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E-Mail. DIANAPIERCY@cs.com Tel. 420707

E-mail: rudstonnews@supanet.com

Well October certainly shot past at 100mph didn’t it?

By the time you read this there should be a new section to the ever growing Rudston website. This is a series of pictures featuring the Bosville Arms. Also there will be a feature on the opening of the new Eastgate Farm Shop - which I think you might just be aware of!!! I can personally recommend the sausages, bacon and goats cheese!

Please don’t forget that the December newsletter is a double issue, combined with January— so we can all have a decent break! Send in your Christmas recipes, puzzles, stories or letters to Santa! Colin

Mary & Dave at the village shop would be grateful if villagers would put their egg boxes to one side and drop them off at the shop when passing. Thank you.

Now is the time to get a vehicle serviced—to avoid that awful early morning panic as you run around the neighbours after jump leads and a decent battery. Check the headlamps are adjusted correctly and that they are not dazzling oncoming traffic. How old is the anti-freeze? Are the tyres fit for winter? Do you know the minimum legal tread depth? Do you have plenty of screen wash (Don’t use anti-freeze in the windscreen washer bottle, it attacks the paint).

The next meeting is on November 21st at 7.30 pm. Venue: Doreen Cocker, Speaker: Chris Coleman, Leader: Margaret Reed, Vote of Thanks: Hazel Conner, Hostesses: Doreen Cocker and Joan Jackson.

The next meeting is on November 7th in the Village Hall at 7.15 pm, when Mrs Shirley Clark will show us how to make Christmas decorations. (Hands on). Competition 3 Mince Pies.

Hostesses: Mrs O. Moorfoot and Mrs P. Stephenson.

Visitors welcome.

Over the past two or three months you may have noticed that the area around Eastgate Farm has been bathed it something akin to an atomic glow. I am sure that most of you can imagine a wide range of reasons for such a phenomenon, but you would probably, on this occasion, be mistaken.

Lesley and I have been hurtling from pillar to post, infrequently stopping to grab a bite to eat or a few minutes sleep, in order to get our dairy and farm shop up and running by the date we, in a moment of madness, specified - 21^st October, 2000.

And, after a fashion, we did it! Yesterday afternoon, at 2.00 p.m. the doors of the farm shop opened. True, we didn’t have all the shelves up and there wasn’t any smoked trout; the fancy sign hadn’t arrived and the scales we ordered are probably in Scotland. But we opened. We opened in spite of our worst fear i.e. that we would spend the afternoon staring moodily at each other, across a huge vat of mulled wine, as the hands of the clock dragged, agonisingly, round to 5 o’ clock.

Not a bit of it. The lovely, splendid people of Rudston turned up in absolute droves; tasted the cheese and the pate and the quails eggs, tried the dry cure bacon and the range of traditional sausages, asked questions, visited our lovely goats and generally kept us very busy for the entire afternoon. We are very appreciative of the support you gave us and the friendly and lively interest you showed in our venture. We are also pathetically grateful that we didn’t have to drink ourselves into a stupor just to get through the afternoon!

We do hope that you were not disappointed in the shop. We will, slowly but surely, be expanding the range of products on sale, but they will always be either our own, or sourced locally direct from the farmers, growers and producers. What we have in mind is a sort of farmers’ market, but five days a week (Tuesday through Saturday, 10..00 am to 7.00 p.m.(ish)) and everyone benefits (except possibly the supermarkets.)

You all have our telephone number, so if you want to ring up and place on order for collection or delivery ( we hope to be able to deliver in the village and immediate area once or twice a week) we would be very happy to hear from you. Please also remember that we can get you fresh meat direct from the farms but you would need to place an order with us a few days in advance.

Finally, there are some very special people in this village without whom we would never have come this far. Our deepest thanks and affection go to:

Sheila and Jack Ferret, Trevor and Val Smallwood, Anna and Paul Burgess, Eric and Doreen Turner and Sue, Adam and Hayley Fletcher; for their practical help and advice, but mostly for their friendship.

The entrance to Eastgate Farm is just up the hill from the Church towards Bridlington, on the right. Tel. 420707 E-Mail. DIANAPIERCY@cs.com Diana and Lesley

It’s time now to take stem cuttings from a wide variety of hardy shrubs, some trees and the soft fruit bushes. This is a cheap way of increasing many species and does not need a glasshouse or frame, naturally a sheltered position in the garden should be chosen and a spot that is well drained, ideally a sandy soil is best but most soil types are fine as long as they are not liable to winter waterlogging. Cuttings are made from this years shoots, their length will depend upon the species, blackcurrants are best at nine inches, goose and red currants twice that length and most shrubs at a foot, the base cut is made just below a joint and the top one just above a bud. The stems planted about two thirds of their length in the soil, on a heavy land a sprinkling of sharp sand in the hole helps root formation and better aeration. If hard frost occurs the cuttings tend to lift, so in the spring they may need re-firming in the soil. When I was growing a wide range of shrubs in the nursery, this hard wood way of propagating was an annual job, the resulting plants were very hardy and had developed good root systems. Try all deciduous shrubs and trees, not all root but there is always the surprise in gardening, even a lot of the rose family will root by this method as do one or two apple varieties, especially Fillingham and BurrKnot and our own Hornsea Herring. Plants rooted this next six months should be ready to sell in the year 2002, so why not start now and have some ready for our next "open gardens."

Plum and apple jam was one of the main foods the British Army had in France during the First World War, my late uncle, Richard Anderson, a member of the Waggoners Reserve, would talk about this jam when the local plums at Beswick were ripe. In the garden at Beswick Mill he had a "Ponds Seedling" plum, a giant red fruit, much bigger than the famous Victoria, not a particularly good eater, but a very good ‘jammer.’ This old variety came into use in 1831 and was planted in the old RHS trials at Chiswick. The best all round plum is without doubt the Victoria, a self fertile plum that is very reliable and can be used as a dessert or cooking fruit. It was found in 1840 as a seedling tree growing in a garden in Sussex, not genetic engineering. There are more than 100 varieties of the plum family, which of course includes the gages and damsons, for jam I still prefer damsons, especially the Westmorland or Sparrow Egg varieties. I list just a few plums and gages for our area, Victoria of course, Czar for an early cooker, Swan—a sweet early sort, Kirkes Blue— a choice eater, Marjories Seedling—a late jammer and President—a sweet dark plum, Coes Golden Drop is the best flavoured of the gage group, it needs a sheltered garden and is best when planted near the "President," as it needs cross-pollinating to set a crop.

Newer sorts now include an August ripening plum called "Jubileum" and a purple early called "Violetta." These I have never grown but they are highly recommended. The plum family do best on rich soils and like other stone fruits they need a sweet soil, so a dressing of lime in the late winter often is needed, especially on clay and sandy soils. Always plant plums before Christmas if possible as they start to wake up early in the new year and choose a tree budded onto a dwarfing rootstock such as Pixie, for an early crop.

Sod’s Law!

The policeman at the last meeting (P.C. Ingram) commenced by telling us the good news that Rudston was a relatively low crime area. Then came the dramatic bit! He produced an adapted plastic bottle which had been found on the children’s playground and handed to him just before the meeting. He explained that it was a young person’s device for sniffing cannabis. So someone is on drugs, but not necessarily from the village. What-ever we think about cannabis, and there has been plenty of discussion nationally about it, the fact remains that it can be harmful and, more worryingly, can lead to "harder" drugs.

The main part of the discussion with P.C. Ingram centred around speeding traffic on the main road through the village. The Parish Council will be writing to the Officer in Charge of Traffic at Humberside Police, regarding the problem of vehicles speeding through the village. The area of particular concern is the main road (High Street) on the B1253 where it is feared that excessive speed may one day cause a serious accident, similar to those seen in recent years. If you share the concerns of the Parish Council, or would like to add your support to strengthen the case, please write to Inspector Carlisle, Officer in Charge of Traffic, Beverley Sub Division, Session House, New Walk, Beverley. HU17 7AS.

A new "Medibus" service is being launched by East Riding of Yorkshire Council with government funding, to start on November 13^th for a 3 year period. The idea is that anyone with a hospital appointment (Scarborough included) can ring up 24 hours in advance, and this special bus will call and collect them. The Parish Council has been invited to send a representative to an official preview in Bridlington, so more information will be available after that. According to a newspaper report (which doesn’t give the telephone number to be used), "other" people will be able to use the bus "if space permits", so we are to find out if it could be used for routine doctors appointments too.

There is going to be some disruption in the village, I’m afraid, with news of two separate road work schemes. The main one from E.R.Y.C. involves road closures for the installation of "4 No. 110mm. Ducts", what-ever they are. Affecting Burton Fleming, Rudston and Kilham, its route will be Argam Lane, Burton Fleming Road, Long Street, Burton Agnes Balk, and to Kilham via Woldgate. They promise that there will be access for pedestrians, resident’s vehicles and emergency vehicles at all times. The total work time period is 6^th November to 4^th February, 2001, excluding 21^st December to 3^rd January.

The second scheme involves a telecommunications line to be laid underground from Hunmanby to London (!) They haven’t decided whether to dig up road, pavement or verge yet, depending on results of tests. At the time of writing, I am awaiting more information on this one, but would imagine it will follow a similar route through the village.

The next Parish Council meeting is on 6^th December, when Precept for next year will be under consideration. Unlike reports of E.R.Y.C., we are not spending more than budgeted (at the moment!), so any "massive hike in Council Tax" should not be because of the Parish Council.

You may have seen in the East Riding News about discarded syringes. I hope we don’t have those problems here, but we are to let our Parish Council Liaison Officer know immediately if any have been discovered recently in the village. There is a freephone number: 0808 1000 4950 on which messages can be left at any time, or he can be e-mailed on colin.oconnor@eastriding.gov.uk

E-mail, I suppose, is the modern telegram. There are only the Queens 100^th Birthday telegrams now, I understand, so how long before even those are e-mailed, and will it still be as exciting? On the other hand, everyone is living longer and longer, so it will become less of an event to celebrate anyway!

Vicar: Revd Stephen Cope E-mail yfk95@dial.pipex.com

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