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Thank you for featuring my beach hut on your website. 

I am a first time beach hut owner. I retired in 2019 after 33 years in the city as a commodity trader and then lawyer. I bought the hut in November 2019 with a half baked idea to use it to fundraise and to do some art. I have done one mural before; in 2002 in the slums in Dehli, India, volunteering with a charity called Asha, I painted the internal wall of a children’s schoolroom with a Jungle Book theme. 

I picked the Poppy appeal because I bought the hut around Poppy Day and as I was looking at the various locations and huts for sale, poppies were everywhere. My Grandad served with the Honourable Artillery Company, 1st, 2nd and 3rdBattalions between 1915 and 1919. He was in the trenches in France in the viciously cold winter of 1916-17 and sent home for a time with trench foot. As a young child I remember his frequent discomfort with that leg, but stout refusal to talk about how he got it, or anything to do with the war.

The possibility of making the front of the hut look like a whole poppy field was too good to resist. I started painting in the summer when lockdown eased and toilets were opened, and basically haven’t stopped !  It’s still not finished I know I will be touching up and adding to it indefinitely. But that’s quite appropriate, it will never be done it will always need attention. 

When Poppy Day 2020 came around again it seemed fitting to do something extra to make people smile; particularly all those lovely older folk who walk the beaches. They know what it is to rally and made serious sacrifices for the greater good during times of national crisis.

 By my art installation I wanted to affirm them and those values that they stood for. 

I have had lots of help, encouragement and tea from my beach hut neighbours and only kind words from passers by. Some have become firm friends and helped me in really practical ways. I will continue to paint as soon as the temperatures allow it. I’ve got evolving plans for the rest of the hut inside and out. Watch the space ! 

If you want to donate please go to my fundraising webpage https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/poppybeachhut

Thank you all, Holland residents, for your kind, deeply generous spirit. As Brits our borders truly do define us don’t they ?  It starts and ends on the beaches.