It’s not every week that a local newspaper
reporter gets to meet a Hollywood A-lister, but Faversham News
reporter Katie Alston struck it lucky when she bumped into actor
Hugh Grant at a care home garden party she was covering.
No-one dared to believe rumours that Grant, who starred in
Four Weddings and A Funeral (1994), Notting Hill (1999), and most
recently Did You Hear About The Morgans? (2009) would really visit
the Kent town.
Staff at the new £1.8m specialist home for
adults with learning disabilities said they didn’t know until an
hour before his arrival that he would be joining the party.
Katie said: “He rolled into town in his sleek
black Audi on Saturday afternoon and was really, really friendly.
He was charming, warm and nothing was too much trouble. Many of the
ladies there didn’t know what to do with themselves.”
Katie captured the star on video for the
paper’s website (www.kentishgazette.co.uk),
collected audio for its sister kmfm radio station (kmfm for Canterbury,
Whitstable & Herne Bay) as well as interviewing him for a
story to appear in the paper and online.
The home was established by The Fynvola Foundation, named
after Grant’s mother, and was set up by Faversham’s Jenny Gurney in
2007.
As well as pledging his full support to the
foundation as a patron, Grant has also given financial support.
He said: “This is a brilliant charity and I’m
right behind it. I got involved as a close family friend had Down’s
syndrome, and Jenny is very persuasive.
“She is an incredible woman and very special,
she twisted my arm to get me down here. She is a force of nature. I
never do anything nice for anyone and she made me do this.”
In January, Alston was named WF Deedes Kent
Young Journalist of the Year at the Shepherd Neame Kent
Journalist of the Year Awards 2009.
2,986 copies of Faversham News are circulated
each week* and is part of the Kentish Gazette Group of newspapers
circulating 19,976 copies* and reaching 55,338 readers each
week.**
(July 30, 2010)
* ABC (Jul-Dec 2009) / ** JICREG (Apr
2010)