The latest news and views from across Sussex
Steyning gets foodie
Following the great success of last year’s Food & Drink Festival, this year’s event will run from 6 September to 5 October.
The Festival has received superb support from local businesses, who have come forward with a range of outstanding special offers, together with some great events. Highlights include nine Breakfasts for St. Barnabas taking place at eight different venues in the area; an Open Day for St. Barnabas at Alderwood Ponds; A Dig for Victory Dinner in aid of Age UK, which will move around four eateries in Steyning High Street, taking dinner and sampling local produce, (chaperones between each venue will be dressed in wartime costume, to bring the event into the spirit of the Anniversary of the Great War). There will be a supper with Mary Berry arranged by Steyning Bookshop, to be held in celebration of the autumn publication of her new book. And then there is the Ashurst Walk and Eat, a good way to indulge, and then walk off the excess! These are just a few of the outstanding happenings – take a look at www.steyningdistrictfooddrinkfestival.co.uk to book some more dates into your diary.
During the final week of the festival (week commencing 27 September), there will be a Best Food Theme Shop Window competition, with prizes being sponsored by the Steyning & District Business Chamber. All shops are being encouraged to participate, not just foodie establishments, so there will be some interesting creations to come and view before the official judging, which will take place on 4 October to coincide with the Pumpkin Weigh at the Farmers Market. Entry forms will be found in participating venues, or you can download it from the website.
The local heat of the National Rotary Young Chef Competition will also take place during the Festival. This competition is to encourage and support development of cookery skills, involving local students from Steyning Grammar School and the Towers Convent School. The winner of the competition, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Steyning and Henfield, will take part in the District Finals.
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Local school bottles own wine
Buckswood School in Guestling near Hastings has this year bottled its own wine, from grapes grown on the school’s vineyard, under the watchful eye and expert guidance of local award-winning wine producer Carr-Taylor Vineyards.
The vineyard was planted four years ago on the Guestling estate with the grape variety Ortega selected with the aim of producing a dry white wine. Over the course of the last four years, with the variations in weather the vineyard has grown and established itself as a fine crop, with the first harvest being turned into 500 bottles of Time for a Vine, which has been sold at various school events, with all the profits donated to the school’s Swaziland charity.
Speaking of the project, Buckswood Headmaster Giles Sutton said “Experience is the ‘Buckswood Difference’ and it is at the heart of everything we do. Our soul aim is to produce young ladies and gentlemen that have an inner confidence and a myriad of experiences that set them apart from their contemporaries. And so, the idea for the Buckswood Vineyard was born out of the combination of the excellent local grape growing conditions on our Sussex coastal estate and the desire to give all the Buckswood scholars the opportunity to experience the world hands-on.” 01424 813813; www.buckswood.co.uk
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Arundel’s WWI Remembrance Project
To commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of World War 1, The Great War, Two Circles Design have installed a larger than life size figure of a serviceman and horse, surrounded by a sea of poppies, on the Causeway roundabout.
The project, inspired by Michael Morpurgo’s Warhorse and John Singer Sargent’s painting Gassed, is supported by Arundel Town Council. They encouraged school children from the area to research their local war memorial, someone from their own family who played a part in the war, or choose an area of particular interest to them, for example the role animals played in the war.
Mark and Rebecca Ford from Two Circles Design wanted the project to breathe life into the events of the period by connecting it to the students on a personal level. “It has been an opportunity for the students to talk to parents, grandparents and even great grandparents about family recollections of the war years,” says Mark.
Stories emerged of conscientious objectors, non-combatants, women who worked in industry, forestry and farming, the home guard and the returning injured as well as the many who sadly lost their lives.
Local school children were involved in making hand shaped poppies to surround the figures and also in researching family histories related to WWI. The poppies represent the individual child and research they undertook; many include extraordinarily moving short written messages.
The sculpture will remain until April 2015 and the poppies and wreaths until after Remembrance on 9 November. www.arundelgallerytrail.co.uk/WWI.html
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Horsham family win a car!
The Bancroft family have beaten thousands of motorists across the UK to win a Volkswagen car worth £10,000. James Bancroft and his family won the Bridgestone-inspired competition after driving in to his local Elite Garage on Brighton Road in Horsham for a new set of tyres.
Three weeks after James texted his details as part of the Bridgestone sales campaign, he was told that he’d beaten more than 2,000 fellow hopefuls to win a Volkswagen Up! hatchback.
James of Partridge Green said: “When I was called up to be told of the good news, I thought someone was pulling my leg. I initially thought this was another hoax PPI phone call but it turned out to be completely genuine and we had won this amazing prize!”
The campaign ran nationally across a host of fast fit networks in the UK. Elite Garages’ owner Richard Whittemore said: “To be able to present the car from our Horsham garage means a lot to us. To see the faces of the winning family has been a highlight of our year and we hope to see them in the future, when the Volkswagen Up eventually needs a new set of tyres!” www.elitegarages.co.uk/horsham
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The Chap launches cookbook
Cooking for Chaps is a stylish, practical, and deliciously wry collection of recipes for the modern gentleman in 21st century Britain. It is published by Kyle Books and will be available from 25 September.
Gustav Temple, editor of The Chap magazine and Lewes resident, ensures that culinary magnificence is achieved in the most genteel and correct manner throughout the book, which contains 100 recipes and which takes the home cook through breakfast (Eggs Cumberbatch, anyone?), lunch, afternoon tea, high tea, dinner, supper, puddings, savouries and picnics. With his co-writer Clare Gabbet-Mulhallen, he has created this book, to “highlight a long overdue resuscitation of classic British recipes from Victorian times through to the 1930s. It is a rediscovering of lost British cuisine from country houses that disappeared with the dismantling of the British Empire and the demise of the aristocracy. If you’re into Downton Abbey then this book is for you.”
As well as being a treasure trove of advice for the modern gentleman, from how to lay a breakfast tray to appropriate picnic etiquette, Cooking for Chaps also sets out to re-educate men and women in the basic, fundamental arts of traditional British cookery. Whether you want to impress your house guests with Devilled Kidneys for breakfast, woo a young lady with a romantic dinner of Venison with Creamy Marsala Sauce, or prepare a sumptuous supper for one such as Cavalry Pâté Mushrooms, this impressive tome is guaranteed to be the Jeeves to your Wooster. RRP: £12.99 www.kylebooks.com
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Charity helps Daniel walk
Thanks to fundraising support from a national children’s charity, 14 year old Daniel Southall from Worthing, who has Duchene Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), has received a new Powered Wheelchair that has greatly improved his quality of life.
Daniel, a pupil at Angmering School, is so pleased with the chair that he’s penned a heartfelt letter of thanks to the charity, Caudwell Children, who provide practical and emotional support to disabled children and their families. They helped him raise the £18,000 needed to secure the chair.
In the letter Daniel said: “Thank you so much for my new wheelchair. It makes life so much easier. I can also stand in my chair which is a lot better than using the horrible standing frame, which I could only use once a week. Now I can stand every day.”
To find out how you can donate to Caudwell children go to www.caudwellchildren.com
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