Name: Lesley May
Profession: I’ve been the Venue Manager at the All Saints Centre for almost two years now. The centre was quite underused when I arrived, but now I would like to be able to find another Friday and Saturday every week to accommodate all the events that people want to put on. I don’t have a budget to put things on myself, I book the place out, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the quality of events. The public perception of the place used to be that it was just used as a cinema, but that’s certainly not the case now.
Are you local? I moved here in 2000. I grew up in Ontario in Canada: I first came here in 1997 and immediately decided I’d love to live here if I got the chance.
What do you like about Lewes? The people I’ve met. There’s a wealth of creative, talented, inspiring, eccentric, warm and lovely characters in town.
What’s your favourite pub? I suppose I’d say the Gardeners, now. It was the Lewes Arms. Since the boycott I’ve been doing the rounds looking for people I used to bump into there. It was a real conversation pub.
What’s your poison? Single malt whisky. I lived in Glasgow before I came here and my grandmother encouraged me to try out all the single malts. My favourite is Oban. I like its peatiness. I also like Talisker - a friend recently said that drinking it was like chewing on a stick, and that’s a pretty accurate description. Oh, and Czech absinthe.
Waitrose or Tesco? I go to Waitrose for cat food. Tescos? I saw a Tesco lorry the other day and somebody had scrubbed out the first and the last letters of ‘every little helps’, which sums them up rather nicely.