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26
Aug
Sophie Raworth to ‘return home’ to Harrogate
BBC presenter Sophie Raworth is coming to Harrogate for Raworths Literature Festival in October.
She is hosting a literary lunch event, where she will speak about her new memoir Running on Air, at The Crown Hotel on October 22.
The journalist will also be a special guest at the free early bird 5k run through Harrogate on October 23.
For those of you with eagle eyes, you might have spotted something. Sophie Raworth is going to be at Raworths Literature Festival.
So is there a link?
Sophie Raworth was born in Surrey, grew up in Twickenham – her only connection to the area seemingly being as a presenter on Look North in 1995.
Raworths Harrogate Literature Festival is coming soon. (Credit: Andrew Stevens).
But deeper investigations revealed that she is, in fact, the great-granddaughter of Edwin Raworth, founder of the law firm.
Edwin Raworth opened his Harrogate law firm in 1887, at first on James Street, before relocating to the current premises in 1939 – apparently considered “too far out of town” by some.
In 2012 the law firm celebrated its 125th anniversary by sponsoring the Raworths Harrogate Literature Festival - the launch featuring an appearance by Sophie Raworth.
During this inaugural speech Ms Raworth spoke about how her career progressed from presenting in Leeds to presenting the BBC Breakfast programme and the main national news bulletins.
At the time, Christopher Butterworth, then senior partner at Raworths, said:
From our point of view it was wonderful to have Sophie take part in the Raworths Literary and Lecture Series in the Harrogate International Festival which we are sponsoring for the first time, in our 125th anniversary year.
Sophie is the great-granddaughter of Edwin Raworth who founded our firm in 1887, and her talk demonstrated that the professionalism and energy shown by him all those years ago is still very much alive in the Raworth family.
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