AddThis SmartLayers

Editor to stage fruity charity challenge on beach

A newspaper- turned-magazine editor is to stage a charity fruit throwing event on a Sussex beach.

Worthing Journal editor Paul Holden has organised the tenth annual orange and lemon ‘flingathon’ which will hundreds of people turn out to Worthing beach on Sunday 4 March.

Each throw will cost £1 with proceeds going towards Worthing wheelchair tennis player Lauren Jones, 16, who is bidding to represent Great Britain at the 2012 London Paralympics.

Said Paul: “The flingathon takes place come rain, sleet, snow or gale and has become a firm family favourite.

“It has also raised money for a variety of charities over the past decade.”

Paul launched the event  in 2002, when he was editor of the now defunct Worthing Sentinel, to commemorate the sinking, in 1901, of the SS Indiana.

The Indiana collided with another vessel and spilled its cargo of tens of thousands of oranges and lemons onto the beach.

Hordes of residents descended on the seafront to ‘salvage’ the fruit, and feasted on marmalade for months to come until they were sick of it.

The Journal was launched in January 2011 after Holden was made redundant by Newsquest, which published The Sentinel.

It has since more than doubled in size to 68/72 pages, and in April it will launch its annual seafront flag appeal, first started in 2002, to decorate the promenade and pier with Union and England flags during the summer.

Over the past decade readers of The Sentinel and Journal have donated flags worth more than £15,000.

Many will be flown during Worthing’s giant Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Party on the Prom in June.

The Journal has raised £2,500 in sponsorship for what Paul hopes will be one of Britain’s biggest street party.