St Oswald's Hospice marks 40 years of care with a record-breaking Peter Rabbit auction

All summer long, families across Newcastle and North Tyneside went hunting for rabbits. Peter Rabbit: Tales on the Tyne, a trail of uniquely decorated sculptures, was St Oswald's Hospice's way of marking 40 years of care, and on 13 October it came to a spectacular close.

Supporters gathered in person and online at Newcastle Civic Centre for the grand finale auction, after a Farewell Weekend that welcomed almost 3,000 visitors to say goodbye to the fluffle. Thirty-four sculptures from the trail went under the hammer, along with six exclusive lots, including a special Snowdog marking ten years since the hospice's first art trail, the Great North Snowdogs, in 2016.

The bidding was fierce. The classic Peter Rabbit, painted by Jodie Silverman, sold for £21,000, but the star of the night was A Love Letter to the British Countryside, a book bench painted by Jina Gelder to commemorate the 160th anniversary of Beatrix Potter's birth. After a three-way bidding battle it sold for £52,500, the highest price ever paid for a sculpture across all four of the hospice's art trail auctions. When the auction total stood at £294,500, guests pledged donations to close the gap, and the evening finished on a phenomenal £300,000.

"I am absolutely delighted that we've achieved this fantastic result, the highest ever raised at one of our art trail auctions," said chief executive Steph Edusei. The trail also involved hundreds of schoolchildren, who adopted and decorated their own sculptures thanks to learning programme sponsor Northumbrian Water.

That kind of community support matters. St Oswald's provides free, expert and compassionate care for people of all ages living with progressive, life-limiting conditions, along with their families and carers. Its services cost around £12 million a year, and roughly half of that must be raised through charitable donations. A 40th Birthday Appeal aims to raise £40,000 towards running costs and is already well on its way.

The hospice's network of charity shops plays its part too. Its Gateshead shop on West Street recently gained a striking 95ft mural by artist Dan Kitchener, commissioned through Gateshead Council's Off The Walls project, and it has quickly become a talking point.

Ways to donate, volunteer in a shop or join a fundraising event are on the St Oswald's Hospice website.