Student's purple windfall

Nov 23 2006 By Graham Young, Birmingham Mail

ROCK band Purplemelon will play a top-up fees protest concert tonight and give one student the chance to win £1,000.

The Sentenced to Debt Gig at Millennium Point has sold out but a raffle will see one audience member walking away £1,000 better off.

The concert has been organised by the West Midlands area of the National Union of Students to highlight how growing numbers of students are joining the sex industry to help pay their way through university.

Purplemelon's frontman Tom Hill has rewritten the lyrics to a song originally called Queen Diva specially for the event.

Now called Queen Dollar, the protest song will be released as a CD in aid of students and as a soundtrack for a national campaign against fees.

The West Midlands NUS will brief a Parliamentary committee on the problems of student debt at the House of Commons next Wednesday.

Purplemelon manager Geoff Baker said: "Research by the National Union of Students in Birmingham has revealed that the problem of student debt is far costlier than was previously believed, with many now facing still paying off student loans until they are approaching 50.

"Female students are openly now working as strippers in city centre lap dance clubs whilst others have been recruited by local escort agencies, " he said.

Don't miss Week 11 of our exclusive Purplemelon Diary column tomorrow.

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