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Day: August 16, 2019

Grand Brighton Half Marathon celebrates 30 years in 2020

Posted on by Besi

The Grand Brighton Half Marathon celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2020, marking a very special race year for the popular half marathon.

ORGANISERS have some exciting plans up their sleeves to mark the big birthday on Sunday, February 23 next year, including an anniversary medal and a line up of race ambassadors who will help to celebrate the history of the race.

Martin Harrigan
Martin Harrigan

The Grand Brighton Half Marathon’s Race Director, Martin Harrigan, said: “2020 marks a very special year for the race as we celebrate our 30th birthday. The race has grown enormously over the past three decades as more and more people have taken up running and we’re so proud of the event it has become. We’ll be marking this very special race year with a 30th anniversary race medal, so whether it’s your first Brighton Half or your 30th, this is a year not to be missed!”

The Grand Brighton Half Marathon race is organised by Brighton-based charity The Sussex Beacon, which provides specialist support and care for people living with HIV through both inpatient and outpatient services. The charity helps hundreds of people living with HIV in Sussex and the race is the charity’s largest annual event.

Bill Puddicombe
Bill Puddicombe

Sussex Beacon Chief Executive, Bill Puddicombe, added: “The Grand Brighton Half Marathon is a big day for the Sussex Beacon, but also for all the other charities who take part and fundraise on the day. There are so many different ways to get involved – as a runner, as a Relay Team, or as a volunteer helping out on the day. It is the thousands of people that turn up, participate and cheer on the runners who create the party atmosphere for this great event.”

Organisers are keen to hear from any runners who took part in the early races in the 1990s. Whether you have a story to share from a particular race year, photos of your medal collection, or one of the early race T-shirts, email the race team. half.marathon@sussexbeacon.org.uk

David Knight, the first winner of the race, Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion and Martin Harrigan, the Race Director were among dignitaries at the official launch party at the Grand Brighton on Thursday, August 15.

The race is once again supported by headline sponsor The Grand, the city’s iconic seafront hotel, which is also on the course route.

Runners can choose to run for over thirty partner charities, including local charities The Sussex Beacon and Chestnut Tree House, plus national charities including Alzheimer’s Society and Macmillan.

The Grand Brighton Half Marathon has become one of the most popular – and friendliest – races in the UK since its first event in the 1990. The 13.1-mile route takes runners from Brighton’s famous pier through the centre of the city, before heading along the seafront past The Grand hotel.

To book a charity places for the 30th anniversary race, click here:

PREVIEW: Noël Coward’s Me And The Girls @Devonshire Theatre

Posted on by Contributor

UK stage premiere of Noel Coward’s Me and the Girls opens in Eastbourne on Tuesday, September 17.

DEVONSHIRE Park Theatre hosts the stage premiere of Sir Noël Coward’s hilarious and evocative musical comedy of the last days of vaudeville, Me and The Girls from September 17 – 21.

James Gaddas best-known as Governor Neil Grayling in ITV’s hit series Bad Girls, and for West End shows including Billy Elliot, Mamma Mia and Spamalot (as King Arthur) stars as George Banks, one of the era’s biggest vaudeville stars.

George Banks has been touring Europe since the end of World War Two – always with his troupe of girls. It’s the 1960s now, and he’s running out of steam. But in his mind, he’s still up there with the best – George Banks and His Bombshells! George thinks back on his life with ‘the girls’, the dance troupe of which he was the manager and single male performer.

With hits from the classic Coward songbook such as Mad about the Boy, Sail Away, If Love Were All and Bad Times Just Around the Corner.

The cast also includes Nicola Bryan, Jessica Brydges, Stephanie Cremona, Lara Lewis, Natalie Quarry, Lydia Shaw and Tom Self.

Based on Coward’s original short story, Me and the Girls was aired as a TV movie in 1985. This new stage adaption is by Richard Stirling, best-selling author of Julie Andrews: An Intimate Biography, and directed and choreographed by Stewart Nicholls, one of the most prolific musical and pantomime directors in the UK.

Don’t miss the chance to see this open, honest, very candid story from the inspired pen of Sir Noël Coward.

Event: Noël Coward’s Me And The Girls

Where: Devonshire Park Theatre, 8-10 Compton St, Eastbourne BN21 4BW

When: Tuesday, September 17 – Saturday, September 21

Time: Evenings 7.45pm, matinees Wednesday and Saturday 2.30pm

Cost: Tickets £22 – £29.50

To book online, click here:

Or call:  01323 412000

All time high in drug-related deaths in England and Wales

Posted on by Gary Hart

New data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) covering England and Wales shows that deaths from drug poisonings in 2018 were at the highest rate since records began in 1993 and 16% higher than 2017.

LAST year there were 4,359 drug-related deaths in England and Wales, 51% of which involved an opiate with deaths involving cocaine doubling over the three years to 2018, reaching their highest ever level.

Kat Smithson, Director of Policy at NAT (National AIDS Trust), said: “The climbing rate of drug-related deaths in England and Wales constitutes a public health and humanitarian crisis which must be addressed urgently.

“Investment in public health is urgently needed or deaths will continue to rise. It is unacceptable that the Government continues to cut public health funding in the face of such acute unmet need.

“It is clear that harm reduction services must be scaled up and new, innovative approaches to tackling harmful drug use are urgently needed. This should include Drug Consumptions Rooms which are proven to reduce drug-related deaths without encouraging wider drug use.

“Drug-related deaths are one outcome from problematic drug use but behind this figure are people struggling to access the drug treatment and support they need. People who are at risk of severe harm.”

NAT have published an investigation into drug-related deaths in England, including how the worst affected local authorities are responding to the crisis.

To download a copy, click here:

Hate Crime Kiss in and Vigil today in Parliament Square

Posted on by Gary Hart

Between 2014 and 2018 in the UK there has been a nearly 150% increase in anti-LGBT hate crime.

REPORTS have been growing of LGBT-phobic attacks all over the UK, including London and Brighton. Two thirds of LGBT+ people are wary of showing affection to their same-sex partners in public while protests against diversity in education have been seen outside schools in Birmingham, and this is spreading.

These attacks are legitimised by the attitudes and actions of some mainstream politicians.

We have an unelected prime minister who calls gay men bum-boys and appoints a cabinet including homophobes and racists.

Boris Johnson is not a lone bigot leading a nation. Trump’s first action as US president was to ban trans people from the military. Bolsonaro’s thugs murder LGBT+ people in Brazil as he declares he would rather have a dead son than a gay son. Putin’s death camps for LGBT people are an international horror.

Italy, Hungary, Turkey and Poland are also seeing rising state and street attacks on LGBT+ people.

Here in the UK, the divisions are being stoked up as Nazi sympathiser Tommy Robinson attempts to create a new far right street movement. The dangers of this cannot be underestimated.

We saw where this leads on April 30 1999 when Nazi David Copeland nail-bombed the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho, killing 3 people and wounding 70, some of whom lost eyes and limbs.

It is 50 years since the Stonewall Uprising and the birth of the Gay Liberation Front, a movement born out of rage and riots.

Todays Kiss-In and Vigil (Friday, August 16) called by QUEER POWER and LGBT Against Islamophobia is their first protest. The next event will be a larger protest on September 13.

For more details, click here:

Speakers will include:
♦ Ashley Joiner – director of ‘Are You Proud?’
♦ Sophie Robbins – trans activist
♦ Ejel Khan – co-ordinator, Muslim LGBT Network
♦ Jaroslaw Kubiak – Polish Rainbow in the UK, Polish LGBT Network
♦ Michael Dance – National Education Union LGBT+ National Organising Forum Officer (personal capacity)
♦ Sean Dewey – organising committee, Waltham Forest Pride
♦ Nicola Field – founder member, LGBT Against Islamophobia
♦ Dan Glass – Queer Power
♦ Speaker from Stand Up To Racism (TBC)

Event: Stand up to LGBT+ Hate Crime: Kiss-In and Vigil

Where: Parliament Square, London

When: Friday, August 16, 2019

Time: 5.30-7pm

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