Local councillor, illustrator and fundraiser John Izod (last seen Saturday night in a sedentary position outside Adams with a bonfire bucket) comments on the autumnal sprouting of scaffolds around town – one of which was even boxed in for the bonfire procession (see left). 
Possibly the bank concerned (and banks have had a lot of bad publicity in recent years) feared spectators climbing up and then injuring themselves, with consequent insurance claims inspired by local ambulance chasers ringing up – “We hear you’ve had an accident!”
Or maybe they read the history of the Bonfire Societies that we recently published and feared that it would still be a time for the town roughs to settle old scores.
Visitors out of season to any holiday destination will be aware of how scaffolding sprouts as the visitors depart, and this is particularly true for historic towns with narrow streets where work of any kind – but scaffolding in particular – can present major problems.
This assumes of course that there weren’t other problems in the first place caused by thoughtless parking, lost foreigners, unsteady pedestrians, dogs on yard long leads and the other normal hazards of life.
St Ives in Cornwall is a classic example, made worse by the tendency for flash flooding to occur in some of the steepest streets and frequent failures in local pipes and sewage, with the town becoming virtually impassable in some winter months because of the combination of scaffolding and road works.
In Rye, therefore, it may be argued that we come off relatively lightly.
Illustration: John Izod