SOUTHPORT CHARITY CARNIVAL was originally organised as a one-off for the Centenary of the St John Ambulance in 1977, when John Hesketh was Corps Superintendent of the Southport Branch, and his wife, Wyn Hesketh, who was an RGN and Area Nursing Officer, decided to have a Carnival to celebrate. As it was Jubilee year, British Leyland had all their Trucks painted silver and their men dressed as Beefeaters with the Coronation Regalia magnified hundreds of sizes on their Trucks which made a spectacular parade among all the others taking part. After that people said it must not be dropped, so a small Committee was formed from various organisations and then on it grew to what is now one of the largest in the North. Regrettably John Hesketh died 15 years ago, but Wyn carried on as organisation Secretary up to 2003 when she handed over control of the event to Champion Newspapers.

CHAMPION NEWSPAPERS took over responsibility for the Southport Charity Carnival as the 2003 event closed. The team of able volunteers were no longer able to take upon themselves the rising costs of responsibility for the event and the Champion - as a campaigning newspaper in the community - was an obvious choice. The 2004 Southport Champion Charity Carnival changed some of the operational elements of the event while retaining all of the comfortable and familiar aspects that have worked so well for so many years. One major change was, unlike before, the collections made by each organisation remained entirely with that organisation, rather than all of the proceeds going into one pot and being shared from there.