Poppy volunteers go into action around Dorchester (From Dorset Echo)

Poppy volunteers go into action around Dorchester

11:40am Monday 2nd November 2009

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DISTRIBUTING 30,000 poppies in the Dorchester area is quite a task for one man and his team of loyal helpers.

After a lifetime serving in the Navy, Graham Rhys-Jones, of Charminster, certainly fits the job. His team of volunteers will work tirelessly this week to sell all the poppies they can and hope to reach more than the £23,800 they collected last year.

Mr Rhys-Jones said: “In the last five or six years people have began to realise that the services have made a considerable sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan and really realise the importance of the poppy appeal and that certainly is good to see.”

Joining the Navy in 1958, Mr Rhys-Jones went straight to the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth to train to be a midshipman before being sent out for two and a half years.

He then trained to be an aircraft observer and ended working with Sea King helicopters in Portland in 1967. He lived in Osmington.

Mr Rhys-Jones finally became a captain on a frigate, pursuing the Russians in the Cold War, before being sent to America to teach in the US Naval War College in newport.

Since retiring he has written two books and now advises the government and talks at conferences.

For the last five years he has been running the poppy collection in and around Dorchester and said he smiles every time he sees supporters in the town walking around with a poppy.

There are more than 50 street collectors as well as door-to-door collectors and donation pots in the shops and in total 150 volunteers.

Mr Rhys-Jones added: “It is so great for me that I have the volunteers that I have because I never have to beg and cajole.

“They all volunteer so admirably and with such dedication and I would like to thank them all for this.” Mr Rhys-Jones lives in Charminster with his wife Joyce and has three children, William, 40, Anna, 39 and David, 35.

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