Palgrave Primary School and Beckford and Lewis Financial Planning from Diss win Royal British Legion’s 2024 Window Display Competition

Poignant artwork depicting soldiers and poppies helped a Diss business win a major accolade for a stunning window display.

Pupils from Palgrave Primary School joined forces with Beckford and Lewis Financial Planning to help create the showpiece.

Much to the delight of the children, their hard work helped the town firm to win the Royal British Legion’s 2024 Window Display Competition, which was focussed on the theme of remembrance.

In recognition of their achievement, members of the Diss and District branch of the Royal British Legion, alongside staff from Beckford and Lewis, visited the school before the Christmas holidays to thank the children for their contributions.

Teacher Julie Cook said: “Art is my passion, so we were over the moon when we found out we that Beckford and Lewis had won.

“One of our parents works there and I believe it was her idea to get the children involved, so I wanted the display to be poignant, and to get people to stop and think.

“We recently read War Horse by Michael Morpurgo as our literacy focus, which the children created silhouettes of horses for.

“So, for the display, they did some of soldiers only using black, and then colour pastels for the poppies to make them really stand out.”

The work was then reproduced to fill the window of Beckford and Lewis in Market Place, which drew plenty of praise from passers-by.

“They had a lot of comments on the wonderful artwork, which was so lovely to hear,” added Mrs Cook.

The business was presented with a glass trophy for winning the competition, which co-director Eleanor Lewis gave to the school in recognition of the children’s fine work.

In a Facebook post, the business said: “Our windows looked fabulous thanks to Mrs Cook and class 4 at Palgrave Primary School. Therefore, we thought it only right to present them with the trophy.”