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City Christmas Fair
I ts’s a beautiful day in
early December with a
cloudless sky and wall to
wall sunshine and, although
the temperature is only 5
degrees, it’s very uplifting. founded in 1964 as Birthright
but changed its name to reflect
the wider ambit of women’s
health. Its strapline is
“investing in women’s health
research for each stage of life.”
I am in Drapers Hall in the
heart of London for the
Wellbeing of Women annual
City Fair. The organisation was I spoke to Sir Marcus Setchell,
Honorary President of Wellbeing
of Women, who has been
involved with the charity for
over 40 years. He told
me that historically
research into overall
women’s health has had
a low priority. But in
recent years there has
been an increase in the
amount of interest. After
all, he said, with a
twinkle, “Everyone has a
woman in their lives”.
The rooms were overflowing
with both stalls ...
Fundraising is an
important part of the
organisation’s activities.
They hold literary
luncheons and recently
hosted a very well
supported Strictly
Come Dancing
event with Claudia
Winkleman. But the
City Fair, held every
in December, is a
hugely successful
event which was
founded in 2000
and is now in its
19th year.
The Drapers Hall
was warm and
welcoming with all
the principal rooms full to
overflowing with both stalls and
people. There were stalls
groaning with jewellery,
clothing, gifts, festive food etc
as well as some selling
aromatic oils, toys and even a
couple of publishers. But this
fair has a prosecco bar and
quite a big area where fairgoers
can sit and enjoy their bubbles
as well as being able to
purchase filled rolls, which
looked quite delicious. There
... and people!
was also a raffle and a silent
auction with The Treblemakers,
a group of cappella singers,
greeting everybody with their
lovely harmonies.
I managed to find gifts for the
hard-to-buy relatives and left
the fair feeling happy knowing
that I had accomplished
something.
LIN KENNEDY
The 39th Annual
Great Christmas
Pudding Race
O
n the morning of
December 7th Mr
Pudding was back hosting
the 39th Great Christmas
Pudding Race on the famous
cobbles of the West Piazza
Covent Garden.
Teams all in fancy dress tackled
Mr Pudding’s world renowned
obstacle course to raise money
A Female Father Christmas ready
to race.
for Cancer Research UK.
Course highlights included an
inflatable air slide and brand
new obstacle Build A
Snowman, all whilst balancing
a pudding on a tray! Teams
included Cancer Research UK,
Barclays Bank PLC as well as
teams from local universities.
The event kicked off with a
Zumba warm up led by Covent
Garden’s own Pineapple Dance
Studios. In-between the
qualifying two heats the huge
crowds were entertained by the
incredible The Roxys, a three
piece jazz vocal girl group who
add their own unique
harmonies to current pop and
R’n’B hits along with re-
imagining iconic tunes from
the last decades.
As well as acting as a great
excuse to run around Covent
Garden in fancy dress, the
event had a serious purpose,
dedicated to beating cancer
through research. In the
1970s, 1 in 4 people survived
a cancer diagnosis. Today this
has changed to 2 in 4
surviving. The ambition is to
see 3 in 4 people surviving by
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2034. As well as raising
awareness, Mr Pudding is on
track to raise over £15,000
from this event which will help
fund some of the lifesaving
research Cancer Research UK
are currently undertaking. the way from Australia, said
“We were looking for something
wacky and festive to raise
money for Cancer Research
and couldn’t be happier that
we won this year! So much fun
and all for an amazing cause.”
Race Winners ‘Santa Roos’, all xmaspuddingrace.org.uk
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