Members of Harrogate’s LGBTQ+ community will be holding a free event at Revolución de Cuba on Parliament Street this week.
One Love, which is organised by Harrogate Pride Events, is intended as an inclusive event where like-minded people can meet up, drink, dance and relax in a safe space.
Organiser and DJ Craig Joynson told the Stray Ferret:
“We’re not charging any money for this. It’s really somewhere you can be yourself and relax with other people who are being themselves too.
“It’s also a way of letting people know that there is an LGBTQ community here in Harrogate.”
One Love is the latest in a series of such events that have been held at various places around the town, including a packed evening at Major Tom’s Social on the August Bank Holiday, quiz nights at Lilypad and a regular evening at The Disappearing Chin on the first Friday of each month.
Mr Joynson and other members of the LGBTQ community hope these events will all help to focus efforts to put on a Pride parade in Harrogate next year. He said:
“That’s the ambition over the longer term. There were a few Pride parades held in Harrogate before the lockdowns and they were very successful, so we’d really like to bring them back.
“We’ve got a committee now, which is in talks about the council about holding an event, but we don’t know yet where or when it will be held, or even if we have permission, so it’s very much in its infancy.”
One Love will be held at Revolución de Cuba on Friday, November 24, from 7pm.
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New Pride train to pass through Harrogate
London North Eastern Railway has revealed a new named and full liveried train as Pride celebrations get underway.
The Azuma train will call at more than 50 stations, including Harrogate.
Featuring eight LGBTQ+ flags, the train was revealed today to coincide with the start of Pride month.
Named ‘Together’, it celebrates LNER’s support of Pride activities as well as the company’s commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion.
An LNER press release said the name “champions the unification of all communities which LNER is proud to support”.
David Horne, managing director at LNER, said:
“It’s a momentous occasion for everyone at LNER to be unveiling the first full liveried Azuma in celebration of Pride ahead of our summer of supporting Pride events on our route.”
LNER will be supporting Pride events in York, Edinburgh and London this month on the east coast route.
The flags included on the train are the intersex-inclusive progress pride flag, the transgender pride flag, the bisexual flag, the trans-inclusive gay men’s flag, the lesbian pride flag, the pansexual pride flag, the nonbinary pride flag and the asexual pride flag.
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New LGBTQIA+ event planned as Harrogate Pride cancelled again
Harrogate Pride in Diversity has been cancelled again, with the organisers once more citing a lack of volunteers.
The event, which started with a parade through town followed by live music and entertainment in Valley Gardens, drew crowds of up to 26,000.
But it has not been held since 2019, and the latest cancellation after covid has led to an attempt to set-up a new event over the August bank holiday.
Harrogate Pride in Diversity posted on its Facebook page:
“We are so proud of all we have done together in the last few years, but recently life has gotten in the way. Our committee has become smaller, and our lives have become busier.
“We are taking a break from Pride in Diversity. Not forever, but for a little while.
“There will be no Pride in Diversity event this year, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be back.”
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The news prompted Craig Joynson and his wife Rea to start planning a free August event with a view to growing the LGBTQIA+ scene in Harrogate. They have set up their own Harrogate Pride Events Facebook page.
The event in 2019 in Valley Gardens
Mr Joynson said the local LGBTQIA+ community was currently under-served, adding:
“I am looking to provide some form of not-for-profit Pride event over the August Bank Holiday weekend. Not a full on Pride parade — hopefully that’ll be next year — but a social event of some kind.”
Mr Joynson, a former DJ, added he had a venue and DJs lined up and he hoped it could lead to regular monthly events for LGBTQIA+ people and perhaps the return of a Pride march next year.
Harrogate Pride in Diversity cancelled as volunteers sought for 2023
Harrogate’s Pride in Diversity will not take place this year because of a lack of volunteers to make it possible.
Last held in 2019, the event has traditionally begun with a parade through the town centre led by an open-top bus.
It then featured a festival of live music, entertainment and stalls in the Valley Gardens, drawing crowds of up to 26,000 people.
Secretary Poppy Winks said they had considered holding a smaller event, but decided it would be better to focus on delivering a full-scale occasion in 2023.
She said:
“The plan is it will be the same as pre-pandemic. It’s a joyful day: people being together and celebrating who they are, whoever that is.
“To have that space in our town is really important. It’s a really unapologetic event; everybody is there for a reason and it doesn’t matter what that reason is.”
People of all genders, sexualities, ages and races came together for the celebration in 2019.
The cancellation this year means the event will have had a four-year break by the time it returns, having missed two years because of the covid pandemic.
Ms Winks said while there used to be a strong group of volunteers, many had moved on or started volunteering elsewhere.
The remaining team decided to announce their reasons for calling off this year’s event, and it has paid off with a number of individuals and organisations come forward with offers of support. Ms Winks added:
“It was not an easy decision, but being honest about our reasons for cancelling has made people think, ‘this is an event we like and we want to come forward and help make it happen’.
“The beauty is that now we have grown enough that we’re well-known and organisations like the theatre and the Victoria Shopping Centre have said they want to support us.”
Anyone interested in helping to organise next year’s event can contact Harrogate Pride in Diversity via its website.
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Harrogate man says ‘outrageous, camp and wild’ garden saved his life
Paul Ivison says his “outrageous, camp and wild” garden in Harrogate saved his life following recent mental health battles.
Mr Ivison’s loud and proud garden may be small but it is hard to miss as you walk up Mayfield Grove to where it meets Mayfield Terrace, just a short walk from the town centre.
He designs a themed garden each year and this year he has gone with for mental health.
On the wall outside the garden are messages and advice for people on how to cope with mental health problems and who to contact if they need help.
As well as a wide array of plants and flowers his garden is also interspersed with and eclectic and colourful range of items including the Philippines flag, to represent his partner, photos of the Queen and Prince Philip, fairies, gnomes and bowling pins.
Mr Ivison, 61, took an overdose to end his life in January and the garden has given him the strength to carry on. He said:
“If it wasn’t for this garden, I wouldn’t be here.”
“It’s been a tough time but the garden clears my mind.”
Mr Ivison was in the Royal Navy during the late 1970s and early 1980s and recently began suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to what he witnessed.
He works part-time at Asda in Harrogate and also receives Personal Independence Payment for people with a disability.
After a review in January, the money he was entitled to was drastically cut which led to financial worries and a risk that he would lose his beloved home and garden. This led to his suicide attempt.
After providing more evidence, and support from Harrogate and Knaresborough Conservative MP Andrew Jones, he had his full entitlement reinstated.
Mr Ivison is critical of the Department for Work and Pensions and said PIP reviews were responsible for dozens of suicides. He hopes his garden will highlight what he believes are the government’s shortcomings in tackling mental health and its approach to benefits.
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Mr Ivison, who has lived in the house for 15 years, said 95% of the objects in the garden have been recycled.
He enjoys sitting outside with a coffee and a cigarette watching the world go by while speaking to neighbours. One woman who lives nearby called in during the Stray Ferret’s visit to say the garden has helped with her own mental health.
Mr Ivison said:
“I’ve had some amazing comments. It brightens up their day.”
His garden is open to anyone who wants to visit.
“A lot of people say — pull yourself together, or exercise — but it’s not as easy as that. We all have friends who suffer. The best thing you can do is listen.”
He’s already thinking about next year and said he has decided on a new theme for the garden.
“Next year it will be a Pride garden. It will be camp as hell!”
