Wellingborough to hold its first ever Pride event this weekend

Wellingborough’s LGBT Alliance has organised the Pride picnic which will be taking place from midday until 4pm at the Castle Fields park in Wellingborough.

The group also organised the recent vigil held in the town centre to remember the victims of the Orlando club shooting, and it was due to the success of this that they decided they wanted to hold more events.

Event organiser John McIntyre said: “It’s our first event, the first ever Pride event in Wellingborough, and it is only the second Pride event in the whole of the county.”
John is the founder of the Northampton Outlaws Rugby Club and team members will be there on Saturday putting on some fun sports for people to get involved with.

There will also be giraffe racing, free massages and free cake.

John said: “We want people to treat it as a picnic so bring your chairs and blankets.

“We want it to be a relaxed event where we all get together to show the town that there is this community, we exist and we are actually quite nice!

“We know there are lots of LGBT people in the town and this is a chance to let them know that we are here.”

Marion Turner-Hawes is a member of the group, as well as part of the Castle Fields Community Group, and she said: “The Castle Fields Community Group is hosting it but it is being run by the Wellingborough LGBT Alliance, the group which organised the vigil for the victims of the Orlando shooting.”

She added: ““We get together every month on the first Thursday of the month at Castello Lounge and from that came the idea for this.

“This is the first thing we have really done as a group apart from the vigil.

“The idea is to get people together from the community, both the LGBT community and other communities - let’s all have some fun and celebrate.

“It might only be a small number of people or lots of people, but we are just trying to put a marker in the sand to say we are going to be doing more things like this in the future.”

Marion said the Wellingborough LGBT Alliance was set up after last year’s election, and added: “We could see that the whole support network as well as the friendship network was not there in the county, and particularly in the north of the county, so we started the group.

“People come from not only Wellingborough and Rushden, but also Kettering, Corby and Northampton.

“People are making friends but we are also becoming aware of issues that are there for people so we are starting to offer that moral support.

“This is a chance to celebrate and is the first Pride event, probably ever, in Wellingborough.”

Parking for the event is available in The Castle theatre car park or the Swansgate multi-storey.