Many people will already be aware that there have been a number of burglaries in the Brightling area recently, including:

• quad bike
• a large quantity of tack
• three English Springer Spaniels (details here, here, and here)

If you see something suspicious, do report it.  Using the on-line 101 form is not only generally less stressful than telephoning, it also helps the police because it uses fewer police resources.  If you have seen something suspicious but not clearly a crime as such, then use the “Something you’ve seen or heard” link.  That takes you to a short form.  After you get an acknowledgement email, you can forward the email to Daryl Holter at Daryl.Holter@sussex.pnn.police.uk Daryl really does need you to use the reporting system before emailing him as he needs things to be on the system before he can deal with them.  The information that the police seem to be most grateful for is vehicle number plates, preferably with a brief description.

Of course if there is a crime in the course of being committed, or any other immediate emergency, then call 999.

Sussex police crime prevention advice

Meanwhile, don’t have nightmares.

Message from East Sussex County Council [this includes the Mountfield Waste recycling site, or as we always call it “The Mountfield Dump”]

Household waste and recycling sites (tips) in East Sussex will begin to re-open to the public from 10am on Monday 18 May.

We expect the sites to be extremely busy and we ask that you only come to them if you have waste that it’s absolutely essential to dispose of at this time. If you’re able to compost waste, or safely store it at home for the time being, please do.

We are following new Government guidance on how to keep the public and staff safe at waste sites, including keeping people two metres apart.This means:

• A limited number of unloading bays will be in use
• Only one person at a time will be allowed to use the access ramps
• Staff will not be able to help you unload
• Trailers and over-sized vehicles will not be allowed on site to avoid lengthy visits
• Chargeable waste – plasterboard, asbestos, tyres, hardcore and soil – will not be accepted
• The re-use shops will remain closed

We believe these arrangements are the best way to re-open sites safely for you. We recognise they are likely to mean longer waiting times and we thank you in advance for your patience if it’s essential for you to visit a site once they re-open on 18 May.

We will constantly monitor how the sites are working and keep you updated on any changes, including through our website.

In line with the times, Brightling Parish Council meetings are moving on-line, using Zoom video-conferencing, starting with the AGM on Monday (11 May).  This will be the situation until further notice. 

Message from Helena Grissell and Caroline Wedmore (Joint chairmen of Brightling Flower Show Committee)

Hello everyone, we are so sorry but, regretfully, due to uncertain future social distancing policies and Covid-19 transmission, we have decided to cancel the flower show this year.

Thank you to all who have attended meetings, participated in designing the new schedule and agreed to help on the day. We hope that you will continue to be involved next year.

Also a big thank you to members of the Brightling Vegetable Club who kindly contributed plants and organised an online sale, which raised over £160 for the flower show, in particular Vanessa Everett who spent several hours delivering plants around Brightling.

In the near future, we hope to run a few of the original flower show classes online and will keep you posted. And we hope to see you all at the Barn Dance in September.

Since the lockdown started, and we all had to find a different way of carrying on our lives, a number of people have said to me “Thank goodness we have decent broadband”, or words to that effect.  People will know that for years I have been banging on and campaigning (through the Parish Council) for better broadband in Brightling.  I can’t claim to have done it because I foresaw that it would be an essential service in a virus pandemic, and indeed it is impossible to know whether this campaigning made any difference to the arrival of superfast broadband in Brightling, but at any rate it is gratifying to know that one was pushing in the right direction.

However all this only makes it worse for the left-behind (or as the East Sussex broadband project insists on calling them the “Final Few”).  Having spent a couple of hours poking at the e-sussex.org website, I reckon that there are about 22 addresses in Brightling that currently can’t get superfast broadband.  Out of these around 7 (all of them along the B2096) are now in the plans to get superfast by the end of December 2021.  These 7 appear to be the final phase of East Sussex Broadband’s project (original planned completion date March 2020), so that leaves about 15 with no access to superfast – not now and not included in any existing contracts or budgets for future upgrades.

What can you do if you are in this left-behind group?  I have three suggestions.

The first is to claim a faster connection under the USO (Universal Service Obligation), which came into force in March 2020.  This obligation gives you the “right to request a decent and affordable broadband connection.”  There are some serious caveats, however (and by the way, am I alone in thinking that the “right to request” is a curiously evasive phrase?)  The first exception is that “decent” is defined to mean 10 Mbit/s.  So if you have already got 10 Mbit/s download or better (and 1.0 upload), the USO does not apply.  The second exception is that you can’t claim under the USO if your broadband availability is scheduled to be upgraded in the next 12 months.  The third exception is that if the cost (before VAT) exceeds £3400 you will have to pay the excess (and costs are calculated by Openreach and will probably be hard to challenge).  The final exception is that you have to show that you can’t get decent broadband through a 4G hub (more on this later).

The second suggestion is to look into the Community Fibre Partnerships.  This enables a group of nearby properties to club together and pay for the installation of fibre.  There are two voucher schemes that can help with the cost of this: the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme, and the Rural Gigabit Voucher Scheme.  The group doesn’t have to be very large; in fact I think individual properties can apply on their own, although in this case you won’t be sharing the cost, of course.  If anyone is interested in going down this route, do contact me and I can let you have a list of addresses of neighbouring properties who are in the same boat.

The third suggestion (and I would strongly recommend trying this first) is to get a 4G hub.  See this article https://www.techradar.com/uk/broadband/4g-home-broadband or search for “4G broadband hub”.  I ran my home on a 4G hub for several years and it was adequate (though nowhere near as solid as FTTP, which we have now).   People sometimes say “that wouldn’t work: I can’t get a decent 4G signal on my phone”.  That’s not a sound objection.  Firstly, it depends on which network you are on, and secondly with a 4G hub you will have a roof-mounted aerial which is 100s of times more sensitive than the aerial inside your mobile phone.   If you are interested in trying this route and would like more advice, do contact me.  In any case you would have to look into this first if you wanted to try the USO route.

We are still planning to hold the parish council AGM on Monday 11th May at 7:30 pm – by Zoom video-conferencing.

This will be a public meeting, because members of the public will be able to join the Zoom meeting.

Details of how to join will be published here on the village website nearer the time.

Most people know the Polish war memorial on Netherfield Hill, commemorating three of the crew of a Wellington bomber which crashed nearby on the night of 27/28th May 1941. Much less well known is the memorial to Pilot Officer Meaker, a fighter pilot who died on the night of 27th September 1940, at the age of 21. The Battle of Britain Memorial website has his story, at http://www.bbm.org.uk/airmen/Meaker.htm where I read “Meaker shared in the destruction of a Me110 on 27th September. On this day he was shot down by return fire from a Ju88. He baled out but fell dead at Warren Field, Brightling Park. His Hurricane, P3834, crashed at Brake Field, Giffords Farm, Dallington. In 1990 a memorial was placed near the spot where he was killed.”     Tantalisingly, the website gives no further details of the location of the 1990 memorial.

This was all drawn to my attention by a post on the Brightling Nextdoor pages, from Mr Charlie Leslie, who had been trying to find the memorial. After a lot of web searching we found a slightly more precise location, and then an intensive scrutiny of Google Streetview revealed a suspicious glint behind a hedge. We had found it! – it is on the south side of the B2096, a few yards east of the entrance to Giffords Farm Cottages. Charlie Leslie then ventured out and took these photos.

A remaining mystery is the location of the Warren Field, Brightling Park, where Meaker’s body fell to earth. We know from the BBM website that it was about two miles north of where the plane crashed, and presumably quite near Brightling Park Stables, as this is where the body was first taken to after being discovered. Does anyone know which is or was the Warren Field, or the exact location?

In the course of this investigation I have learned quite a lot about this young hero (he was posthumously awarded the DFC) and the events in Brightling on the night of 27th September 1940.  I am hoping that we can publish the full story in the September issue of the Messenger, which would mark the 80th anniversary of the crash.

And now for something that is not about the virus.,,,

The street naming project has made progress.  The results of Rother District Council’s postal consultation are in, and all our proposed changes have been accepted apart from one.

The changes are:

• the road formerly known (to Rother District Council) as Hollingrove Road has been split into two: Hollingrove Hill from Oxley’s Green to Hollingrove triangle; and Hollingrove Lane from there to Twelve Oaks
• the road from the triangle near Avenue Lodge into Brightling is now officially known as Long Reach
• the road through the middle of Brightling, down as far as the top of Rectory Hill is now officially known as The Street.

The one change that didn’t get through was the proposal to call the road from the mine entrance up the hill to the Mount “Coombe Hill Road” (below the mine entrance is in Burwash parish, where we try not to interfere).  That road is officially known (according to RDC) as Perrymans Lane and the voting was 4 to 2 (we are told) in favour of keeping the name Perrymans Lane.  That is a bit of a shame because we learned from some very long-standing residents that Coombe Hill Road was the traditional name, and it is confusing to have two distinct sections of road both called Perrymans Lane.  However, that would appear to be the “will of the people”.

The final road names are shown below.  The situation regarding “Battle Road” is unresolved.  To the Post Office, the road from the top of Rectory Hill all the way down to Darwell Hole crossroads is known as “Battle Road, Brightling”.  To Rother District Council, the same stretch of road (all of it) is called “Cackle Street”.  The B2096 from the Darwell Hole crossroads is also known as “Battle Road” but the Post Office call this one “Battle Road, Dallington” – even the bits that are in Brightling.  That’s how the Post Office distinguishes between their two Battle Roads.  Rother don’t have that problem because the B2096 is the only Battle Road according to Rother.  This is known as “The great Battle Road ambiguity”, and even the greatest minds in Brightling have not come up with a solution.

There is no intention to put up physical street signs anywhere.  The road names are just for the purposes of maps, temporary warning signs etc.

There will be an on-line church service on Easter Day, starting at 10:00 am, for the parishes of Brightling, Mountfield, and Netherfield, led by our vicar Revd. Ann-Marie Crosse.

The service will be held via the Zoom video-conferencing App, for which you need a computer, tablet, or smartphone.

An email has been (or will soon be) circulated to everyone for whom we have an email address, with full instructions of how to join the service.

If you would like to join the service but have not received the email by the end of Thursday, please contact the organizer, Biddy Akerman, at hugoandbiddy@btinternet.com for details of how to join.

Netherfield Stores will deliver to anyone who needs to isolate.  Phone 01424 838589 or text/WhatsApp to 07552 427791  As well as all the normal grocery items, they have meat, milk, veg, bread, beer etc from local producers.  Also the homemade meals in the cafe are available as takeaways, either fresh or frozen.

Homestead Farm will deliver in the Brightling area.  They have homegrown beef, lamb and pork including bacon, sausages, gammon and burgers. All meat will be delivered frozen unless it has been butchered that day. Email jo@homestead-farm.co.uk, or phone 01424 838252 / 07876 023837.  Jo will email out price lists on request.

Browns Farm Shop will deliver to Brightling.  “Our customers can place an order by emailing us at orders@browns-farmshop.co.uk  We will then contact you with the next available date we can prepare your order and confirm the arrangements in place so you can get your order.”

Battle Brewery offer free delivery within a 10-mile radius of the brewery (includes Brightling).  Order on-line or phone 01424 772838. Currently offering 5% discount for purchases of 12 bottles or more. Use discount code BB5BUY12.