Interviewed on September 20 for the Rye Arts Festival, long time Ryer Noel Varley was introduced to the audience by Simon Parsons, the Heritage Centre’s manager, as a fount of local knowledge. He was interviewed by Kevin Williams, who had spent the afternoon reminiscing with him, but Noel hardly needed to be asked any questions because his anecdotal delivery meant that the conversation just flowed. Here is just a very brief insight to his wonderful engaging talk.
“My earliest memory is as a child was aged 4 or 5 when Jerry dropped incendiary bombs on Rye. What I remember most was the noise of the fire brigade coming up Mermaid Street to put out the fire: it was very noisy. This was my first introduction to the war. We then moved to Church Square. I lived there during the War, and I wasn’t evacuated.
“I came back from school and a bomb had dropped which caused a huge amount of damage to the old museum. The cottages behind were in a dreadful state with clothes all over the garden. What caught my eye was a great pile of stuffed birds, a great number of them. Jim Foster said, ‘Noel, do you want any of these stuffed birds?’ I replied that I would love to have them, when behind me came a voice, ‘No, you bloody don’t!’ It was my father and we then negotiated and I was allowed to keep one of them. I kept the cockatoo but always wanted to have kept more.”
Noel is a raconteur: he could talk for hours but we only had one which was far too short.
However, we are all invited to hear him talk on October 10 at the River Haven Hotel about his life in Venezuela. If the talk on Rye was anything to go by, it will be a terrific evening of entertainment and tales. Noel’s voice is so easy to listen to and his descriptions transport you to the places he visited. This will be an event not to be missed and the funds raised are all to go to the Heritage Centre to enable them to carry on providing a wonderful collection of archives and exhibits to all those who visit.
Tickets will be available on their website later this week – visit www.ryeheritage.co.uk
Image Credits: Kt bruce .