Archives for Features - Page 5
Edith Swan-neck’s 2020 Vision
In Community (HIP Issue 154) we learned that there’s a new group on the block, called the ‘Friends of Edith’ and they are determined that this should be Edith’s year…
Born Black in Hastings
The Black Lives Matter protests have triggered a massive political movement in the USA, but have also found echoes right around the world. What has it got to do with…
Together We Stand
Photographs by Fizzel Castro Over 1,000 people attended the Hastings Rally Against Racism in Alexandra Park on the 7th June. The organisers held the socially distant event for the people…
When Women Racers Came to Hastings
In March 1933 large crowds braved wet weather in Hastings to watch the finish of the RAC Rally – only the second such event. Cars, 351, or 327, accounts vary,…
Kitty May Brunell
Born in 1911, Kitty had car racing in the blood. Her father, Bill Brunell, was a well-known motorsports photographer and pictures taken by him in 1926 show Kitty, then 15,…
‘Home Schooling’? Don’t Worry About It!
Dr Paula Radice, Director of Enjoycation – which provides group-learning and tutoring in Hastings for home-educated children from Reception to GCSEs in a fully-resourced learning room in Hastings town centre…
Chris Fagg
The man who fell through the system There were loads of us piling into the hall for the after-ceremony drinks. We were eager to celebrate with the free wine after…
150 Issues of HIP!
What sort of newspaper are you reading? The Hastings Independent is in its sixth year and 150 issues later Poppy Prescott looks back on how it started and what it…
Titus Oates
A shame to mankind! By all accounts, the seventeenth century Titus Oates was a baddy. The son of the Rector of All Saints church in Hastings Old Town, he went…
The Fight Against Modern Slavery In East Sussex
I’ve always found the term ‘modern slavery’ to be a contradictory one. The word ‘slavery’ conjures up visceral images of oppression and innate human suffering that seem somehow associated with…
Transcribing Hastings’ History
Kent Barker calls for a community effort to make the works of one of the town’s great historians and eccentrics more widely available to all. Students of some of the…
Josie Barnes
Her award-winning photography, Hastings fishermen and social realism Local 23-year-old photographer and film graduate, Josie Barnes, won the Hastings Museum and Art Gallery (HMAG) competition in 2019 with her insightful…
Learning The University Game: It’s Never Too Late To Study
Thinking about going to university? UCAS applications closed in January, but it’s not too late to apply. Here’s some advice if you’re thinking about it and some local resources to…
Explore The Natural World Close To Home
The Friends of Hastings Country Park Nature Reserve (FHCPNR) have released their programme of events for 2020, which provides a clear insight into changes in our surrounding natural world. Ben…
A Fateful Emerald: The Story of Sir Cloudesley Shovell
By David Dennis In All Saints’ Street in the Old Town is said to be the oldest home left standing in ; This was also the home of the mother…
To All The Men I’ve Loved…
We’re at the end of November, which marks Men’s Health Awareness month. Sanne van Baalen reflects on the men in her life who are struggling with their mental health and…
Hastings Helps Halt French Invasion
By Kent Barker In all the commemorations this year of the 75th anniversary of D-Day, another military campaign exactly two hundred years earlier was rather overlooked. It’s one that’s particularly…
Changing Hastings – Or Is It?
By Sam Kinch Community Organiser at Heart of Hastings Community Land Trust “This seaside town has stepped out of the shadow of its twin. One could say it was gentrifying,…
Are You Good At Listening?
Hastings and Rother branch of the Samaritans does amazing work, and needs more volunteers. Ben Bruges met Yvette Harris, the branch director to find out what’s ; One of Chad…
Eddie Izzard on his Bexhill winter wartime railway:
“See how we struggled against the forces of tyranny” Bexhill Museum’s latest exhibition features a railway model of snowy Bexhill in 1940, commissioned by comedian, activist and local patron, Eddie…
The Lovers’ Seat in Fairlight Glen
By Gill Metcalfe Fairlight Glen has been known as ‘the most lovely spot within the immediate neighbourhood of Hastings.’ From nearby Dripping Well, the ‘Lovers’ Seat’ is situated on a…
Battle Lines For The NHS
By Graham Pearcey Councillor Mike Turner has loved the NHS for most of his 74 years—he was born in 1945, three years before the NHS was created. Now he hates…
Mind-body outdoor gymnastics
How much happier we would be, if we had all grown up infused with a feeling that we had the resources for what life was going to throw at us.…
Finding The Macro In The Micro – Alchemy At The blackShed
This is a show of photographs, ceramics and a poem. Each pot stands on its floating plinth with all the dignified composure of the truly ancient. Yet these exquisite soil-textured…
Hastings Year Nines Get A Taste Of The High Life
By Dan Matthews On Wednesday 5th June, almost 120 year nine pupils from Hastings and St Leonards commuted to Canary Wharf in London for a unique careers experience arranged by…
The Anatomy Of The Zine
An East Sussex College graduate tells the story of how an interest in medicine, art and a quirky sense of humour created an unusual start to her career. By Charlotte…
Passion Wins Over Process
The reconfiguring of open on grand parade Rossana Leal, whose award of Woman of the Year at the Women on the Move ceremony was featured in HIP issue 123, has…
‘The Attorney General Of Her Majesty’s Lunatics’ – An Early Campaigner For Mental Health Patients
By Robin Holtom In 1831 John Thomas Perceval, son of the assassinated Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, was incarcerated in Ticehurst Asylum. He later wrote an account of his experiences. At…
Invest A Pound To Save An Icon
Builders have started work restoring the Observer Building - one of Hastings’ most iconic sites. Now, to fully realise its potential and generate jobs, homes and leisure opportunities, the team…
Out Of Africa
David Dennis looks at the lives and loyalties of Rider Haggard and Joseph Conrad. North Lodge St LeonardsPICTURE: David Dennis There are some fascinating coincidences in the lives of these…
Highlands Crakes
Kent Barker cracks the case of the Highlands Crakes. All too often historical research reaches a dead end - no records exist or can be found of this event or…
A Journey Home
Gareth Stevens reviews the Tom Hunter exhibition curated by Lucy Bell and David Rhodes at Hastings Museum. Tom Hunter’s photographic portraits of Hastings taxi drivers are brimful with tenderness and…
Respect Existence or Expect Resistance
Simone Witney talks to Lucy Bell and David Rhodes about the Tom Hunter show Karam at Rock-a-norePICTURE: Tom Hunter The title is a phrase I spotted among a wall of…
James And Decimus Burton
The Burtons were commissioned to erect ‘edifices suitable to the reception of genteel families’, but Gill Metcalfe wonders if they’re now past their sell-by date? All the Burton children practised…
Clicks and Swallows
Rory McDowall Clark shines a light on our fears of and for digital immigrants. We live in a period of huge anxiety about children and childhood. Of all the fears…
End of an era?
Hastings and the English Language Teaching WorldFiona McGarry celebrates the history of language teaching and looks at what current changes may mean for the town Mention Hastings to most people…
The Airport that Never Took Off
‘Fasten your seatbelts please, we will shortly be landing at Hastings Airport.’ Today you’d have to fly to Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand, or Hastings, Nebraska to hear such an announcement…
St Leonards Post Office
Smiling bravely The sell-off one year on. By Rod Webb As Britain madly shops in the dark of winter streets, illuminated shop windows lure us in with music and bright…
To B Movie or Not to B Movie
Thrills and spills at the Electric Palace Cinema By Andrew Myers Melodramatic acting, dodgy special effects and plot holes you could fly a badly realised spaceship through – all music to…
HIP Views Cycling from the Slipstream
If you think that a bunny hop is the kind of jump a rabbit does when it’s surprised, then you’re clearly a turkey or a squirrel. In the cycling world,…