Charles "Lafayette" SWANN

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings. The worst possible tidings.


Here we go. Charlie passed away this morning at about 10.30 AM. Carmel was with him at the time along with Colin and Audrey Crowe. He was still at the Princess Royal Hospital at Haywards Heath. Moves had been made to take him home and I believe a hospital bed had been installed there at The Purple Palace. But in the end his deterioration was rapid and Charlie wanted to stay where he was. Yesterday he had been placed on End of Life Care and was having some pleasant morphine - induced dreams. In one he had a vision that Carmel was going up to Scotland to poison Donald Trump! A joker to the end.


He had no pain and finally just slipped away.........Myself and Barbara saw him at the same hospital just a few days ago and had a long chat with him. He knew how the ground lay and he asked me to organise his wake. At his request this will be at The Anchor in Ringmer. Charlie remembered Malcolm Senior's wake there and wants something similar himself. Of course I will organise this but Carmel thinks this will probably be in about month's time. The funeral will be along Pure Cremation lines and there will be no ceremony,


Colin Crowe will take care of notifying EXIST. May already have done it.


And there you have it. Under my self-induced health regime I normally only have a drink on weekends......Not tonight though.






Harry

Blasts from the Past

NERDS’. MEGA WRITE-UP

RAMBLES. Nos. 122 - 126

(Without Ramble No 124 which was the Shropshire ramble and which was written about earlier……..I think…..)

Ramble No 122 Wednesday 23 June 1999

Those who took part were Lafayette, Sandyballs, and BT. We all met up at Sandyballs’; Philby was in Belgium with Bubbles, Froggy was in France trying again to join the Foreign Legion (refillé - marque de politesse). Notes record a discussion about guns and a white cat (!?). Lafayette was not feeling too good (bad bottle of calvados) so short ramble over the Downs was decided.

Nice day, sunny, warm etc. We all had a rest in the middle - skylarks swooping low over fields filled with blue speedwell (flowers), air filled with birdsong. Wish it was June every day. Lunch at the Trevor Arms - we all sat outside under the apple trees and nicked Sandyballs’ chips. Much chagrin from the latter. Cardinal Sin, all non Catholic Nerds excommunicated. How sad.

Then to Glynde House. At least BT and Lafayette did. Sandyballs sat in gardens and sulked, obviously suffering from chip deprivation. The two culture seeking Nerds had a very, very interesting tour of the House then sloped off to the tea rooms outside. Met up again with Sandyballs who was pissed and sobbing. Told him to pull himself together. Sandyballs did try really really hard but only succeeded in falling off table.

BT had huge piece of cake, about twice as big as the pile of all the chips SB had ever consumed (Yes, that Big). Everyone walked back in the sun up the hill to Sandyballs’ house. Latter immediately fled into kitchen and cooked himself chips for tea.

End of ramble!


Ramble No 123 - 26 July 1999

No notes available. Lafayette’s diary records his cycling 4.8 miles to Matt’s house in Seaford. Vaguely members getting rat-arsed in sunny garden. Vaguely remembers going somewhere in someone’s car (can’t remember where). Knows for certain no rambling took place. Nobody seemed to care.


Ramble No 124 Shropshire Ramble September 1999


See separate story. (It was really, really good. Just ask Jane.)


Ramble No 125 - 27 October 1999

Sandyballs in Kosovo or Bosnia or Afghanistan or somewhere. (Spys never tell.). Los Nierdos de aujourd’hui were BT, Philby and Lafayette. All met at Philby’s. Much drinking of gin and admiring of Twinkle (cat). Philby senior’s exotic brass pots (Now I wonder what he used them for) and Philby’s ability to make half any decent coffee using a percolator thingy.

Rambled in inebriated state towards The Boot (pub in Seaford, not far from Philby’s). Met Hamish Skiver Findlay hanging around in Seaford High Street trying to look as if he had a bad back. Went in pub (sans Hamish) met Mark Fatso, Admin Officer from Newhaven, propping up bar trying to look cool. Barmaid, Lisa, thought he looked cool (young bastard!), kept feeding him with drink and giggling inanely at his crappy wit. Lafayette considers shopping him to his CIO for pulling silly girls too easily. More mature NERDS discover Harvey’s Firecracker beer being served (such bliss). Lunch, more drink etc.

Back to Philby’s, then back to BT’s. More drink with French au pair, Audrey and her French friend. Lafayette rediscovers mature talent for chatting up au pairs in French. Audrey thinks Lafayette is handsome - “like a grandfather”, Lafayette beats a hasty retreat.

Nerds seek to portray caring image and go to park to feed ducks. Caring image going OK un til you lets off loud banger nearby and scares off ducks (and NERDS). Ramble to Tesco’s and have photo taken outside by Jessica and Lemia (who?) then to The Gardeners (Lewes pub) then to The John Harvey (another Lewes pub) where got slagged off by bossy barmaid (not Imogen, of course, she’s lovely) for demanding non existent Seaford Firecracker beer. Sad misunderstanding. It’s called Bonfire Boy in Lewes this year.

Hired taxi. Bought fish and chips. Wished Sandyballs were present so we could taunt him by nicking his chips. Maybe he’s found a good chip shop in Afghanistan, or wherever. Went back to BT’s and fed children, au pairs, grandfathers and Nerds. Consolidated Nerds caring, feeding image. Had phone call at BT’s expense. Spoke to Helen (BT’s new willy warmer) in Dieppe and to Bubbles in Belgium. Everybody seemed OK. Thought about phoning Sandyballs in Afghanistan, or wherever but thought he’d probably still be down the chip shop.

NERDS get bored with talking to foreign women and go off down to The Elephant and Castle (Lewes pub for grandfathers trying to pick up teenagers). Get bored again, phone Barbara, ask about the kids and get her to come out for a drink. Two of us play “Babyfoot”, one of us chats up Barbara, a woman nearer his own age (for a change). Philby gets loud and devastating hiccups and is escorted home on train by caring, sharing, firm but fair Lafayette3. Most of the passengers in the railway carriage slip away at the sound of Philby’s embarassing noise. End of ramble.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So ends this interlude of nostalgia of so long ago. As these rambles were not previously published in these annals I am sure they will bring back some memories. It’s like waking from a dream being 40 years old again and suddenly realising that one is sleeping with a seventy year old!!!!!

Regards to all and we all hope Lafayette and Sandyballs get better soon.

Here's another fairy for Lafayette.

Regards to all

BT

NERDS abeyance

Hi all,

A difficult one. I think it a good idea if we have a temporary cessation of NERDS non-rambles for a while. The reason is that Charlie is not very well at the moment, Also I have a couple of health issues. I am suggesting we " cool it" for a month or two until we see where we are. If someone wants to organise a meal or a drink locally then I may well join you. I suppose we could temporarily join forces with The Cords for their occasional sorties, I know that some NERDS are also Cords.

I would like to stress that this is not the end of the NERDS. Just a temporary cessation!!
Let us play it by ear and utilise the famous NERDS flexibility.......

Harry

June 2025

 

Guys, my month is filling up quick.

Harry and Charles, do you have an agreed date in mind please?
Froggy

May 2025

 

Difficult to set a date this month. Charlie is away, I am due to fly next week, Frog is away at the end of the month. Matt may well be afloat somewhere.... So let us have a fallow month and give it a miss. Regroup and meet sometime in June. Don't forget that back in the mists of time when we were all employed and had little kids - then we used NOT to have a Ramble in August.

Incidentally, I discovered that if you Google 'newhaven rambling drinking' then the very first 'hit' is ' Residential Alcohol Rehab - Call for Help and Advice'. I am not making this up!

Cheers,
Harry

P.S.  However this link takes you right here!  http://thenerds-bt.blogspot.com

Sounds like a plan! I’m at present riding the very rough seas in the Bay of Biscay.

Regards to all 

Matt 🤮🤮🤮🤮

+

Fair enough Harry. I could do with a break from all that arduous walking.

Froggy

+

Good idea, Harry. I'm knackered after my holiday.
Hope you have a good time on yours.

Lafayette

April's jaunt 2025

As for the soi-disant Ramble. Not a lot happened really. There was a prior flurry of excuses for absences . Charlie had man flu and Matt was away cruising. These last two were fairly predictable, of course. Nothing from Mike or Paco and Tony found something better to do (campaigning to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury perhaps.)

Anyway I was sitting on my ownsome in The Runaway Cafe when the rest of the party turned up. Just Froggy!! WE were debating whether or not to abandon the outing and just go for a pie and a pint when - luckily - we were joined by our newest recruit. Dave The Hacker!

We were now officially quorate! So we jumped on the train and travelled one stop to the scenic village of Glynde . The pub is the new branch of The Steamworks

and is part of Glynde station. So from alighting from the train to the door of the pub is , oh, about 20 yards. Our shortest ever Ramble!

The Steamworks is very much NERDS approved. Good range of beer - including Harveys and pub grub for about a tenner, What more could you possibly want? After a couple of pints - well 3 - Dave suggested we switch to red wine. We had a glass there and then took the train back to Lewes and decamped to The Lansdown Arms for more vin rouge. No dogs being held by the ears this time. Remember Brian?

So despite our restricted numbers, a good time was had by all!

Cheers Brian

Harry

Travel Arrangements for April's "outing".

Hello all,
This month we are getting together on Wednesday April 16th. Lunch venue is The Steamworks in Glynde. In the past we would have slogged over hill and dale from Lewes. How times have changed. Now we are doing the whole trip by train.

So the usual 10,24 service from Seaford to Lewes arriving at 10.41, The onward train leaves at 11.14 so there will be plenty of time for a coffee or whatever in The Runaway Cafe.

Return trains from Glynde leave at 14 minutes past the hour.

See you on the day
Harry

April's 2025 "Ramble".

Hi,
This month's non-ramble takes place on Wednesday 16th. By popular demand we will be visiting a new pub! The Steamworks in Glynde. Lafayette has been there and I have visited together with Mrs Sandyballs. They have Harveys on tap and a pub grub menu. The food on offer is a bit restricted but they do serve ham, egg and chips - if that is your thing!

Travel there will obviously be by train via Lewes.

More details to follow.

Cheers
Harry

The March "Ramble" of 2025 'Account'.

Here is what we did yesterday 23/03/2025.

By popular choice we were going to Isfield, to The Laughing Fish.

Froggy and Matt had been here recently and made friends with a load of cyclists. They had also recommended the food and drink.

Lafayette got on the train and met Froggy and Matt. Wot, no Paco? (He had a hospital appointment Laf remembered).We got to Lewes and met Sandyballs,

Wot, no Hackers? nobody else? This would turn out to be a "rolling ramble" whereby we picked up various NERDS en route - Exciting eh?

S.B. steered us in the direction of the Gardeners Arms - for an aperitif....Most of us started off on Harveys which was safe except that S.B. had something with 6.5%

alcohol and rapidly started to lose whatever coordination he had had at the start. This was temporarily arrested by the resumption of his drinking Harveys at a mere 4.5% but the damage had been done; see later on.....

Tout d'un coup the Bish arrived. He had said he would be late and he was ....a bit. So we all squeezed up and now we were five.

We needed to leave to get the bus. Sandyballs reached down to get his jacket and found the mind-numbing beer he had imbibed had caused him to drop his jacket into the dog's bowl

under the table. No problem really except it had been full of delicious doggy water. The jacket was now wet, in fact it was very wet, but hey , the bus was waiting and The NERDS needed to move. Sandyballs was pissed (off) and a bit wet, and a bit uncomfortable. But who cared what with the war in Ukraine and the cost of beer going up weekly. Sandyballs cared but nobody took any notice. On, on.

We walked up Lewes High St in the beautiful sunny weather, all (except one) giving thanks that we had nice, dry jackets and that nobody had a dog that had peed in the doggy bowl. Around the corner, outside Waitrose we were joined by Hackers,

our latest NERDS number sweller. He had managed to tear himself away from his favourite cat just to come rambling with us. Now we were six.

A pleasant ride to Isfield, most of us feeling nice and dry on the bus. Then into The Laughing Fish

and to bump into The Admiral

who had a relative living in the village and had come in to tell us about all the beautiful dry jackets he had back at home in his wardrobe. Now we were seven.

And so we set about eating and drinking.

The haddock fish cakes were good with mega big chips.

Sandyballs sat at the end of the table feeling a bit wet, until tout d'un autre coup.... Paco suddenly appeared with that guilty "I came in my car " look. Now we were eight. So we entertained him by telling him some hilarious story of the man with the wet doggy coat, and then we all set to to eat mega icecream desserts

to blot out the memory

of the tragedy of Sandyballs' poor jacket.

After this Paco gave most of us a lift back home while Hackers stayed behind in the pub in an attempt to talk Sandyballs out of committing suicide because of the shame of letting his jacket get wet.

So it had been a rolling ramble where nothing much really happened (Oh no, not much!) and thanks to Paco for the lifts and to Sandyballs for organising his jacket to get wet on purpose to entertain us.

By the way, just because I was at a free end this particular afternoon and this "account " is a bit long, it should on no account be considered a "write up"

It's just a few words to grace your blog, and it is not intended of course to go down in the annals of history as a great work of literature - like Froggy's
autobiography surely will.

And I haven't been drinking either.

Love

Lafayette.

March 2025 "Ramble" arrangements for the 19th

Hi all,

This month's non-ramble takes place on Wednesday 19th. As previously stated, we are visiting The Laughing Fish in Isfield. Obviously we are being transported by bus from Lewes. The arrangements are as follows:

Seaford/ Newhaven contingent to take the usual 10.25 train and I will meet you at the usual place. Then to Cliffe for either a beer or a coffee (or both?) and then we take the 29A bus from outside Waitrose to the Fish at 12.20.

Dave, it makes sense if you get the same bus from outside Lewes Prison which is, I think, the nearest stop for you, This gets to the Prison at about 12.20. We will board at Waitrose and probably go upstairs, if we can drag our arthritic limbs up the stairs of course!

Hope this all makes sense.

See you on the day.

Harry (Sandyballs)

March 2025 "Ramble" Arrangements

The organisation formerly known as "The NERDS" will be gathering on Wednesday 19th. By popular demand we will be revisiting The Laughing Fish in Isfield ( might be the first time for Dave) which is under new management. Matt and Froggy have recently been there and gave it the thumbs -up.

I will check the bus times and book a table. As ever, please let me know if you can't make it on the day.

Get back to you.

Harry (aka Sandyballs)

The Real February Ramble 2025

This is what we did the other day.

We were quite a crowd for once; everybody must have heard we were actually going to walk ( a bit) and not just go on a local pub crawl. There was Matt, Froggy, Paco, Lafayette, Sandyballs, The Bish, The Admiral and our newish member, Dave Hackers Hack. 

It was a cold, dull day.

We went to Lewes and swapped trains for the London one, getting off at Cooksbridge. Then we had to walk..... about half a mile to The Rainbow pub 

on the other side of, and way, way up from the railway crossing.

Apparently it was cheapo carvery day on Wednesdays so everyone was hoping for a meaty lunch.
Inside we met Paco who had driven there (sensible) and the lunch was just kicking off.

The NERDS were accommodated at a spacious table in the back room.

It was not so cold in there as Froggy had feared.

Conversations sprang up and it got very noisy. There was the Football Discussion Club at one end

and the Where Are They Now I. O.s' Group at the other end.

We were served by a delightful young gel who was very short

but very efficient.

The food was OK but not brilliant unless ,like Admiral and Laf, you had the Pie du Jour which was very good . Paco had some sort of ricy prawn thing which he said was very good, Froggy bought some of us a bottle of Tempranillo - which was nice.....

After this , most people felt full and didn't want to walk back to the station. Good job Paco had his car. Sandyballs and Froggy walked back (how brave). Hackers had to leave a bit early to feed his cat

(?) WTF? Laf just used to chuck his one outside to forage on seagulls;

maybe he was a bit crool.

Anyway we all got back Ok and thanks to Paco for the lifts, to Froggy for the wine and to Sandyballs for organising a real ramble. Thanks too to hackers for injecting new blood into The NERDS. Pity the new blood isn't a bit younger cos we're all gonna die soon,

or one day (gloom, gloom) and the former Nerdlings have all pissed off to make their own way in life.

So, Brian, plenty to put on your blog this month. Keep sunning yourself in France and don't forget pictures of the fairies.

Hasta la Vista 

Lafayette.

February 2025 Final Arrangements

Calling all NERDS,

This month we meet on Wednesday 19th. As previously notified, we will dine at The Rainbow in Cooksbridge for a gut-busting Carvery roast.

The pub doesn't open until 12 noon so I have booked a table for 6 at 12.15.

This time the Seaford mob should take the 11.24 train ( bit later than usual) which arrives in Lewes at 11.41. The Cooksbridge service leaves at 11.55 -giving thirsty NERDS a chance to perhaps slake their thirst at The Runaway cafe?

Now, Mike T will be joining us as Is Dave Hack (no nickname for him yet!). Therefore if all the usual suspects turn up we will be 7 at table and a bit crowded. Can I therefore ask if any of you will NOT be attending, please let me know. Otherwise I will rebook for 7. Charlie, what about The Gorilla? If he is interested I will have to try for a table seating 8?

Harry

February 2025 Ramble Advice

Hi,
I have set a provisional date for the meeting as Wednesday 19th. Please let me know if there is a problem with the date. I thought we could revisit The Rainbow in Cooksbridge. They have recently reinstated their Wednesday Carvery, which was always good value. The "walk" is very brief ( hardly qualifies as a "stroll"). If the date is OK I will book a table , probably for 6, and then confirm train times, etc.

Cheers
Harry

The January 2025 NERDS Outing

 

Lafayette was late to The Steamworks in Seaford that day, and believe it or not, Paco (And everyone else ) had got there before him. Laf thought the meeting began at 11 00hrs but apparently they had all started without him.

So anyway, the beer was good - it was Long Man Wicked

- very tasty. We were Paco, Matt, Sandyballs, Laf and Froggy. S. B. was wearing his new Christmas present jersey.

LAf was jealous, he had only got a dozen jerseys in his drawers and nobody had given him one for Christmas.

Just then Gorilla Bown turned up for a quick pint.

He could not stay long since he had to sort out the mess caused by his car being hit by some old git pensioner in Sainsbury's car park the other day. Good job Gorilla hadn't been in it at the time.

He and Laf

told the others about their recent trip to Andy Maskell's pub at Turners Hill where they had encountered one or two names from the past such as Ian Arnott (not drinking for 11 years) And Gareth Anthony - still tall, dark and Welsh like.

The Gorilla pushed off and the rest of the NERDS rambled about 150 yards to Pablo Picasso's which is now restaurant flavour of the month in Seaford, (and not at all far from the station}.

There we met up with The Admiral and Jan as well as Imogen sans poor deceased Bandido. 

Everything was going swimmingly, the food was excellent, the wine was flowing, the conversation was sparkling until Paco suddenly became very pale

and had pains in his stomach. Bit of a bugger this in a nice restaurant, but a taxi was called and he was accompanied home. Next day he was found to have had only belly ache

and nothing more serious. Hooray!

So, Brian, that was the latest ramble (ha, ha!) and you see we are now getting more women joining us for lunch. Whether this is good or bad remains to be seen.

Hope you are all well and not freezing like us over here.

Love,
Lafayette.

Happy NEW YEAR