Introduction by Kim Batty Photos by Steve Painter If you have a pub in Hastings, you need to make it work in the winter Wise words from Bob of The Albion Inn. I have to say, so I will, I love a pub in winter; while the weather is howling outside, in front of the fire, ordering Bacardi Breezers and missing your pilates class. My auto-correct changed that to pirates – oh if only it knew... maybe it does? But he’s got a point. I have found myself needlessly polishing a pump, not

Yes, it's Barby Keel - the 90-year-old woman who l am quite confident in calling a local legend and fully-fledged superhero. She has owned and run her non-profit charity in Bexhill since 1971; a sanctuary providing homes for abused, abandoned and unwanted animals.

Holly Dawes is a ceramicist based in Hastings whose work is deeply connected to the local landscape

This summer, I spent a wonderful afternoon at Fairlight Hall, enjoying a picnic in the beautiful gardens and a stunning piano recital performed by previous finalists of the Hastings International Piano Competition. This was my introduction to the Competitionand its year-round programme of concerts, which arepart of a long tradition ofworld-class classical musicin Hastings. (I didn’t know this, but Rachmaninov played at The White Rock Theatre twice in the 1930s!)

I love somewhere to stay that’s a little bit different, and running Get Hastings is very rewarding but is also hard work and stressful at times - so I jumped at the chance to pay a visit to Crafted at Powdermills in Battle. The team behind Crafted describe it as a ‘life-friendly hotel where you can be yourself and fill up on the good stuff’. Deep into the winter months, the good stuff was exactly what I needed so I didn’t take much persuading. 

Over the last five years, my partner Phil and I have been great fans of Galleria seafood bar on Norman Road in St Leonards.  We have celebrated many anniversaries, birthdays and random Saturday nights in their compact and cosy dining room, enjoying Gianluca’s imaginative cooking, Jack’s warm welcome and the impeccable wine list.

“I get things done” says Dawn Dublin, as we sit down together to chat about her company, Black Butterfly. Amidst dashing outside to tell a random passer-by how cool he looks and cuddling her hot chocolate, she tells me about a phone call she’s just had on her walk here involving motherhood, miscarriage and marginalization. I can already hear the cogs whirring in her head, ideas sprouting of what she (or we as a community) can do to support people in these situations. There’s

Oh no, there isn’t!  Pantomime audiences at The White Rock Theatre’s Jack and the Beanstalk are in for a real treat this Christmas.  I know this first-hand, as I was lucky to spend a side-splitting day last week with Mark Two, the traditional pantomime dame playing Dame Tilly Trott.  Mark Two is appearing as part of a talented panto cast including Richard Blackwood as Jack and Tim McArthur returning as Fleshcreep by popular demand.  The whole theatre is being transformed fo

If you’re a child of the 70s or 80s, the word ‘wrestling’ might conjure up thoughts of Big Daddy or Giant Haystacks and Saturday afternoons huddled round the big telly, booing whilst slurping a carton of E numbers through a skinny straw.

Richard Upton is a creative entrepreneur, a visionary, a lover of art, architecture, sculpture, people, history and community. He is passionate about the ‘quality of place’ no matter whom or what the place is for. He is from humble beginnings in Stepney, East London. “There wasn’t a lot of money at home but there was love. So I’ve always been entrepreneurial out of necessity and adversity,” he says.

If you were to write a recipe for TYGERMYLK's music, it would be a heady mix of unimpeachable purity, authenticity, resistance and emotional intelligaece. A rare feast indeed.

A Play by Local Twin Sisters, Anna and George