Week Ahead: Humber Mouth's BBC Radio commission on Clive Sullivan, Biden climate summit, the Queen's birthday Lyrid meteor shower

Humber Mouth

The creativity of East Yorkshire’s writing community is being celebrated with four new commissions in the coming week as part of the Humber Mouth literature festival.

The new stories and poems written for radio will be broadcast through a special partnership with BBC Radio Humberside.

Created by Hull City Council in 1992, the Humber Mouth literature festival celebrates the city’s creative talent and culture.

In a break from the usual festival format, during 2020 and 2021 Humber Mouth has developed a series of special projects.

A highlight of this latest event include Sidelines, a new piece of writing about Hull’s sporting hero Clive Sullivan - the rugby league legend who in 1972 became the first Black person to captain any national British side - written by his widow Rosayln Sullivan and playwright Dave Windass, which will air mid-morning on Wednesday.

It combines memories, real-life events and fiction to share an intimate take on an important chapter in sportfrom someone who knew him best.

Catherine Sadler, Hull City Council arts development officer and director of Humber Mouth, says: “Hull has always been an outstanding city for writers and these new commissions from Humber Mouth with BBC Radio Humberside will help to share voices and stories from our city, and introduce some of our most distinctive writing talent to new audiences around the region.”

BBC Radio Humberside is broadcasting all four pieces and author interviews - the other works are by Jodie Russian-Red, Cassandra Parkin and Matt Nicholson between tomorrow and Sunday.

Royal birthday

The Queen’s birthday (born 1926) falls on Wednesday, when our longest-serving monarch will reach the age of 95.

It is her actual birthday - not her ‘official’ birthday, which is celebrated in June and is usually marked by the annual Trooping the Colour parade, although that will not go ahead in its traditional form this year - but of course comes only days after the funeral of her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh.

Climate Action

US President Joe Biden will host the Leaders’ Climate Summit on Thursday and Friday.

The event to raise global ambition on climate change is taking place on Earth Day (Thursday), which was first marked in 1970 and aims to drive positive action for the planet.

President Biden took action on his first day in office to return the United States to the Paris Agreement.

Days later, on January 27, he announced that he would convene a summit to galvanize efforts by the major economies to tackle the climate crisis.

The White House says that Leaders Summit on Climate “will underscore the urgency – and the economic benefits – of stronger climate action” and “will be a key milestone on the road” to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) this November in Glasgow.

Spring stargazing

Stargazers will need to have their wits about them in the coming week, as the Lyrid meteor shower is usually active between April 16 and 25 every year.

According to the EarthSky cosmos fan website, it’s “the shower that always breaks the meteor drought that happens each year from January through (to) mid-April”.

However it is expected to peak overnight between Thursday and Friday, according to the Press Association news agency.

It is said that the best time to watch anywhere in the world is between midnight and dawn.