The late James Ledward, founder of Gscene magazine (now Scene magazine), the Brighton Rainbow Fund, and responsible for commissioning the Brighton AIDS Memorial ‘TAY’, is to have a ‘friendship bench’ dedicated to his memory installed right by the memorial in New Steine Gardens.
The bench will be one of a series forming a friendship trail organised by the Brighton & Hove Tourist Alliance, with other benches already placed by Hove Lagoon, White Street Gardens and on Brighton Palace Pier. Each bench has been donated by Brighton & Hove City Council, and decorated by a local artist, in this case Romany Mark Bruce – designer and sculptor responsible for the creation of TAY.
The Brighton Rainbow Fund was in talks with the council about placing a memorial bench alongside TAY before the pandemic, which was of course delayed. At the end of last year an unrelated application to the Pride Social Impact Fund from the St James’s Business Alliance had the same idea – great minds… -and Brighton Rainbow Fund was pleased to pass on the progress they had made to the Brighton & Hove Tourist Alliance, working with St James’s Business Alliance, and the Pride Social Impact Fund gave them a grant of £500.
The result of all this collaboration will be unveiled by the Mayor of Brighton, Cllr Jackie O´Quinn, on Wednesday, September 20 at 5.30pm, and everybody is invited!