS 

While people with ASD face extreme daily challenges, they also have unique capabilities, such as the ability to see the details most of us miss, to absorb and retain facts in their exceptional memory, creative and novel ideas and perceptions and often deep, expert knowledge about topics they are interested in. Talents like these are often hidden under our stereotypical views, but understanding, embracing, and celebrating different ways of thinking and doing can benefit us all. A great example is Greta Thunberg, whose specialist knowledge, focus and creative ideas have been game changing in raising awareness of the environmental issues many of us are reflecting on Earth Day this week.

April 2 is World Autism Awareness Day, an initiative aiming to spotlight the hurdles people living with ASD face every day. This year’s theme was Transforming the narrative: Contributions at home, at work, in the arts and policy making. Hastings celebrated in style with our first ‘Autism Awareness Seafront Walk and Celebration’. The event was organised by Little Gate Supported Employment, a local charity that strives to improve the lives and aspirations for young people with ASD by helping them train for, find and thrive in paid employment. CEO, Andrea Randall-Smith, explained “Events like this are really important to bring everyone together to talk about ASD, learn and celebrate the diversity that makes our community richer, stronger and more creative.”

Andrea introduced me to one of Little Gate’s work trainees, 25-year-old Chloe Valentine. She explained to me the challenges she faces due to people’s preconceived ideas about autism “Because of how capable I am, sometimes people don’t believe that I have autism. When people meet me for the first time it’s not obvious, and then when a situation arises when I may need support, people don’t know what to do and they panic. People are also surprised to learn that I drive. Which confuses me as I don’t see why people with autism shouldn’t drive?”

MASKING AND UNMASKING

A 12-year-old girl shared with me her devastating experience of stereotypical ideas

 “At school, even the nice children will say ‘are you autistic or something?’ if anyone does anything weird or strange. People need to learn what autism is and how to help.” I found Biff Mooney, a senior project leader at Little Gate, leading a workshop inviting people to make a mask that shows their true self, the parts of them they usually keep hidden. He said “We want you to know that to appear ‘normal’ and fit-in is taking us work and energy all the time. We can look like we are doing well but it is an endless effort, and it is exhausting.”

Biff believes enabling people with ASD to unmask would need both work with individuals to help them feel safe to be able to be themselves and educating society to learn to accept their differences. “We won’t be able to do this unless people learn to accept differences as a positive thing. We are seen as something that needs fixing.” There are many controversies around treatment and cure of autism. Biff’s ideas align with the view taken by the NAS, who claim autism cannot and should not be cured and should be seen as a difference, rather than a disadvantage. Others see autism as a serious, debilitating disorder that deserves a cure. Some people with ASD have found benefit from nutritional changes, especially eliminating gluten and the dairy protein, casein, or using nutritional supplements. 

The Association of UK Dieticians agree that specialist input can be useful to help challenges such as the preference for ‘beige’ foods, certain textures, and food anxiety. Together with The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), they warn against elimination diets, especially for children, and recommend dietary changes and supplements are done under guidance from a GP. Dutch homeopath, Tinus Smits, pioneered ‘CEASE,’ the Complete Elimination of Autistic Spectrum Expression, which he claimed had helped over 300 children. However, in the years following Smit’s death in 2010, the practice was banned in several countries across the world. In 2020 the UK health regulating body, the Professional Standards Agency (PSA), banned homeopath and naturopath practitioners from offering and advertising any treatments for ASD.

Wherever people stand on the treatment debate, most agree that a positive community can go a long way in helping people with ASD to live comfortably and achieve their potential. I left the celebration feeling positive that Hastings is a town William could thrive in. We are lucky to have several innovative organisations like Little Gate, helping people with ASD live happy, fulfilled lives. But, as Andrea Randall-Smith told me, “This is just the beginning. There is so much more we can do.”

On Tuesday 14 March, a group of residents from Hastings and St Leonards Extinction Rebellion and The Clean Water Action Group displayed their disgust at Southern Water’s continued discharges of raw, untreated sewage onto the beach. They staged a sit-down protest at the site of the discharges: an overflow pipe on the beach at Warrior Square, St Leonards.

As the tide drew in, covering the sands that are so often flooded with waste products and human excrement, the protesters sat atop five toilets as if using them – a grotesque parody of the way Southern Water treat the beach on this point of England’s South Coast. All local residents, the protesters read mock newspapers such as the ‘Daily Discharge’, that incorporated headline facts like “193 Sewage dumps in 8 days”. 

Jane Ripley explained: “Typical components of sewage include water, nutrients, organic matter, bacteria, viruses, parasites, endocrine disruptors, suspended solids, micro and macro plastics, micro fibres, industrial chemicals, slaughterhouse waste, sediments and heavy metals – each of which individually and together work to harm coastal and Marine ecosystems.”

Theresa T, a local sea swimmer and member of Hastings and St Leonards Extinction Rebellion, went on to say: “I moved to Hastings to swim in the sea and have been shocked and disappointed to discover that Southern Water’s practice of discharging sewage onto beaches has made swimming, that most basic of seaside activities, into a high risk proposition. When we pay our water bills, the money gets used to inflate senior management’s salaries at Southern Water, when it should be invested in repairing and improving sewage infrastructure.”

Last month The Clean Water Action Group had samples of the water tested, and it was found to have high levels of faecal bacteria, the result of a major sewage discharge at Bultherhythe. Southern Water reportedly dumped sewage at beaches 493 times over just eight days in November 2022, amounting to 3,700 hours of discharge.

The residents at the protest highlighted the risk of bouts of heavy rainfall due to an increasingly volatile climate, noting that this will continue to pressurise water and sewage systems that are already not coping. They stated the need for “an emphasis on investment to improve the system quickly before further permanent damage to the beaches and marine environment occurs”.

A Southern Water spokesman stated that the company are extending their efforts to use “an industry-leading approach to reducing the use of storm overflows when increased surface and groundwater enter our sewers.”

Meanwhile campaigners insist that Southern Water could do much more to immediately stem the tide of sewage on our beaches, some suggesting the only way to really get to grips with the problem is for the water companies to be renationalised.

Both Extinction Rebellion and The Clean Water Action Group stated that they will continue to protest until the situation is resolved.