Things to do in Gosport: R;pplefest charity festival will bring together live music and mental health awareness after Stubbington Man's suicide

R;pplefest kicks off today at midday at St John's Church, Forton Road, Gosport (Saturday, August 12.) The family friendly festival will feature live music, DJ sets, inspirational speakers, mindfulness tents and food and drink stalls.

R;pplefest aims to shine a light on mental health and suicide prevention, and has been put together by Josh Hendy’s family and friends, to be a “wonderful celebration of life” and a “beautiful tribute” to Josh, who died by suicide at the age of 21 on November 25 2020. Josh had a love of music, DJ-ing as a hobby, and the festival will be a poignant tribute as well as a way to help others.

R;pple Suicide Prevention was set up by Josh’s sister Alice Hendy in the wake of his death.

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Alice said: "I’ve chosen to do a music festival because it was Josh’s favourite thing to do. I’ve got so many happy memories of going to festivals with him over the years.

“I’m quite apprehensive. We’ve got quite a lot of different mental health cahrities that are going to be there on the day to talk about mental health and how they can help people who might be struggling. It’s also a very packed agenda with lots of local bands and musicians coming for the whole day and we’ve never done anything like this before.

"I think it will be a really nice, packed day full of things for people to do – and for families to get involved with – but with a serious message attached to it. All of the money from the event is going towards R;pple, which will enable us to continue developing our technology and saving more lives.”

Alice, who has a background in IT, created the anti-suicide digitial tool R;pple. With the web extension intsalled, if a user searches for harmful content online they will be redirected.

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They will first be guided through a filter of breathing exercises and then very simple, uncluttered and calmly presented strategies and forums, help lines and mental health services they can access both now and longer term – accompanied with messages of hope and encouragement to keep safe. R;pple has exceeded 1.6 million downloads and intercepted more than 16,500 harmful searches.

Josh, a paint sprayer who also worked for the MoD as a security guard in Portsmouth dockyard, had been active online looking for material about suicide before his death.

Today’s event will be the first festival held by the charity.

Also set to attend the festival BBC The Apprentice star and mental health advocate Aaron Willis, who will give a motivational talk about his mental health journey. The entrepeneur works as an ambassador for the charity.

Tickets cost £15 for adults and are available to purchase via Eventbrite here. Children under the age of 12 can attend for free but must have a ticket allocated via Eventbrite. No tickets will be available to purchase on the doors.