Crier publisher helps Butlins create world hug record

THE publisher of The Crier, Mike Padgett, has helped holidaymakers at Butlins to create a world record with former Big Brother housemate Aisleyne Horgan Wallace as special guest at the Minehead resort

Visitors to the Minehead centre were asked to hug Aisleyne in an effort to beat the record of 612 people hugging one person in an hour

And they smashed the record with 818 guests in one hour each giving Aisleyne a hug as Mr Padgett helped as a member of the adjudicating panel for the record attempt.

The event was part of Butlins' themed 'Record Breakers' holiday breaks which have been introduced this year.

Mr Padgett said afterwards: "It was great fun and there was certainly a lot of interest in Aisleyne coming to Minehead as the Big Brother series has made her a celebrity.

"I can see why people would like to give her a hug."

• Our photograph shows Mr Padgett and Aisleyne (centre) celebrating the new record with some of the Butlins huggers. Photo submitted.

Antarctic walk record for Watchet-raised woman

WATCHET-raised Hannah McKeand (pictured) has become the fastest person to walk alone and unsupported to the geographic South Pole.
She made the 690-mile trek in 39 days, nine hours, and 33 minutes – almost two days faster than the previous record, also held by a British woman.
Hannah, aged 33, who now lives in Newbury, hauled a 100kg sledge from Hercules Inlet, on the edge of Antarctica, to the Amundsen-Scott Research Station, which marks the Pole.
She said: “I have been here before and loved the place - I wanted to visit and spend more time here.
“The record was never my primary goal for the expedition, but to have set it is incredible - the icing on the cake.”
During the expedition, Hannah lost three stone in weight on a diet of chocolate, dried fruit and nuts, salami, Kendal mint cake, and pork scratchings – and fudge cake as her only luxury.
Hannah became a full-time adventurer two years ago after working as a theatre marketing manager, and she dedicated her South Pole expedition to a close friend, Jill Fraser, who died of breast cancer earlier in 2006.
Donations to her expedition charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer can be made by logging onto the website www.justgiving.com/southpole.
She hoped her exploits would also help to encourage and inspire other people to achieve their own dreams.
Hannah has previously explored deserts in North Africa, visited villages in the remote Hindu Kush mountain range of Afghanistan, and competed in the 2005 Clipper Round the World Yacht Race.
Within the next month she will embark on a sailing challenge from Tasmania to the South Magnetic Pole, accompanied by her partner David Pryce, a master mariner.
Photo submitted.