A BUDE woman has decided to sell her business to focus on her son’s recovery from cancer.

Sarah Penny has worked in Four Seasons Florists in Bude for 20 years, owning it for nearly nine of those and has recently taken the decision to sell the business so that she can concentrate solely on her son, Talan, who was diagnosed with a rare cancer earlier this year that only 80 to 90 people in the United Kingdom are diagnosed with each year.

She has assured any customers that the shop is being taken over by the very capable hands of Sophie Pillman, who has worked with Sarah since last October and is currently at Bicton College studying floristry.

Sophie will also have the help of Andrea Hooke who has been in Four Seasons for nearly five years.

The shop closed on Monday earlier this week and opens again this Saturday when Sophie will be able to show off her new look Four Seasons.

Sophie said: “It’s a great opportunity for me — I always planned to eventually own a shop and this has come up sooner than I intended but I love it here and it’s too good an opportunity to miss.

“I’m looking forward to putting my own stamp on the place, get a nice window display done and start this exciting challenge really.

“We will open again on Saturday, May 21 so please come in and have a look around, come say hello and meet me. It’s always been a very friendly, popular shop and I hope that’s going to continue. Sarah will still be about when she can when we are busy — I won’t lose her completely just yet!”

On coming to the decision to sell, Sarah said: “When I made the decision to sell it was not a hard one, at the time Talan was really ill — he’d just been diagnosed, I talked it over with my partner and daughter, and decided it was the only way forward.”

There has been a lot of local support for Talan and his family since the diagnosis and the first real act of support was from his close friend Hannah Adamson, who, along with others, created a Facebook page called ‘Talan’s Journey’, to allow friends and supporters to follow Talan through his battle with the disease.

After creating the page, Rhys Sycamore, Talan’s sister Tegan’s best friend, and Erinne Bickleand, a childhood friend, along with others organised an event at BED nightclub in Bude which was open to all ages, with under 18s welcome until 12am.

Tickets were £5, and that event alone raised an astonishing £4,610.

At first Sarah was a bit uneasy about the event when it was initially mentioned, but after talking things over with her partner Jon and Lorraine, Talan’s nurse from the Teenage Cancer Trust, she came around to the idea and accepted that there were a lot of people who wanted to do their bit and help in anyway they could.

Since then there have also been other fundraisers including a ‘dartathon’ held recently by Bude Social Club, which raised £1,500, and Wooda Farm Holiday Park held a wine and wisdom that raised £700 which Santander matched.

They, at Talan’s request, have bought a new TV for the day room, a new rollaway bed, and games console for the Yeo ward at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital where Talan is receiving treatment.

Sarah said: “I‘ve been left so humbled by it all. It’s been overwhelming the support we have in our community.

“We have used the money raised for fuel mainly, and have bought Talan a super duper feather, all singing-all dancing mattress topper for his bed — it is difficult to get him out of bed most days so he loves it.

“After chemo he is hoping to go skiing as well, and in the next few weeks is hoping to stay with his sister in London if he is well enough.

“We hoped to take Talan to France three weeks ago when we were all going to the boat show in the south of France but he caught a cold between chemo sessions and was really poorly so we couldn’t go.”

The fundraisers aren’t stopping either as Dept 26, the local mountain bike club run by Shaun Courtenay, are riding coast to coast the total of 127 miles from Minehead in North Devon to Plymouth, crossing both Exmoor and Dartmoor in only two days. This challenge will also benefit Cancer Research.

Another fundraiser taking place soon is the Cornish Coastal Challenge which will be taken on by Bude siblings Samuel and Poppy Jennings along with their dad Paul.

This challenge will see the group walk the length of Cornwall along the coastal path and they’ll be raising money for both Talan and Ben Bennett and CLIC Sargent who have helped both families.

Sarah is trying, where she can, to help and join in with some of the fundraisers.

She said: “I am helping with the Dept 26 bike ride, driving the riders to the start and collecting from the finish — I really wanted to help.

“Also I, as well as Talan, fingers crossed, will walk back with Poppy and Samuel from Widemouth to Bude when they finish their coastal challenge.”

For further information about the two challenges and to donate visit https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/dept26coast2coast and http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/samuelscycle.

Updates about Sam and Poppy’s challenge can also be found by searching for Samscycle on Facebook, where they have thanked a lot of businesses around the Bude area for displaying collection tins and sponsor forms.