Vol 27• Issue 50
Champ is back after lockdown!
www.champnews.com www.champnews.com
JA M E S L A K E L A N D
909December December2020 2020
LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING YOU AGAIN Tel: 01704 569697 5 WELD PARADE, BIRKDALE VILLAGE, PR8 2DT
SMART tests underway at Splash World
GIANT OF A MAN!
National award for seafarer
Estate agent’s huge mural tribute to Captain Sir Tom will be auctioned off for NHS THE UK’s biggest Captain Sir Tom Moore mural has been installed at a building in Southport! The 24ft long ‘Hope’ mural, commissioned by Mark Cunningham, owner of Anthony James Estate Agents in Southport, has been installed 40ft high at Charlotte House on Hoghton Street. It was created by former professional boxer Rob Newbiggin, who is also behind works including Eric Morecambe and Dame Vera Lynn. Captain Tom became a lockdown hero when he inspired the nation to raise more than £33m for NHS charities in recognition of him by walking 100 laps of his garden just before his 100th birthday! His inspirational feat saw him knighted by the Queen, release an autobiography and have his life become the focus of a film. A second ‘Thank You’ mural by the pair featuring NHS heroes, such as doctors, nurses and air ambulance workers will, weather permitting, go up this Saturday, December 12 at the estate agent’s premises. This will feature ‘real’ NHS workers who have given permission for their faces to be painted on to this as well as a poignant angel nurse in the middle, who is symbolic of the pandemic. The murals - created on specially
Report by Danielle Thompson designed panels and attached to a side wall - will remain on display in Southport for around six months before being auctioned off to raise money for the NHS. Mark Cunningham said: “We commissioned the murals in the middle of the first lockdown so we have been excited about this for six months or so!
Artist Rob Newbiggin with his Sir Tom mural. Inset: Mark Cunningham
“We were very impressed by Sir Tom Moore and I reached out to the artist as I wanted to share the spirit of the hope that Sir Tom had given to the nation. “We underestimated how big the project was initially but soon we had put a plan together. We are so excited to see it finally going up after a team effort. Nobody really knows how to plan during a pandemic but we have been working hard as a team and it is so exciting to see it go up. “The first painting is named Hope in recognition of Sir Tom inspiring the country. He hit a nerve that resonated, that no matter who you are, you can make a difference to the community. “It’s been such a challenging year for everyone and the simplicity and enormity of Sir Tom’s challenge helped us all to put into perspective that we can all just take each task and each day at a time. “The second mural, Thank You, will go up at the weekend. For the vaccine to be released in the same week that we are putting up the murals after so long planning them is just fantastic - I’d love to say that we planned it like that! “We hope people will see the murals and take a photograph of it or with it to send to other people, to share their own ‘Thank You’ to the NHS and share in the community spirit of Sir Tom!”
The Sir Tom Moore mural
THE UK’S LARGEST LETTERBOX CIRCULATION BY AN INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER! 164,824
CHAMPION SERIES
JAN-DEC 2019 100% FREE
J U S T W H I T E • L AT T E
SOUTHPORT & FORMBY
L E B E K • P O M O D O R O • P I C A D I L LY