Tintwistle celebrates Vivienne’s Green Champions

On Saturday April 26, Tintwistle Parish Council are holding the first ‘Vivienne Westwood Green Champions Celebration Day’. We visited them to find out more.

I'm chatting to Councillor Marianne Stevenson, Chair of the Tintwistle Parish Council, about a very special event that they are holding at the weekend. Marianne, tell us about what the event is in aid of? 

It is to support the Tintwistle Climate Emergency Campaign. For the last few years, just like many other parish councils and local councils, we have been working hard in order to get the message to our residents and our visitors about what they can do to tackle the climate emergency. To do this we've employed the services of a local volunteer, Sarah Scott Rivers, who is our Climate Change Emergency Campaign Co-ordinator. She's been very impressive in that every single week on the Facebook page she has posted some information or advice about what we can do to combat climate change and preserve the biodiversity of our area, and what we can do to reuse, recycle and reduce waste to help our planet. 

The event is the ‘Vivienne Westwood Green Champions Celebration Day’. For anyone unaware, can you tell us about the link to the wonderful Vivienne Westwood? 

Dame Vivienne Westwood was actually brought up in Tintwistle. She spent all her childhood here and we've got people who live in the village who remember going to school with her. When she sadly she passed away two years ago, her family asked if they could hold her funeral in Tintwistle, with the wake in our local pub. Due to that, everybody learnt about the link we have with her. Vivienne was dedicated to raising awareness about environmental issues and fighting climate change. Before she died, Sarah got to know Vivienne’s brother, and via him we asked her to sign some certificates for us to honour our Green Champions, which she gladly did, and we will be presenting them at the event.  

You've got some celebrities coming along, tell us about them. 

We've got Ben Westwood, who is her son from her first marriage, and he's agreed to present the certificates so we're very excited about that. Sue Pollard is a regular visitor to Tintwistle, for one reason or another she loves coming here and a lot of people know her. She wanders around and knows lots of people, and so when we asked her if she'd like to contribute to this event she readily agreed to do so, because like Vivienne she is also very pro-active in tackling climate change in whatever way she can. We also have author Linda Watson coming along, and she has also stayed occasionally in Tintwistle. A couple of people got to know her, and we discovered that she was writing a biography of Vivienne Westwood, so we asked if she would come along and say a little bit about what she's doing. 

How did you select the Green Champions? 

The competition has five categories, including individuals, families, businesses and organisations, and last year we asked people to nominate those that they thought would make good green champions and were a good example to the rest of us. We put a panel together, which included Ben Westwood remotely, and three others who live and work here locally, including Roger Haines who is a national theatre director. Roger has also made a huge contribution to putting on this event. 

The promotional poster mentions eco-friendly stalls, what will that include? 

We’ve got a number of eco-friendly organisations who wanted to support this event and showcase what they do. This includes Gorse Hall Primary School in Stalybridge, who run a ‘Stitch Club’ at which the children from Year Six are learning how to upcycle garments or fabrics into something else. At the event they will be showing us some of what they have made via a mini-catwalk show, and I would definitely recommend people come along to see the wedding dress...! 

Tell us a little more about what we can expect on the day. 

I hope that people will be entertained. We start at 12:30pm and will finish at 3pm with a champagne celebration for everybody, because these Green Champions really are an excellent example to all of us of things that we personally could do. I think people will be entertained and it’ll be a visual spectacle, especially the punk rock dance performance! I'm hoping for a warm and sunny day as it will take place on the Sexton Street Field just outside our Community Centre, which we're busy trying to find some funding for, and I promise it will be a fun and enjoyable day with our very friendly residents. 

I would like to thank the Event Team for all their hard work: Cllr Emily Scriven, Sara Scott-Rivers, Roger Haines and Kathleen Hughes who is the Eco School Coordinator at Gorse Hall Primary School. 

The ‘Vivienne Westwood Green Champions Celebration Day’ is free to attend and takes place on Saturday April 26 at 12:30-3pm on Sexton Street Field, Tintwistle.