Northampton 'good news' magazine celebrates first birthday

The Happy Hood started by Laura Graham (left) and Paige Taylor (right) aims to "help wellbeing" with positive news

A magazine focusing solely on happy stories has said its success is down to people "crying out" for positive news.

The Happy Hood "celebrates" the people trying to improve Northampton and focuses on good news stories.

Co-founder Laura Graham said she was "sick of hearing bad news and needed some balance".

The quarterly publication has received £10,000 from The National Lottery and £3,000 from Northampton Borough Council.

Ms Graham created the magazine with her friend Paige Taylor a year ago. About 800 copies have since been distributed.

A birthday party to launch the fifth edition of the magazine has been planned at Northampton's Racecourse Pavilion on Friday.

Northampton's good news:

• County 'still shoemaking capital of the world'

• Ex-factory to be 'brought back to life'

• Alan Moore 'impressed' by Northampton Film Festival

Ms Graham said its purpose was to "celebrate independent businesses, community groups, charities and people doing great stuff to make Northampton an amazing place".

"We wanted to fight back against the negative narrative that some of the mainstream media were portraying about Northampton," she said.

The success of the magazine was down to "people crying out to hear some more positive news", Ms Graham added.

Some of the 'good news' featured in The Happy Hood

• A loyalty card for independent shops in Northamptonshire

• The growth of the 'Moulton Masters' walking football team

• An artist creating fridge magnets with pictures of Northampton buildings

• The Northampton Umbrella Fair 'crafternoons'

Paige Taylor and Laura Graham created The Happy Hood to "balance" out bad news about Northampton

She said they "didn't really need to look too far" for stories and contributions.

"We were surrounding ourselves with positive people, so it was not much of leap to celebrate these people in print form," she said.

However, Ms Graham said this had created a welcome problem, as "we can't actually fit all the good news in".

The magazine's first issue had 16 pages, but the fifth edition has 28.

Ms Graham said: "There's too much good news in Northampton. Imagine that as a headline."