The deckchair canvases and beach sun bed covers are where my bag making journey began in 2010.
I was sharing a ceramics workshop with the father of a good friend of mine.
He was one of the very first beach concessionaires on the Isle of Wight and sadly had the very early stages on Parkinson's disease.
He had become less mobile and so asked me one day, to help him remove all the damaged sun bed covers at the end of the summer season.
I really loved the fabric and asked if it was OK if I kept it- I made myself a bag.
It occurred to me that this recovering must be happening on all the beaches in the UK at the end of the season, so I started driving around the coast of the UK, to see if I could save any more of the fabrics.
I met some amazing characters on those journeys, so I made a couple of really short films in the hope of capturing some of their stories, a small attempt to preserve the heritage of the people who had worked so hard for so many years.
I've been meaning to make bags from some of the more rare deckchairs for ages and have finally put together The British Seaside Collection
Some of the canvases date as far back as the 1940's and 50's
If you would like to read more about the history of the deckchair bags, I've put a couple of shorter videos up on Youtube and Instagram.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the stories of Mr. Ken Kemp ('Kempy')