In Days Gone By with John Dowling

THE ceremonious opening of the Colonnade on Monday by Lord Brassey is happy omen for the 1911 season, which it will formally inaugurate, as a welcome assurance that the public entertainments of Bexhill will be on a more satisfactory footing in the future than they have been in the past. Monday’s event will consummate the greatest improvement that has ever been carried out in the history of the town. – Leading article.

A GALLANT rescue was effected off the Bexhill beach on Saturday, when a visitor to the town, having got into difficulties while bathing, had a narrow escape from drowning. Mr. Herbert Simmons, the victim, was enjoying a dip from Mr. Buxton’s station on West Parade at about noon. He had only been in the sea a few minutes, but not being very much at home in the water, soon became exhausted. He called for help, and fortunately his cries were heard by Mr. W. Buxton, the proprietor of the Bathing Station, who, without a moment’s hesitation, ran down the beach, and, fully dressed though he was, plunged into the sea.

1961

A COMPREHENSIVE programme was provided for those attending a garden fete organised by Bexhill and District Nursing Association held in the grounds of Sidley House on Saturday. The event raised the splendid total of £88 15s. 6d., which, after expenses had been deducted, will mean a profit of about £60.

FOR the second time within a week, Bexhill Schools’ Orchestra presented a “Summer Serenade” to a packed audience. The occasion was the orchestra’s visit to the County Grammar School for Girls. They had previously played at the Down County Secondary School for Girls.

1971

BEXHILL scored a notable “first” on Wednesday when, accompanied by a flood of goodwill messages from distinguished musical personalities and encouraged by a complete ticket sell-put a full week before the event, the inaugural concert of the Malcolm Sargent Orchestra brought a gala atmosphere to the De La Warr Pavilion.

THE large number of people who attended the annual fete of the Rye and Bexhill Conservative Association on Saturday, when a record sum of about £1,000 was raised for party funds, heard that there will be an ample opportunity for voters in the division to discuss the Common Market with its M.P., Mr. B. Godman Irvine.

1981

REDUNDANCIES have struck at Thorn Consumer Electronics’ Bexhill factory with over a third of the workforce being laid off. Stunned workers heard on Thursday last week that 50 jobs were to go and many would be made redundant before the end of August. Thirty part-time and 20 full-time staff are affected with mainly testers and fault-finders losing their jobs.

A PASSENGER lift for Bexhill Library is daily coming nearer reality. Bexhill’s Friends of the Elderly charity launched its public appeal to provide a much-needed lift for the library as a memorial to founder chairman Mr Jack Baker.

1991

NEW health trust proposals for the area will not necessarily guarantee the building of the second phase of the Conquest Hospital, it is feared. The concern comes from Hastings Community Health Council whose chairman, Pauline Bullock, reminds readers that the deadline for comments on the trust proposals is fast approaching.

FACTORIES on the Beeching Road estate were flooded during Wednesday morning’s downpour. Drains bubbled over and left deposits of sewage on several forecourts.

2001

NEW town MP Greg Barker used his maiden speech in the Commons to begin Bexhill’s bypass decision fight-back and to pledge to continue the campaign. Mr Barker had hoped to find a suitable subject before the summer recess to make his maiden speech. Last Thursday’s Government rejection of the Bexhill and Hastings bypasses provided it. He told the House just two and a half hours after Transport Minister John Spellar’s announcement “…the decision by the Secretary of State for Transport to decline to go ahead with the Bexhill bypass will be seen as a kick in the teeth for the town.”