By David Tingley

It is not without a little pride that I happily recognise the fact that we have reached the 100th issue milestone for Cuckfield Life. And I say ‘we’ because creating and building a magazine like this from nothing is very much a team game! But more of that later.

Cuckfield Life was, in all honesty, a test-case. I had been publishing a village magazine in Lindfield for a few years and with CL I was trying to establish whether the format would work somewhere else.

I didn’t have a lot of prior knowledge of this community, and so I recall setting up a number of coffee meetings with folk from various groups and organisations in the early days. Most were happy to embrace the concept and even local businesses got on board – with the exception of one retailer who told me it wouldn’t work!

Thumbing through the back issue library has provided some highlights. For instance, issue number one may have only been 20 pages but had a great feature on the recently completed reordering works at Holy Trinity Church. The Independent State of Cuckfield were on page six with a piece on Lindy Elphick’s victory at the mayor’s election in 2012. And we started our recipe tradition early as the apprentice chef at Ockenden Manor provided two soup recipes for readers to try out.

It’s also worth noting that five of our original cohort of advertisers are still with us eight years later. Honourable mentions (and thanks) go to Lucy Locksmith, Helme & Hallett, Cuckfield Local, Gielgud Academy and Norto5 Kidz. As I’m sure you understand, this product is only free because businesses like these pay to be seen on our pages – and so, our readers using their services in return is crucial to our success.

In issue 12 (back in 2013), it’s interesting to note HHRFC celebrating the approval of plans for their new clubhouse at its Whitemans Green site. While in the following month’s copy newly elected mayor Mike Schlup begun our tradition of that post-holder writing a monthly column for us.

Two years in and we included an article showing some superb photography of the Tour of Britain as the cycle race passed through Cuckfield.

In September 2015 we begun including special content for Bolnore village, which makes up a considerable area of our door-to-door distribution. By 2017, the magazines had grown in size making our first 48-page edition.

Our Village People interviews have always been a strong part of what we do, and I’m delighted that we continue to find fascinating people whose stories we can share. Thank you to all who have taken part.

I do need to thank the team, who have come and gone over the last eight or so years, but who I am tremendously grateful to for their service. Claire Cooper with whom I started CL, Matthew Buss, Natasha Hannah, Simon Yeend, Elaine Goodwin, and the incredible Jacqueline Elmore and Emily Billson who continue to make it happen every month. Not forgetting the behind the scenes support of Justin and Ella with layout, proofreading and social media.

Here’s to the next 100. We know there’s plenty of life left in Cuckfield!