The collapse of the Crawley-based building firm James Longley is sad news for the whole of Sussex.

It is particularly heartbreaking for the 150 people employed by the firm who will lose their jobs and for those who are owed thousands of pounds.

But it is also a dark day for the owners of the company which has a proud history stretching back more than 130 years.

The building industry is notoriously subject to cash flow problems and these proved to be the undoing of Longley's.

They were so serious that no buyer could be found for the business, despite its extremely good name in the South.

Everyone in the trade will be hoping that the men and women who were told the bleak news yesterday can be found other jobs.

Much of this will be achieved if other contractors can take over some of its major projects such as the Millennium Seedbank at Wakehurst Place, near Ardingly.

Other building firm bosses will shudder when they hear the news for if a firm like that can fail, so can many others in the trade.

Status is a crime Like will not be compared with like in the new crime performance tables which will be published next month.

Brighton and Hastings will be grouped with posh places such as Canterbury, Sutton and Richmond, which do not have large pockets of deprivation.

Of course there will be fewer offences in Sutton, an affluent suburb on the southern fringes of London, than in Hastings, which has an array of social problems immediately obvious to any visitor.

It will be a crime if the classifications are not changed by the Home Office. Then these towns can be grouped with others with the same social mix so that a genuine comparison can be made of efforts to cut crime.

Dame undaunted Dame Vera Lynn had one of the most famous voices in Britain when she appeared on radio during the Second World War as the Forces' Sweetheart.

But not everyone recognised the singer when she visited the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton to help out in a cafe run by the WRVS.

It didn't worry the octogenarian chanteuse as she went on cheerfully serving tea to the thirsty customers.

And there were still enough fans looking up to Vera Lynn, realising in her case there really is nothing like a dame.