Welcome to Hassocks Life’s Hassocks Goes Gold event page. Here you will find our most recent information for everything Gold in Hassocks.

Every September, something rather special happens in the village: Hassocks Goes Gold. While many of you are aware that, in 2017, a much-loved Hassocks resident and Windmills pupil, Pearl Dixie Bartlett-Bundy died from bone cancer, aged ten, but newcomers to the village may wonder what this is all about. Back in our August 2019 Hassocks Life issue, Rachel and Jamie Bartlett-Bundy introduced their wish for Hassocks to go gold in memory of their daughter, Pearl Dixie to fundraise vital funds for research to stop similar tragedies affecting other families.

Introducing Hassocks Goes Gold for 2026

By Rachel Bartlett-Bundy

Hassocks Goes Gold returns for another fabulous month of gold fundraising this September. This year’s gold theme will be golden pineapples! We’re turning Hassocks tropical this September!

Drawings of sun-drenched, plump and juicy pineapples all glowing and gold will be brightening up the village and helping to raise money for the Children & Young People’s Cancer Association. The PearlPower fund now stands at a whopping £163,000 and we have now managed to help fund our sixth research project; a really inspiring legacy for our beautiful Pearl whose life was cut so tragically short aged just ten years old.

Adults and children alike are all invited to enter the annual drawing competition for the gold poster. Draw your very own pineapple or colour in the pre-printed one on the entry form. It’s completely free to enter and in September the winners from each age category will receive fabulous prizes and be featured on the Hassocks Goes Gold poster! Plus, all entries will be included in the fantastic annual Parklands Road Art Gallery.

Free entry forms are available to download on the Hassocks Goes Gold Facebook page (scan QR code), via Hassocks’ schools or to pick up from QD Stationery! The deadline for entries is Friday 3rd July.

But of course, it’s never just about the poster! The competition is on to grow the tallest, prettiest or new for this year the biggest-headed sunflower and, in September, the sponsored trail of Giant Gold Bows will be back, along with the ever-popular daily Facebook auctions, our craft, facepainting and tombola stalls at the village markets, and the Golden Gala finale extravaganza on Friday 25th September.

September in Hassocks is all about gold, it’s all about raising awareness and the research funds desperately needed to find kinder and more effective treatments for the childhood cancers with such poor outcomes, it’s all about community fun and this year it’s all about golden pineapples!

https://www.justgiving.com/page/hgg2026

Now is the time, to start growing sunflowers

By Rachel BartlettBundy

Hassocks Goes Gold returns for another fabulous month of gold fundraising this September. This year’s gold theme will be ‘golden pineapples’! We’re turning Hassocks tropical this September!

The PearlPower fund now stands at a whopping £163,000 and we have now managed to help fund our SIXTH research project, a really inspiring legacy for our beautiful Pearl whose life was cut so tragically short aged just ten.

We will share more about the annual poster competition in next month’s issue of Hassocks Life, but, in the meantime, now is the perfect time to start thinking about growing sunflowers. The competition is on to grow the tallest, prettiest or – new for this year – biggest-headed sunflower.

Here’s some advice from sunflower competition sponsor Matt Burnett from Maple Leaf Gardens – to help us all to get started...
Sunflower seed can be sown straight in the ground in late April or early May. Matt recommends sowing in pots in March or April.

• Fill 7.5/9cm pot with peat free compost cover seed with 1cm of compost
• Lightly water with rose on a small watering can
• Keep on sunny/warm window sill until signs of germination
• Transfer to greenhouse/cold frame/covered propagator in April as weather warms preventing plants getting too ‘leggy’
• Plant out in sheltered/sunny position when around 30cm tall. Add compost to planting hole as they like a rich soil
• Protect from slugs/snails with 10mm shingle/eggshells/coffee grounds/ organic slug control
• Most sunflowers need staking, especially taller varieties, or tying into fences/trellis. Stake early to give plenty of support
• Keep well watered throughout summer and feed with liquid tomato food as flowers develop

Matt says to look for these varieties to grow: Velvet Queen (1-1.5m), Titan (2.5m), and Claret (1-1.5m).

Intrepid brothers, Jamie BartlettBundy and John Bartlett completed their Paddle4Pearl challenge earlier this month, despite the appalling Scottish weather! Torrential rain stopped trains and emergency services across central Scotland, but the determined duo continued to paddleboard!

After three days, they had covered 100km from Bowling Harbour on the West Coast to Edinburgh on the east. Covering first the Forth & Clyde Canal and then the Union Canal, their journey took in 20 locks, several tunnels, high aqueducts, and navigation of the Falkirk Wheel. Their heroic efforts were the finale of an amazing month of fundraising in Hassocks, raising funds for research into childhood cancer. Jamie and Rachel lost their ten-year-old daughter Pearl to cancer in 2017, and have since been fundraising to find kinder and more effective treatments for childhood cancer. To date the #PearlPower fund, overseen by the Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group, has raised enough to fund not one but two new research projects to fund kinder and more effective treatments for childhood cancer. With the efforts of this year’s Hassocks Goes Gold campaign raising over £13,000 and the recent Paddle4Pearl, they have smashed the incredible milestone of £100K. Rachel says:
“September is always an exhausting but very exciting month of gold in Hassocks, and the Scottish paddleboarding adventure has been a wonderful finale. Although the reason behind our Hassocks Goes Gold is the worst tragedy for our family, it’s important to us we fundraise by creating events that are fun that the entire village can get behind.”

Find out more: www.bit.ly/2FZK1RF