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In September 1983 (16th till 19th) my mother and I joined a
weekend trip to my hometown Schwerte's twintown Hastings on the coast of East
Sussex and that's how we met our longtime friends Michael and Rosemary and their two sons
from St. Leonards-on-Sea. For our first visit they took us on the Kent & East Sussex
Railway, an old steam train, and
we visited
the town of Hastings.
In March 1984 they made their first return visit to Schwerte and
in the autumn of 1984 I returned to Hastings with my sister Anja. This time we visited
Battle Abbey which stands near the battlefields of the Battle of Hastings of
1066 and Bateman's,
the former family home of Rudyard Kipling, author of The Jungle Book.
During our family summer holiday in 1986 we spent
the first couple of nights on a campsite near Hastings. We visited our Hastings
friends and went to see the battlefield at Battle
with them before we continued on our trip.
Then in October 1986 my sister Anja and I came to Hastings
again on another town twinning trip during which we visited the medieval town of
Rye. There was also an Italian girl from
Milan visiting.
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Beachy Head
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In October 1987 I was back in Hastings with my whole
family.
This twinning visit took place just after a severe storm that caused uprooted
rees and damage to buildings. We saw toppled chimneys, trees that had fallen on
top of cars, a church steeple that had collapsed and so on. We
visited Rye and Beachy Head with its lighthouse at the bottom of the
cliffs. On Saturday, 10th June 1989, the summer after I had
completed school, my parents took me, my bike and my suitcase to the
Zeebrugge-Dover ferry to spend the summer with our friends Michael and
Rosemary in St. Leonards. I was to stay for two months and it was really a
great experience, the first time I lived abroad for a while.
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I toured Hastings and St. Leonards a lot with my
bike, going up and down the hills, which earned me the nickname of the mad
cyclist. Apparently going by bike
wasn't too common then. I visited Hastings castle and a
fashion show in Bexhill. I also went to a funfair a couple of times and once
in a while I went to the cinema. Michael, who's a solicitor, once took me to court in Bexhill and Rosemary and I went to pick strawberries
for a strawberry tea one Saturday. On Sundays I accompanied them to church
(Methodist), which I
liked much better than going to church here in Germany as it was much more
modern, with more modern music and a lot of young people, and people
stayed for a chat with a cup of tea
afterwards which was nice. It was a very hot summer and all the grass turned
yellow. That summer Michael and Rosemary had a portable swimming-pool installed in
their garden which the kids and I used frequently. Rosemary and I sometimes went to a
public swimming-pool in the mornings. Once we even went on a family outing
to the beach and we swam in the Channel! The water
was still cold but just about bearable. I believe in the eight weeks of my
stay any rainy days didn't amount to anything more than a week's worth.
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Hastings Pier
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Hastings Beach
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On 20th June I started my job as waitress at Combe
Haven Holiday Park in Hastings/St. Leonards. They used to have a
fastfood restaurant for holiday makers. My shifts were usually from 9
a.m. till 3 p.m. or from 3 p.m. till 9 p.m., 5-6 days per week. I worked
with a number of young British people but also two Norwegian girls (both
named Anita, one blond and one dark-haired) who also spent the summer
abroad. So it came that the three of us occasionally went out together.
A few times we went to a student disco at the Hastings Pier which they
knew from their previous stay during a language course. I worked at
Combe Haven until Sunday, 30th July, a total of six weeks. The staff and
our boss were very nice.
On 23rd June I went to London
for the day by train. On 3rd July Michael
and Rosemary took me to
Wimbledon together with their two
sons and a cousin and
we did a boat tour on the Themse in London. On 22nd July we went on another family outing to Bodiam Castle,
a moated castle which is
a ruin today, but still looks complete from the outside. It is sometimes used
as a film location. A group of Morris Dancers just entered the castle when we
were there which was a good spectacle. |
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Bodiam Castle
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Royal Pavilion |
On 25th July Michael had to go to a county council
meeting in Lewes and he offered me a ride to visit the towns of Lewes and
Brighton. I visited the ruins of the Norman Castle and the Barbican House
with the Museum of Sussex Archaeology in Lewes and the oriental-style Royal
Pavillion in Brighton. Brighton came to fame in the 18th century as a
seaside resort. |
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Royal Pavilion
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Palace Pier, Brighton
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| On 27th July I went to London with my host family to attend
the Royal Tournament at Earls Court (£9 for
the afternoon performance starting at 2 p.m.),
which used to be the oldest and biggest Military Tattoo in the World, held from 1880
until 1999. On 2nd August Rosemary took me and one of her sons to Scotney Castle
which is surrounded by beautiful gardens and to the town of Tunbridge
Wells. On 3rd August Michael and I went to the horse races in Brighton. On
Saturday, 5th August, I went horse-riding myself, at Beauport Park Riding
Stables in St. Leonards.
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Scotney Castle |
On Wednesday, 9th August 1989, my host family accompanied
me back to Germany. We went by car and took the Dover-Calais ferry, and when we reached my
hometown Schwerte, we went on a few trips around that area with both
families (visiting Phantasialand in Cologne as well as Dortmund, Münster and
Königswinter) before they returned to the UK on 14th August.
During our Easter holiday, on 2nd April 1990, I went to
Hastings with my parents to visit our friends. We went by car and took the
Zeebrugge-Dover ferry. On the 3rd we visited Bateman's and
Bodiam Castle,
on the
4th we went to Lewes and Brighton and on the 5th to Hever
Castle in Kent, a moated mansion dating back to the 13th
century,
the childhood home of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII's and
mother of Queen Elizabeth I, executed in 1536. On the 6th we
took the Dover-Ostend ferry to the Netherlands where we spent another
night
before returning back home.
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At Bodiam Castle |
At Lewes County Council |
Brighton |
On 24th Septemer 1991 Michael and Rosemary came to
see my family in Schwerte. In the next three days we visited a garden show
in Dortmund, Altena castle and the town of Iserlohn. On Saturday the 28th
they took me back with them to Hastings. We visited the "Smuggler's
Adventure" in the Hastings caves on the Sunday. And on the Monday my
big adventure began and I was to start my studies abroad at the University
of Reading. Michael and Rosemary were so kind to take me to
Reading by car and
drop me off at my student hall. From then on I was on my own, but I went
to see them back in Hastings several times during my stay at Reading.
On 9th November I took a train to
Hastings for the weekend (£14.20). We had a bonfire and fireworks night to
celebrate Guy Fawkes Day. I also
went back to Hastings for Christmas and the New Year. It was very
interesting to spend Christmas in another
country. On the 24th we went to
Midnight Communion. Presents were opened in the morning of the 25th,
unlike in Germany where the main day for exchanging presents is the
evening of the 24th.
And everyone sends Christmas cards to everyone which are hung on a string
against the wall in people's houses. I also found Christmas was more jolly
than in Germany, with party
crackers and all. On
Boxing Day we went to see a pantomime "Cinderella". Usually there
are no fireworks on New
Year's Eve as is the custom in Germany, but Michael saved a few for me
from Guy Fawkes Day! On Saturday, 4th January 1992, we
visited the seaside resort Eastbourne.
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Eastbourne Pier
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Eastbourne |
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Eastbourne Pier |
At the end of my second and final term in Reading I went on
a trip around the UK, which finally took me back
to Hastings once again. In the evening
of 8th April 1992 I boarded a train from London to Hastings
(£8.45) where I spent a few more days with Michael and Rosemary. On Saturday 11th April I went back to
London for
the day to visit a friend and take another chance at getting theatre tickets for "The Phantom of the
Opera"
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1992, I also stopped in Hastings during my next UK trip in November 1992.
After arriving in London Heathrow on Saturday, 31st October, I continued by train to Hastings where I stayed with
Michael and Rosemary once again. After church on Sunday we visited Pevensey
Castle, Eastbourne and Beachy Head. On Tuesday we went to Bexhill.
On Wednesday morning I took a train to London
where I did some sightseeing and in the afternoon I continued to
Reading where I spent another few days. 
Bexhill
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Rochester |
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Bexhill |
In January 1993 I went to France for an internship in
Amiens. At the end of my stay, on Friday, 19th February, I took a train from
Amiens to Dover/Folkestone. Upon arrival I was met
by Michael and Rosemary and we visited Dover (Dover Goal and Maison Dieu) and
the Chunnel Exhibition in Folkestone. Then we drove to Hastings before I
travelled on to Edinburgh for an aikido weekend course with the Reading aikido
club a few days later. Before I returned home to Germany on 3rd March, I spent a
final night in Hastings. I came back to the UK in the summer of 1993 for
Aikido
Summer School in Durham. This time I had brought my friend Corinna and we also
visited our friends in Hastings at the end of our stay. On Saturday, 12th August,
which was my birthday, we took
a train to Hastings where we stayed with Michael
and Rosemary for a couple of nights.
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In Hastings |
From October 1995 my boyfriend at that time Christian was
spending a year at Birmingham University and I
visited him a few times. On
Friday evening 13th October we took a train to Hastings (Saver Return for £40.00) to visit Michael and
Rosemary. On the Saturday we went to a lecture about Hastings in the afternoon
and to a Bonfire Procession in the evening. We had dinner at an Indian
restaurant. On Sunday we went to the Methodist church service before I had to
catch my flight back home later that day.
From Wednesday, 8th April 1998, until
Easter Monday I went to Hastings with my parents and my future husband Volker to visit Michael and Rosemary. We went by car and for
the first time we travelled through the Channel Tunnel (Chunnel). The journey
under the sea lasted 35 minutes and we arrived in Hastings on Wednesday evening. As
Michael is an MP now we went to London on Thursday
so he could show us the Houses of Parliament.
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On Good Friday we went for a walk in the countryside (Herstmonceux
Castle) with
some friends of Michael and Rosemary's. The ground was very muddy but
nevertheless we had fun. We stopped at a pub for lunch. In the late afternoon we
drove to Eastbourne and strolled along the pier. On Saturday we did some shopping
in Hastings and we visited the historic centre of
Rye in the
afternoon. In the evening
we went to an Indian restaurant. On Easter Sunday Rosemary cooked a traditional
English lunch but with roast turkey instead of beef as well as roast potatoes
and Yorkshire
Pudding. In the afternoon we went into the countryside again where we visited Charleston
Farmhouse, the country home of the Bloomsbury Group of
writers and painters to which belonged Virginia Woolf. We also
saw the Long
Man of Wilmington, a chalk figure cut into the slope of a hill.
On Monday morning the 13th we had to say good-bye again and travelled back home.
Next time we were in
London
was almost 10 years later. In August 2007 we took the opportunity to
stay at
Michael and Rosemary's London flat for a long weekend. We
still need to go back to Hastings... |
Rye |
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