Channel Crossings: 1,000 arrivals on a single day
Border Force statistics show that, despite the rhetoric of politicians on both sides of the English Channel, passages of small boats carrying migrants/refugees from Europe to the Kent and Sussex coast have continued this autumn in record numbers. On one…
City of Sanctuary
In 2017 Hastings Borough Council resolved to become a City of Sanctuary in response to an initiative launched by a local community group Hastings Supports Refugees (HSR), which had been founded by Jane Grimshaw two years ; HSR was initially…
A Heart-warming Welcome
By Jane Grimshaw Today, 11 November, was a day we were hoping wouldn’t happen. It’s cold here in Hastings but it’s even colder at sea. At around we received the first of a steady stream of messages and calls. The…
Hastings Festival of Sanctuary
Musicians and artists join a day of community, creativity and hope By Nick Pelling The Festival of Sanctuary sends a simple message of welcome, with some of Hastings’ best musicians and artists once again showing their support for the act…
Hastings residents welcome refugees
By Jo Turner On Channel 4 News this week Sally-Ann Hart, MP for Hastings and Rye, was interviewed about her party’s policy on refugees and also her own personal poor record of behaviour online which brought about an investigation by…
Festival by the Lake Online
By Gareth Stevens It was inevitable that the Festival by the Lake would be cancelled this year given the current situation. However a similar inevitability meant that Polly Gifford, the event’s chief organiser, would not be deterred. In an epiphanic…
Top Musicians Support Festival Welcoming Refugees to Hastings
Award winning jazz musicians Liane Carroll and Ian Shaw, and poet John Hegley are among the artists appearing at Festival by the Lake on Sunday 24 June, 12-8pm, in the beautiful surroundings of Ashburnham Place, near Battle, East Sussex. Now…
Calais Children – A Case To Answer
The refugee crisis in Calais has not gone away. Indeed destroying the ‘Jungle’ has arguably made the situation worse. Felicity Laurence of Hastings Supports Refugees reports on an extraordinary film to be shown at the Printworks which documents the abject…