Postcards designed by a bevy of world-famous music and film stars – including U2 front man Bono and Star Trek actor Benedict Cumberbatch – have helped to kick start a charity campaign to raise more than £1million to renovate a Hampstead primary school.
New End Primary School held a special launch evening for its fundraising campaign at the private view of this year’s Affordable Art Fair on Hampstead Heath, showcasing its own stall at the art fair displaying the unique postcards and other work.
Designs by Bono, Mr Cumberbatch, star of hit BBC show Sherlock, musician Julian Lennon, son of Beatles icon John Lennon, and Hollywood legend Whoopi Goldberg, along with prints donated by artists Vincent Poole and Harland Miller, fetched almost £8,000 at a silent auction held over the four-day art fair.
Mr Cumberbatch’s postcard – a hand-drawn self-portrait – proved so popular after it was posted on Twitter that auction organisers at the fair had to open a text message hotline for international bidders.
The art stall, which raised nearly £20,000 for the campaign, also featured postcards designed by Hampstead comedian David Baddiel and his partner Morwenna Banks, the comic actress, who opened the launch last Wednesday.
Hampstead mum Selina Skipwith, 41, helped organise the silent auction and manage the parent teacher committee’s stall at the art fair.
The mother-of-three, who has two children at the school, said: “We managed to get the postcards through contacts parents have and by approaching celebrities we have seen in the street.
“I think because it’s the state school in the area, they realise that with the government cutbacks the school needs the help.”
New End’s parent teacher committee, the art fair’s charity partner this year, held the stall to support their £1million bid to regenerate the dilapidated school in Streatley Place, Hampstead.
It is one of 10 schools receiving a share of £9.5million over the next 12 months from Camden Council’s Community Investment Programme (CIP), aimed at restoring schools across the borough in need of repair.
But parents at New End insist the school is in need of more than £586,000 – the amount it is set to receive under the council programme – so have taken fundraising into their own hands.
New End headteacher Karyn Ray paid tribute to the parent teacher committee’s fundraising efforts.
She said: “They have manned the stall every day for the children of this school so we are highly appreciative of them.
“It would be great to make this school more suitable for this century as opposed to last century when it was built.”
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