Cup cakes courtesy of daughter No1

Today we celebrated my Dad’s 80th Birthday at an event organised at Furzey Gardens at Minstead in the New Forest.

Dad spent his early career as commercial artist for the original Selwood company (the plant hire and pump people) and helped design the gallery at Furzey back in the 1970s when the gardens and Minstead Lodge were acquired by the Selwood family.

It seemed a very fitting venue for celebrating his life and work to date and I was delighted when Tim Selwood offered me use of the Gardens and Furzey House for this private event outside of the official opening season. It was fascinating to re-visit a place I remember from childhood outings and also to learn more about the excellent work the Furzey Charitable Trust and Minstead Training project do for those with learning disabilities.

As part of the birthday event I created a small exhibition of Dad’s work from over the years which include a number of paintings he has produced during the last ten years that have rarely been seen outside of the family home. Thanks to my brother’s diligent efforts on a scanner and the masterful photography and album production of Ben Goode, we have captured a selection of Dad’s work digitally that we remember being created over the years.

I have added the output of some of these efforts to a portfolio website to accompany the event and to give exposure to some of the lovely paintings beyond the walls of the family home – http://www.brianhoskins.org.uk/

Thanks again to all those who helped make this a delightful, fun and memorable afternoon and I very much hope to be organising a follow-up event in 10 years time. If Dad has just enough of the family genes that enabled my 98 year old Aunt to attend the event and regale me with tales of how she used tour around the New Forest pubs on a motorbike (as I used to do in my youth) then hopefully I will be writing a similar post in 2022!

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