Andy Murrill was the editor of the Reading Evening Post, our predecessor, when the awards were launched and, with his deputy Hilary Scott, was the creative spark that brought the town together.
He was quickly joined by Sally Swift, now a patron of the awards, alongside many other people and organisations who were enthused by the idea.
At Friday’s event, he shared that story.
Inspired by an award ceremony he saw on television back in 1999, Andy encouraged people to organise Reading’s very own version.
“It took us until 2004 to get the organisation and the money together to do it,” he said.
The first awards had 10 categories, and enough sponsors came forward for the event.
“There are two very important things we had as a concept of the awards: One, they were a celebration of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. We were very aware a lot of those nominated come from the most deprived communities in our town, and we knew they wouldn’t be able to afford tickets to the event.
“So we knew it had to be free and we knew we would need sponsors to make it possible.”
“The second thing we wanted to do was to be bigger than any awards that Reading had hosted before, and we wanted it to be on telly.”
To do that, they reached out to the biggest celebrities they could. Whitley lad comedian Ricky Gervais recorded a video interview, but former Starmaker pupil Kate Winslet was away in Hollywood and no one knew how to contact Who Wants To Be A Millionaire star Chris Tarrant, who grew up in Reading.
All that changed thanks to serendipity.
The Post ran a story on one Basil Tarrant, who was awarded the Military Cross for heroism during the Second World War – it was Chris’ father, although they didn’t mention that fact until the last paragraph.
Chris saw the feature and called Andy to thank him for it.
“I thought, ‘This is the chance’,” Andy recalled. “We invited him to host the Pride of Reading Awards and said there was no money, and he was ‘I’ll do it’.”
The first awards were held in the Renaissance Hotel – now Pentahotel – and Andy said Chris was “absolutely wonderful” to everyone who attended.
“He’s done the awards every year since… I can’t thank him enough to be honest,” he told guests.
He added: “As they’ve gone on, the awards have got bigger and better.
“Thank you to our sponsors, because without you, it just wouldn’t happen, and it wouldn’t be what it is.
“We started with nothing, just a dream and a hope. I never thought we’d have got to this 20 years later.”
