A police force criticised for decorating a patrol car in rainbow colours for a Pride event has gone one step further this year and emblazoned a van.
Sussex Police splashed some colour on a car in a show of support for last year’s Brighton Pride parade.
Responding to the criticisms, now it has decorated its “biggest vehicle”. More
The funeral of a Jamaican “pioneer” who co-founded what later became the Notting Hill Carnival has been held at Southwark Cathedral.
War veteran Sam King MBE settled in south London having arrived on the Empire Windrush in 1948 and became Southwark’s first black mayor.
His son, the Reverend Michael King, said his father was a “pioneer” who had been “a servant of the people”. More
Andrew Rees has become the first deaf man to swim the English Channel solo.
The Welshman, 48, who represented Great Britain’s deaf swimming team in the 1990s, completed the crossing shortly before midnight on Sunday.
He was supported by his boat, the Louise Jane, and raised over £6,000 for the current Great Britain Deaf Swimming team after his 15-hour marathon. More
Our Inspirational Diversity Champion of the Month in July 2014, Laura Mothersole, took part in the Pride march in London with Girl Guiding. All those who took part had an amazing day and really enjoyed themselves.
Disability Awareness Day is on 10 July and with this in mind we have chosen Blaine Harrison as our Inspirational Diversity Champion of the Month. Blaine is a musician and songwriter who is best known as the lead vocalist of the indie rock band Mystery Jets.
Blaine started playing instruments as a child. He experimented with drumming at the age of eight, as well as guitar and piano later on. In his early teens, Blaine found a love for listening to progressive rock instead of the commercial garage music preferred by his peers.
The Mystery Jets were formed in 2004 with Blaine, his Dad and his best friend when the boys were at school. More recently the line up has changed with Blaine’s Dad now in a background role. The band divide their time between working at home in London and touring internationally. The band are currently working on their fifth studio album.
Blaine was born with the disability spina bifida, which has affected his leg muscles since he was a child. In 2009 He became a patron of the Attitude is Everything Charity, who work with live music venues in the UK to make gigs accessible for people with disabilities.
Blaine was quoted in an interview with the BBC saying, “When we first got together as a band we decided that we wouldn’t make my disability an issue, the same way we didn’t make a big deal of my dad being in the band. We weren’t interested in gimmicks… We wanted people to read our lyrics and listen to our music.”
Blaine has found that playing live as someone with a physical impairment is sometimes hard work, seeing as many modern facilities still do not have the means to cater for disabled people. He has made it clear that Mystery Jets will only play in venues who have made an effort to cater for people with disabilities and refrain from playing in small, crowded pubs.
To find out more about the Mystery Jets and Blaine see here http://www.mysteryjets.com/
To find out more about Disability Awareness Day see here http://www.disabilityawarenessday.org.uk/index.shtml