A DEDICATED poppy seller has been setting up shop in a supermarket in the build up to Armistice Day every November for 38 years.

Joan Sullivan, 88, has been doing her bit inside the Tesco Metro in Boundary Road, Hove, since 1980.

She joined the Royal British Legion in that year and has now been a friendly face for shoppers for close to four decades.

She said: “There is a lot of people that like the poppies.

“I like meeting people that I haven’t seen for years.

“My old schools friends used to do it together but unfortunately a lot of them have gone now.

“I sell the poppies because it helps the soldiers who have been wounded, the money goes to them.

“I just like doing it.”

Joan, who always as a kind smile to greet shoppers, has been highly praised by staff at the store.

Warren Partridge, store manager for Tesco Metro, Hove, said: “It’s great to have Joan here. To come back year after year and support is fantastic.

“Not many people give this much time for so long to.

“It’s a great achievement.”

Joan said it was her husband who encouraged her to join the Royal British Legion.

She said: "My husband used to be a standard bearer and he said I should come and join.

“At the time there used to be over 100 ladies there and now that number has gone down.”

As well as her poppy duties, Joan has had many roles during her time in the Legion.

She said: “I used to be a chairman of the British Legion.

“I was also chairman of the ladies’ branch and then all of a sudden we had to close because we didn’t have enough ladies to carry on.”

The Royal British Legion was formed on May 15, 1921.

It brought together four national organisations of ex-servicemen that had been established following the First World War.