Whispering Smith Published in the Littlehampton Gazette January 16th 2014

DO SWANS play with the wind? I don’t know but it looked like the three I observed on the Arun during a recent stormy afternoon were having a ball. I saw them flying downstream towards the river’s mouth, beating those big wings against a fierce southerly and barely moving. Towards the pier they seemed to give up, turned tails to the big wind and shot back up the river at high rate of knots with hardly a flick of their wings. Smart birds, I thought, but a few minutes later they came back down stream and repeated the whole process, so you tell me, does John Swan play with the wind? I am convinced that gulls do after watching them for a long time dancing on the high breaking inshore waves, feeding or playing? Whatever, they seemed to be enjoying themselves and were in good voice to boot. I hear you, I really do spend too much time down by the river, but there is always something interesting going on down there.

SMOKE AND MIRRORS. What a duplicitous organisation the Post Office Ltd turned out to be. No surprise there really I suppose, disloyal to their staff and treacherous to our Littlehampton local community. Even the politicians we elected to Parliament and to the local councils were powerless to stop the closure of the Arcade’s Crown Post Office and so it goes quietly on Sunday March 23^rd. This is a good example of how not to put any faith in the word ‘consultation’, those that offer it do so  as a smokescreen to satisfy themselves their actions are fully justified. They asked, you told them and they ignored you anyway.

THE BLACK WINDMILL cinema maybe getting a shade lighter with a promised service, mainly staffed by volunteers, set to begin at the close of January.  If you would like to become a volunteer, and your help is needed, email cineko@mistral.co.uk and get an application form. Our regular Cinema closed now for 315 days.

SAD to see the flag over the lifeboat station flying at half-staff last week as a mark of respect and acknowledgement of the passing of Peter Cheney who, over the years was so closely associated with the station. ‘Home is the sailor, home from the sea, and the hunter home from the hill’.