LET'S hear it for all those dedicated men and women of the Sussex Ambulance Service. I'm reminded of the terrific job these professionals do by a letter from Philip Hamerton, of Shoreham, a group station officer with the service.

Referring to a story on Monday about five people being hurt when a 100mph car chase ended in a smash in Brighton, he pointed out his colleagues had played a vital part in the emergency services' response.

But you would hardly have known how the injured, three of them stretcher cases, had got to hospital from our story, he said.

Yes, the paramedics were mentioned, but we singled out for special mention the firefighters from Burgess Hill, Hurstpierpoint and a specially-trained rescue crew from Worthing who went to the scene.

As Mr Hamerton pointed out in his

letter, ambulances were sent to help from Hove, Burgess Hill, Crawley and Uckfield. Their attendant highly-trained paramedic and technician crews, plus a volunteer doctor on a call-out rota, calmly gave life-saving treatment.

It would have been nice of us to acknowledge this. Remember, he says, his colleagues deal with more than 3,300 emergency and urgent calls every week across Sussex, not to mention all their other duties.

You have a fair point, Mr Hamerton, and now the emergency ambulance crews are going green with a new-look uniform, I think we will all start to take more notice of them.

The new uniforms, introduced the week before last, swap navy blue for green, and are the first major change of image for 25 years. They were designed with help from the people who will be wearing them, and are more practical for today's ambulance service.

The crews will wear trousers, shirt and jumper, plus a blouson-style jacket for both men and women. They hope, too, the new uniforms will mean fewer attacks on them.

In their old blue outfits, crews on 999 calls have often been assaulted while treating casualties because they were mistaken for police officers.

So here's a promise, Mr Hamerton. We'll do our bit in future to try to make sure the green teams don't get left out.

But you and your colleagues have to help us, too. If we don't get the information, we can't put in in the Argus.

Now, read all about it in Rottingdean. On Monday we reported village residents were urging neighbours to rally round to support local shops.

Three shops have closed in the past year, and villagers fear further decline if traders do not get enough customers.

Bill Spencer, a local councillor and member of Rottingdean Preservation Society, was quoted as saying there was no hardware shop there and no real newsagent, both of which are vital for village life.

Stop right there, counters Stephen Seymour, proprietor of The Cabin in the village High Street. The Cabin is one of Rottingdean's oldest surviving shops and has been selling newspapers and magazines, including the Argus, of course, since he bought the business in 1991.

"May I assure your readers that we are very real indeed," he writes. "I am sorry Mr Spencer thinks otherwise."

And finally, we were snapped at, not unreasonably, for leaving the photographers' credits off that delightful page of wedding pictures last Friday.

Apologies to Bob Curtis Photography, Martin and Angela Robards, Peter Bourner, P & J Photography and Richard Holmes Photography.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.