By Gillian Ellison

Last updated at 13:53, Thursday, 16 June 2011

THE stage is set for this weekend’s biggest and best Whitehaven Festival yet.

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The harbourside arena, which will host Madness, Razorlight, Boy George, Bananarama and T’Pau, started to be built on Sunday.

By midweek there was already a buzz about the town as people looked forward to the biggest weekend in the Copeland calendar.

Gerard Richardson, co-founder and festival committee chief executive, said he was busy but excited about the weekend.

“There is a really nice, positive atmosphere around the town,” he said. “It’s nice to see things being built and people talking about the festival.”

All the latest news about what is happening at the festival is in today’s Whitehaven News special supplement.

From air shows, tall ships, to celebrity chefs and of course the big music concerts – there’s something for everyone.

Jean-Christophe Novelli will be signing the special books which have been created for the festival by both him and Gerard to raise funds. A special book signing and launch event of A Mad Frog and an Englishman will take place on the Sugar Tongue on Friday at 6pm.

The international chef will then be available for signings throughout the weekend including at Richardson’s, Lowther Street, at 1pm on the Saturday and the Sugar Tongue at around 2.30pm. On the Sunday he will be on the Sugar Tongue at 1.30pm and 3pm.

Meanwhile nurses at West Cumberland Hospital have been given festival wristbands to access the Sugar Tongue by one of the sponsors of the event Renault-Nissan Consulting.

As a way of raising funds for the festival, organisers sell sponsor packages which includes a limited number of wristbands. Director of Renault-Nissan Consulting, Ian Robinson, said they decided to donate theirs to a worthy cause and chose West Cumberland Hospital’s A&E nurses.

Big screen

ALL the action with the celebrity chefs over the weekend and other highlights can be viewed on a big screen on the Sugar Tongue, thanks to funding from Costains.

Park and ride

THERE will be no late trains on Saturday night after the fireworks – however a park and ride service is being offered this year for the festival.

The last train departing Whitehaven on Saturday will be 9.20pm to Workington (also calling at Parton and Harrington).

A Northern Rail spokesperson said: “Unfortunately this year we do not have the resources to provide an even later train on the Saturday night.

“We have tried extremely hard to make this happen but we have been unable to on this occasion and we apologise for any inconvenience this will cause passengers.”

On Sunday Whitehaven departures will be at 5pm, 6pm, 7.20pm.

A park and ride bus service is being provided this year to ferry people to and from the festival.

It goes from Lakes College, Lillyhall, and from the Innovation Centre, at West Lakes Science Park, from 10am-11.30pm on Saturday and 10am-5.30pm on Sunday.

It is being provided by Reays, of Wigton.

Glenn Miller celebration

THE Royal Air Force Squadronaires will give a charity concert of big band music entitled ‘A Glenn Miller Celebration.’

The concert will take place at the Whitehaven Festival Arena (Quay Street Car Park) on Sunday, and be preceded by the arrival of a Military Parade of representatives of the armed services and associated comrades at 10.30am, led by the Band of the Royal Marines.

There will be a Freedom of the Borough ceremony followed by the concert shortly after the parade marches off.

Tickets are £5 each and proceeds will go towards the welfare of service personnel with a donation to local cadet organisations. They are available from the Festival Office (Richardsons Wine Shop on Lowther Street). 

Help for mums

MUMS with babies who plan to attend this weekend’s Whitehaven Festival are reminded that there are breastfeeding friendly places near the festival site, say health bosses.

The following cafes are all breastfeeding friendly and are all located in Whitehaven or near the harbour site: Anna’s Café; the Wellington Bistro at The Beacon; Zest; Wetherspoons, the Sugar Tongue area; Dixons Cafe; Costa; La Venue and Westminster Cafe.

The promotion of breastfeeding at the festival marks the beginning of Cumbria Breastfeeding Awareness Week.

Designers and students putting on the style

FASHION will be one of the themes at this year’s festival with a number of catwalk shows planned for the harbourside.

All the details can be found in the special supplement in this week’s Whitehaven News, with local shops displaying their new looks, as well as work from students and fashion designer Angy Morton.

Angy will be will dedicating her ‘Red Dress – Black Dress’ collection to West Cumbria’s mining heritage as part of her ‘Catwalk on Water’ show on the Sunday.

She has used the concept of iron ore and coal, the red and black of Cumbria, as a basis for this unusual, new collection.

Angy has also drawn inspiration from specific aspects such as the 1910 Wellington Pit Disaster and the Montreal No.4 pit to create a selection of one-off couture designs from recycled fabrics.

First published at 11:08, Thursday, 16 June 2011
Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk