Backbeach is a New Plymouth beach, behind the Port, hence the name, and I've painted it a number of times.

I grew up with the Rupert annuals in the fifties and sixties and was always impressed with the work of Alfred Bestall who illustrated them. I was googling him recently and discovered that he had survived the fighting in Flanders in the First World War.

Taking Rupert and his friends on their magical trips must have been a kind of therapy for him after the war - Graham Kirk