Suffolk baker who raised £110,000 for Help for Heroes nominated for Pride of Britain Award

  • ITV News Anglia's Callum Fairhurst meets Pride of Britain nominee David Brown

A charity baker whose cake stall has raised more than £110,000 for a military charity has been nominated for a Pride of Britain Award.

David Brown from Beccles in Suffolk started baking with his wife Pat after their daughter returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan in 2009.

"It just started with a small stall in the front garden and from then it just snowballed," said Mr Brown. "Every penny we make goes to Help for Heroes."

The couple had raised almost £50,000 together when Pat died in 2016.

"After she died it hit me and I didn't want to do anything," said Mr Brown.

"I went off the rails a little bit, and my daughter said, what are you going to do about Help for Heroes?

"And I said… mum [Pat] would want me to carry on, so I said we must get started up again."

David Brown bakes around 1,000 cakes a year for charity. Credit: ITV News Anglia

Mr Brown now makes more than a thousand cakes a year and has raised £110,000, earning him the nickname Lord Drizzle of Beccles.

"Lemon drizzle cake is the most popular seller," said Mr Brown. "I can never, never make enough.

"Now when we get to the colder weather, there'll be carrot cakes and chocolate Guinness cakes. Because they have a cream cheese topping on them we can't do them in the hot weather as it just melts and runs everywhere."

  • David Brown is one of eight nominees from ITV News Anglia in the fundraiser of the year category at the Daily Mirror Pride of Britain Awards, with a winner to be selected for the East and the West of the region.

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