This article was originally shared with subscribers to Bristol Live

She’s already being touted as the next big boxing superstar, has plans to fight for a world title within a year, and hasn’t lost any kind of fight since she was eight years old – but as Tiah Mai Ayton prepares for her next and biggest fight to date, she’s got other things on her mind.

The Kingswood teenager burst onto the scene last year, signed to Eddie Hearn’s famous Matchroom Boxing stable and was immediately touted as a future star.

She was just 18, still lived at home with her parents, and just as she had when she was a world champion kickboxer at the age of ten, still relied on them.

But the start of 2026 has seen big changes for the pocket rocket from east Bristol – she’s gained her independence. Not only has she turned 19, and passed her driving test, but she’s moved out of the family home, settling in a place of her own in Weston-super-Mare, close to the Weston Warriors gym she trains at.

She’s loving the independence, but not the location. “I live in Weston now, because my gym’s here, but my family all live in Bristol, so I’m always over in Bristol,” she said. “I wanna move back to Bristol though – I don’t like it here.”

Like thousands of her fellow Bristolians, who have moved from Bristol to Weston in recent years – it’s a bit of a demographic phenomenon – Tiah Mai Ayton faces a dilemma. Do you live near your work or face a commute? Tiah’s is in reverse though.

While most ex-pat Bristolians now in Weston face the commute back to the city every day, she’s moved to be closer to the gym – “It’s literally minutes away from me,” she said – but would rather be back around friends and family in Bristol.

Luckily, she passed her test a month or so ago, after several failed attempts. “It’s so much more free now, and all that,” she laughed.

Last time she stepped into a boxing ring was back in February at the Nottingham Arena. She beat up-and-coming Brazilian fighter Catherine Tacone Ramos on points in a narrow victory.

It was only her fifth professional fight, her fifth victory, but the first time she hadn’t ended the fight with a knock out.

Since then, she’s moved to a place of her own and passed her driving test – so will be going into the ring in front of thousands at the Civic Hall in Wolverhampton on Saturday having very much stepped into what young people these days call ‘adulting’.

She’s supremely confident about facing veteran Stevi Levy, disagreeing with the suggestion that fighting a 33-year-old seasoned pro who has won 15 fights and lost four will be her toughest challenge yet.

“No I don’t. I fought a Brazilian in my last fight, and I reckon she’ll be tougher than this fight. And I think I’ve had tough amateur fights. But Stevi’s a name and everything – she’s good. But I don’t reckon it’s going to be my hardest fight,” she said.

With all the talk of Tiah Mai Ayton’s prospects – boosted regularly by Eddie Hearn’s showmanship – it’s important to remember the 19-year-old has only fought five fights. And, because she generally knocks her opponent out or stops them within three or four rounds, she’s only boxed 22 rounds professionally in her entire career so far.

By contrast, Stevi Levy, a Norfolk-based fighter who has predominantly boxed in the north of England, has been boxing professionally for seven years, had 19 fights and gone through 123 rounds in the ring.

“I’ve been watching her, I’ve watched her fights,” explained Tiah Mai. “And she’s good, I give her credit and stuff, but I just think I’ve fought better people than her,” she added.

The fight will be televised live on boxing channel DAZN, and Tiah Mai said she’s often conscious of the crowds and the TV audience, until she gets in the ring.

“When I think about it before, I get all nervous, and I’m thinking ‘oh my God, there’s so many people there, there’s cameras and everything’,” she said.

“But as soon as you walk out and everything, you’re just so locked in and all you’re thinking about is the fight – you don’t really think about everyone else there,” she added.

Tiah Mai first graced the pages of the Bristol Post back in 2014, after she won the TFC Cadet British title as an eight-year-old kickboxer.

She’s one of four youngsters pictured on page 39 from the Cobra Kickboxing Club in Kingswood, holding a belt that’s almost as big as she is.

She started getting into martial arts and kickboxing at the age of six, and although she lost a couple of bouts when she started competing, the youngsters who beat her were soon seen off in return bouts.

Over the next few years, the Bristol Post reported her successes. In 2015, she won the WRSA European title at a tournament in France at the age of nine, alongside her sister Maddie and cousin Jamarie.

And by the age of 10, in early 2017, she was crowned world kickboxing champion for her weight, and got the full photocall experience.

Since the age of eight, and that first kickboxing success, she’s gone through her entire junior, amateur and now professional career without losing a single fight. Not one.

She transitioned from martial arts to traditional boxing in her mid-teens and never looked back, and can’t really remember what losing feels like.

Since turning pro at 18 and signing for Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom, life has changed and everything is a lot more serious now, but Tiah said she’s loving every minute, although her new fame is a bit baffling.

“It’s amazing to be honest,” she said. “I’m so grateful for all the opportunities that I’ve had. But it is so much better than amateurs, being pro. Everything I thought of, it is all just gone how I thought it would go, the knockouts and all that, and reels and everything. So, it is great,” she added.

“When I go out and stuff, I get recognised and people ask for photos. And it’s weird, because it’s just…I just still look at me and I’m just Tiah. I just do this cause I love it. I don’t do it for money or anything. I just do it because I love boxing and I’m just good at it.

“And then I feel like my life has changed because like now I’ve got my own place, I’ve moved away from my parents and all that. And so, I’ve had good opportunities come with it all,” she added.

The boxing world is sitting up and taking notice. At the end of 2025, she made history after becoming the first woman fighter ever to be named as the UK Prospect of the Year by boxing bible Boxing News

When she turned pro, Tiah Mai Ayton told the world she had three ambitions – to fight at Madison Square Garden, the iconic New York venue, to be world champion, and to fight at Ashton Gate – her family are all big Bristol City fans.

Ironically, she’s already done the latter, albeit as a child in a junior event in the concourse. The dream would be to fight for the world title on the pitch, cheered on by thousands.

Tiah said she laments not having fought in Bristol at all in her pro career so far – despite the city’s famous boxing pedigree, there is a distinct lack of venues.

Often the biggest boxing nights in Bristol for up and coming fighters are at the temporarily converted underground service yard underneath The Galleries shopping centre. It’s not somewhere Tiah Mai Ayton is desperately keen to appear.

“I wouldn’t mind doing something like fighting overseas, I think that’d be a good experience, but nothing beats English crowds.” she said.

“I would love to fight in Bristol. I’ve got loads of people that support me. so it would be great, because it is hard for people to travel nowadays, with the money and that,” she added.

She’s already a name for the bill for the TV companies, and is what they call in the sport ‘a draw’ – because she has the rare punching power among women fighters to deliver a knock-out blow. But what is it actually like to have that power? Boxing is pretty much the only sport where the aim is to hurt the opponent and render them unable to continue.

“Sometimes it’s different. One time I dropped someone and then I heard my coach shouting ‘don’t rush’, so I thought ‘ok’, I just took my time, I didn’t go running at her. Sometimes it’s like that, and I take my time more because I want to get the rounds.

“But then other times, if I know I’ve hurt them, and it’s getting closer to the end of the round, and I know I could stop them and get them out of there, I just think ‘oh I might as well just do it’.

“It’s just… when you fight, you just know when you could stop someone. And sometimes people smile at you when you hurt them and that’s how you know. You know that that landed… like that landed good,” she added.

Her trajectory might seem rapid, but that’s often the case for women fighters. “Females move (up) a lot quicker than males,” she explained.

“Because in men’s boxing you have journeymen, then you have the middle, then you have the top. But with women, it’s just journeywomen, and it’s just top women, there’s no middle. So women get pushed a lot quicker and there’s not a lot of female fighters. So I’ll probably be fighting for a title, hopefully this year and maybe a world title at the start of next year,” she added.

First, she’s got to beat Stevi Levy, and then see what happens.

Actor James Cartwright has spoken for the first time since he was seen bowing out of the ITV soap in dramatic fashion

Coronation Street star James Cartwright has spoken for the first time since he was seen bowing out of the long-running show as Theo Silverton.

His time on the ITV soap has been nothing short of dramatic, but on Friday (May 1) night, the villain was seen meeting a deadly end as he was revealed as the victim of a shock murder on the famous cobbles.

Fans will recall that actor James joined Corrie in March last year in the role of builder Theo, and as those who watch know, he quickly found himself involved in a hard-hitting, coercively controlling, and abusive relationship storyline with Gareth Pierce, who plays Todd Grimshaw.

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It has been in recent weeks and months that Theo’s behaviour has slowly been exposed to those in Weatherfield, eventually leading to Todd bravely going to the police about the horrific domestic violence he has suffered at the hands of his now-husband following a devastating attack which left him in the hospital.

But as Corrie fans already knew, Theo was one of the five possible victims of a murder set to take place on the cobbles, and during Monday’s (April 27) episode of the show, breaking the condition of an order to stay away from Todd, Theo wasn’t pleased to find his former partner at their flat, getting ready to leave for Thailand.

After another altercation with Todd, and George Shuttleworth who came to his rescue, Theo managed to escape the police, only to end up confronting Todd once more. The undertaker had jumped in a taxi to head to the airport for his trip, only to realise he had forgotten his phone. He stopped the taxi and asked the driver to wait while he went back to get it, only to find Theo facing him on the dimly lit street, holding his missing phone.

The next time we saw them was during Friday’s (May 1) episode, when Todd played a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse to outsmart a vengeful Theo, and Summer Spellman found herself caught in the crossfire when she came face-to-face with a sinister Theo. Soon, outside, a jovial Betsy was given the shock of her life as she stumbled across the villain’s lifeless body.

Speaking for the first time about Theo’s exit from the soap, James told Inside Soap: “He is no more. Celebrate. He’s gone. God, wasn’t he awful? What an awful, awful man.

“I join a long line of people who’ve met Corrie’s own brand of justice.”

Speaking on what happens next, he added: “It’s been a really exciting and thrilling thing. And a who-done-it is really fun, I think. And then it only just starts because you’ve realised who’s killed. But then the next stage of it is you’re going, who’s done it – because now all we don’t know is who’s dead, but now we’ve got to who’s done it.”

And sending a message to fans he said: “Thank you absolutely from the bottom of my heart to anyone who’s given any time to watch anything I’ve done over the past 18 months and been a part of it.”

“I’m not [being] positive, I want to be realistic, it’s different being positive, not positive because today is sunny, it’s Italian weather, and I’m positive, no, no. I want to be realistic, and for that I’m like, so I feel this pressure to change the perspective. The same perspective you can see in different ways,” De Zerbi continued.

“The ghastly fact is that Jews are on everybody’s list, all of those hateful groups, whether you’re extreme right, whether you’re extreme left, whether you’re Islamist terrorist, whether you’re right-wing terrorist, and some hostile states as well now with some sort of Iranian-related threats. There’s a ghastly Venn diagram that they’re at the middle of.”

If you’re looking to grow the best tomatoes, Monty Don has urged gardeners to avoid one big mistake in May.

Planting and growing your own tomatoes is an enjoyable and fulfilling experience that results in fresh, tasty and healthy fruit that surpasses the flavour of store-bought options. One of the perks of growing your own tomatoes is the wide array of varieties available, such as cherry, plum, and beefsteak, each offering unique tastes, shapes, and uses in cooking.

However, to get any variety of tomatoes to flourish, there’s one thing gardeners need to make sure they do this month. Sharing important jobs to do outdoors, Monty Don took to his gardening blog to share that now is the time to be planting tomatoes. However, this task comes with a warning gardeners need to take notice of.

Monty pointed out that tomatoes should only be planted in the greenhouse at the start of may, and gardeners should avoid planting any outside until late May.

He said: “It is time to plant out tomatoes in a greenhouse – although wait till the end of the month for outdoor ones.

“This is because tomatoes hate too much temperature fluctuation, and May nights can be chilly – especially if the days are warm.”

Jane Perrone gardening expert who presents and produces a houseplant podcast, and has written a range of gardening books, agreed with Monty as she claimed that this is the “number one error” tomato growers make in May.

She said, “The number one error in the month of May is being lulled into a false sense of security by the weather and planting tomatoes out too early.

“Tomatoes stop growing once the temperature drops below 10 to 12°C at night, and ideally they need 15°C in the day.

“And frost will kill them, so wait till the frost risk is completely over before sending them outside for good – which is the end of May in my neck of the woods, which is southern England.”

Planting tomatoes in gardens too soon in May, when the soil is still too cold, can hinder their growth, disrupt pollination, leading to lower quality fruit, and even raise the chances of fungal diseases in plants due to the moist weather.

However, when tomatoes are planted outdoors in late May, the likelihood of frost damage is minimal since the weather tends to be much sunnier and warmer.

For those who are starting early and planting tomatoes in the greenhouse, it’s important to incorporate a good amount of soil mixed with plenty of compost. Additionally, if you’re using a pot, make sure it’s at least 30cm deep to support healthy root growth.

Monty said: “Plant them deeply, burying them right up to the bottom leaf, as the buried section of stem will develop extra roots.”

Speaking ahead of the final weekend of campaigning, the First Minister said: “Throughout this campaign, the SNP has taken our positive, ambitious message to the people of Scotland about how we will improve the NHS, support people with the cost of living, and deliver the fresh start of independence.

She has never believed that the labelled sketch by Holbein actually shows Boleyn because, over the years, questions have arisen regarding certain details such as: the sitter’s informal dress, the name being inscribed in an 18th Century hand (long after Boleyn’s death), and the light-coloured hair and full chin, when there are references to her having dark hair and a thin neck.

Here’s hoping those taking part get the weather they want!

It’s a new month and already time for another Bank Holiday weekend that’s set to bring more changeable weather after the recent hot spell and an April that was drier and warmer than average for much of the UK.

Looking ahead to the long weekend weather and temperatures could reach 15°C in Belfast on Sunday as thousands of runners are set to take to the streets for the Phoenix Energy Belfast City Marathon.

Taking off from Stormont and finishing at Ormeau Park, thousands of runners will be taking on the 26.2 mile race to celebrate the event’s 44th year.

READ MORE: Belfast City Marathon 2026 road closures, route, transport, results, Expo details and more ahead of race dayREAD MORE: Police issue Irish Cup final traffic warning ahead of Windsor Park clash

Met Office meteorologist Simon Partridge says changeable conditions are forecast across the UK over the May Day weekend.

“There will be some bright spells in there as well on Saturday, but there will also be showers, particularly across northern and western parts of the UK,” said Mr Partridge.

Rain is forecast across the country on Sunday and temperatures will continue to cool towards averages for May.

“By the time we get to Monday, we’re actually going to see temperatures roughly where they should be for this time of year,” Mr Partridge said.

“We’re looking at elevens and twelves (degrees Celsius) in the north and fifteens and sixteens in the south, so it will feel quite fresh and chilly compared to what we’ve had.”

According to provisional figures from the Met Office, Northern Ireland received rainfall last month that was close to expected levels, while all four UK nations recorded a higher mean temperature in April than the long-term average.

Here’s what we can expect in Belfast this Bank Holiday this weekend:

Saturday:

A largely dry start but rather cloudy. Showers will develop, especially from late morning onwards, and some of these will be heavy and perhaps thundery at times. Maximum temperature 17°C.

Outlook for Sunday to Tuesday:

Cloudy on Sunday with a chance of showers. Sunny spells and a few showers on Monday and Tuesday. Remaining cooler than recent days.

UK long range weather forecast: Wednesday 6 May – Friday 15 May

A fairly quiet start to the period looks likely with many areas seeing a good deal of dry weather. That said we are unlikely to see a return of the completely dry and warm weather we have see in recent days, with clear or sunny periods and showers more likely.

Toward the latter part of the period a trend toward more changeable weather is favoured although there should still be some drier intervals. After a cold start to the period, especially in the north, temperatures likely returning close to average later.

For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here.

Simon Wade has taken the reins of the 16th Century Punch Bowl Inn in the upmarket village of Marton Cum Grafton, just south of Boroughbridge in the Vale of York.

The venue adds to four others he owns in the area: The Grantham Arms, The Tapp and Tutt and the Fox and Hounds in Boroughbridge, plus the Blue Bell at nearby Arkendale

As previously reported Simon bought the pub because it is a ‘heritage pub’ that had been neglected and it would fit in with the rest of his portfolio.

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Simon Wade takes over The Punch Bowl at Marton Cum Grafton

Former owners Provenance Inn previously had it on the market for £695,000.

General manager Laura Addle says the Punch Bowl has had a complete renovation.

“Everything has been redecorated and re-upholstered. Simon’s wife has designed the upholstery and the interior. She’s put in extra lighting and made it really cost.

Simon Wade inside his fifth pub (Image: Darren Greenwood)

“We are bringing the Punch Bowl back to life. It’s a stunning pub with a fantastic history.”

Among the first customers, following today’s opening at noon, were couple Charles Martindale and Liz Prettejohn, who were making their first visit after a trip to Fountains Abbey.

Charles said: The pub has lots of character.”

“It’s very pleasant said Liuz. The staff are very welcoming.”

(Image: Darren Greenwood)

“We wanted a decent pub that served a decent lunch.”.

Raffa and Ula Zawistowicz from Poland, but live locally, were also making their first visit.

Ula said: “It looks absolutely gorgeous. We are about to try the food menu. I expect it will be amazing.”

General manager Laura Addle (Image: Darren Greenwood)

Outside enjoying the extensive beer garden were friends Amy Harland of Harrogate and Helen Goodwin of Leeds.

Simon and the team oustdide the Punch Bowl (Image: Darren Greenwood)

Amy said: “We came today because it has re-opened. We wanted to be nosey. It’s amazing. It looks incredible. So far the food is amazing.”

Helen said what they had was delicious and she loved the décor and the atmosphere, adding the staff are very welcoming.

Bob Grainer of PPS of York (Image: Darren Greenwood)

Village resident Jill Hewick of Marton was also enjoying the warm sun with friend Jo Badazona from Leeds, the she was originally from Marton.

Staffers Toby Glassin and James Bennett (Image: Darren Greenwood)

Jill said of the pub. “It looks good. Simon is the best person to own it. I was praying he was going to buy it. He’s certainly turned it around.”

Jo said: “It looks very good. It needed a new lease of life and somebody who cared for it.”

Back inside Bob Grainger of York firm PPS said: “It looks fantastic, it’s fabulous. I can’t believe how different it looks. It’s a transformation.”

Raffa and Ula Zawistowicz enjoy the sun (Image: Darren Greenwood)

Owner Simon Wade added: “I’m incredibly proud of how we have managed to transform a pub that was at its lowest. We are looking forward to the future, of regenerating its popularity and providing a sensational local pub for the village.”