Author: Andrew Taylor

After tough competition the winners have been announced of the Literary Competition as part of the Queens Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Congratulations to all winners the standards were very high. The prizes are to be awarded during the jubilee celebration weekend on Monday 4th June at East Court.  The winners will be invited to read their stories and poems on air during the Meridian FM roadshow and will also be recorded for use in a feature programme by Meridian. A full copy of all winning entries will also be sent to the Palace with an explanation of the competition for her Majesty.

Adult Competiton

The Adult competiton was open to anyone with a connection to Sussex and was in two categories short stories up to 1000 words and poems.

Poems up to 40 lines long on a theme connected to Sussex, or the Queen’s Jubilee, and containing one of the following words:

• service
• reign
• queen
• soldier
• sixty
• Sussex
• England

The stories had to start with one of the following lines

• Sixty years? It didn’t seem possible…
• As the On Air light glowed into life, the Queen discarded her prepared speech and addressed the nation in her own words…
• She had no umbrella, so the Queen caught up her collar, glad to hide her face from the rain and from the few stragglers lingering in the thin drizzle…
• Behind the Prime Minister’s back, the Queen suppressed a giggle, pleased that a lifetime of decorum had not quite extinguished her sense of humour…

The winners of the competition were

Poetry		Stories
1st Place	Becky Wells –  High Street Reign	Caroline Hardy	A Face in the Crowd
Runner Up	Christopher Korta – Collectors Item	Andrew Campell-Kearsey	A Royal Yarn

Childrens Competition

Under 8’s was divided in to Poems and Stories

Poems had to include one of the following words:

• Queen
• Princess
• Sixty
• Corgi
• Crown

Short stories (up to 250 words) should start with one of the following first lines:

• It was fun being the Queen…
• The corgi escaped while no-one was looking

8 -12 years was one category of short stories and had to start with one of the following lines:

•  The fireworks lit up the sky high above the palace…
• The Queen turned up her collar and slipped out of the palace by the side door…
• “It’s a secret,” she said, “You mustn’t tell anyone…”

 13 – 17 years was one category of short stories and had to start with one of the following lines: 

•  The old man had been a soldier all his life…
• A lot can happen in 60 years…
• Even queens can have an off day…
• A dark figure scaled the palace walls and dropped quietly to the ground…

Prizes have been awarded to the below entries

Category	Prize	Name of winner	Title of work	School attended
Poems under 8’s	Winner	Rhys Mitchell	Why Corgi’s	Felbridge
Poems under 8’s	Runner up	Parsa Khan	It was fun being the Queen	St Marys
Stories under 8’s	Winner	Sam Baird	Jubilee Story	St Marys
Stories under 8’s	Runner up	Alasdair Hobbs	The Corgi Escape	St Marys
Stories 8 -12	Winner	Anna Hadkinson	The Queens Good Deed	St Peters
Stories 8-12	Runner up	Fergus Atkinson	The People’s Queen	St Peters
Stories 8-12	3rd place	Jimmy Warwick	Fire at the Jubilee	Sackville
Stories 13-17	Winner	Sarah Gillett	To Die For	Imberhorne

 

We are looking to hear from anyone in East Grinstead who is holding a Street Party over the Jubilee and would like us to include their own celebrations on the DVD of the day that is being made.

Please contact Simon Kerr at the Tourist Desk 01342 410121 or by email tourism@eastgrinstead.gov.uk. Let your party be part of East Grinstead’s history!

PIH (Property Investment Holdings) have advised the Town Council that further to discussions with West Sussex County Council the roadworks will be complete on Friday 1st June.

This positive change in the plans has been welcomed by the Town Council following representations to West Sussex by the Council, residents and businesses as to the disruption caused.

The above road works were delayed due to the extreme delays caused at the A22 London Road/Imberhorne Lane junction. In order to reduce disruption these have now been scheduled to take place on Friday 25 May starting from 7.30pm. The road will be closed and local diversions will be sign posted. They are due to be completed in the early hours of Saturday 26 May.

We are advised that the roadworks are necessary for essential works to be complete before the Ardingly South of England Show.

For further information please contact WSCC helppoint at East Grinstead Library, tel: 01342 300780 or visit the website at www.westsussex.gov.uk.

Mid Sussex District Council, who own and administer the town’s ‘Pay and Display’ off street car parking, have announced the new parking charges that will come into effect on 2 July 2012.

The Order and Appendix with Schedule of locations and charges in more detail is available for inspection at the offices of the East Grinstead Town Council, East Court, East Grinstead.

TOWN centre businesses in Mid Sussex are opening their toilet facilities to the general public as part of a new Community Toilet Scheme.

Mid Sussex District Council is piloting the scheme in East Grinstead, Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath, to maximise the number of clean, safe and accessible toilets available to the public.

Participating town centre shops and organisations make their toilet facilities available to the general public in exchange for a small annual payment from the Council.

So far, four local businesses have signed up and are now welcoming the public to use their toilet facilities. They are:

• Chequer Mead Arts Centre, De La Warr Road, East Grinstead
• Kings Leisure Centre, Moat Road, East Grinstead
• Costa Coffee, South Road, Haywards Heath
• Poppins Restaurant, Church Walk, Burgess Hill

Stickers are displayed in the window of every business taking part in the Community Toilet Scheme and additional signs will soon be placed around the towns to help direct the public to the new toilet facilities. By opening up the toilets in local businesses for public use, shoppers will have access to toilets at many different locations in the heart of the town centre and because they are always staffed, the facilities will be clean and safe to use. The facilities will be available during business opening hours and there is no charge to the customer or obligation to make a purchase.

“It’s great to see local businesses are embracing this Community Toilet Scheme because it has the potential to benefit everyone involved,” said Councillor Pru Moore, Cabinet Member for Leisure and Sustainability. “Local shops are able to increase the number of people visiting their premises, giving them the potential to increase revenue, and the public has a greater choice and standard of toilet facilities.”

Mid Sussex District Council would now still like to hear from any other local businesses wishing to take part in the Community Toilet Scheme. For more information, please contact Stuart Brown, Mid Sussex District Council Outdoor Services Officer, on telephone number 01444 477305 or email Stuart.Brown@midsussex.gov.uk.

* The new public toilets in the King’s Street car park opposite the cinema in East Grinstead are expected to be opened by the end of May.  These will replace the toilet facilities in Cantelupe Road and the Norton Road car park, which will be closed once the new block is ready for use.

MORE than 300 runners took part in the East Grinstead leg of the Sussex Living Mid Sussex Marathon Weekend despite the dreadful weather conditions. The runners braved rain, mud and standing water to complete the challenging 10 mile course.

*Pictures show the race start, the four fastest men and the first woman past the finish line

A TEAM of healthcare professionals headed by Cllr Danny Favor and Mrs Maribel Favor held a free healthcare check at Our Lady and St Peter’s church in April.

Many parishioners came forward to have their blood pressure, blood glucose and BMI taken in a simple, painless check-up which can detect and prevent life-threatening illnesses.

Danny’s team will be in action once a month and will work closely with communities in the town which would like them to visit.

To find out more, contact the East Grinstead Extra Care Health and Wellness Support group at extracare.df@googlemail.com.

Or ring Danny on 07867 846495, Maribel on 07528 694112, or see the www.extracareeastgrinstead.com.

THE Town Council joined in the fun of Spring Sunday by issuing visas to cross from the East to the West Hemisphere (and back again). The event coincided with April Fools day and staff including the Town Clerk Julie Holden and tourism officer Simon Kerr manned the border control hut in order to issue the visas.

More than 250 were handed out before noon.

Julie Holden said: “It was a fun way of raising the profile of the Meridian line and reminding everyone that the town stands on the 0 degree line which divides the East from the West, and from which the whole world takes its time. We took a little bit of licence with the positioning of the line as it does not actually intersect the High Street, but obviously it was the profile that mattered.”

The ‘visas’ included information about the Meridian line and explained exactly where in East Grinstead the line is marked and can be visited.