Alex Spencer

1 month ago | cambridgeindependent.co.uk | Alex Spencer

After struggling for years with her own weight, personal trainer Gemma Rix realised that slimming clubs were not helping her to lose weight - instead they were making her feel worse because she couldn’t stick to her diets. She set off to find out what would work for women who have more than just a few pounds to lose. And she created an emotional and nutritional support programme that helped her lose 20kg, which she is now teaching to the women she coaches in and around the Cambridge region.

1 month ago | cambridgeindependent.co.uk | Alex Spencer

Best-selling crime writer Anthony Horowitz reckons he would make a terrible detective as he never spots the clues, but he could commit the perfect murder - if he didn’t have such a horror for violence in real life.

1 month ago | cambridgeindependent.co.uk | Alex Spencer

Traders claim Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors have ignored their pleas for half the permanent stalls on Cambridge market to remain to avoid “signing its death warrant”. Under civic quarter proposals that include a redesign of the market, Cambridge City Council plans to remove the 99 permanent stalls from the market and replace them with 27 stalls under a canopy. Extra gazebos, or demountable stalls, could be erected when needed.

1 month ago | cambridgeindependent.co.uk | Alex Spencer

A £41million revamp of the Guildhall should be ditched by Cambridge City Council because it could be empty in three years, Green councillors have warned. The council plans to spend up to £87m on its civic quarter project for the centre of Cambridge, which would pay for a major renovation of its Guildhall headquarters, updates to the Corn Exchange, including a new roof, and the removal of two-thirds of the permanent stalls on the market square to create entertainment space.

1 month ago | cambridgeindependent.co.uk | Alex Spencer

As Chandy Nath lay in her tent on a desolate Antarctic ice sheet 1,000 kilometres from the nearest base station, the wind seemed to be playing a strange melody. With no wildlife, no sea and no people except three other polar researchers, the only sounds for weeks on end came from the wind whistling through her tent’s poles and rattling the fabric. But it was all the inspiration she needed. She picked up her Walkman tape recorder, hoping the batteries would hold out, and began to sing.