Memories were stirred for retired Royal Navy Commander David Joel today as he returned to the Broadland beauty spots where he learned to paint as a child under the tutelage of the great Broads artist Roland Green.

The meetings around Hickling Broad instilled in him a love of painting that sustained him through a distinguished career during which he commanded eight ships.

Cmdr Joel, 83, who lived in a listed lighthouse at Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire until he moved to Hampshire two years ago, is paying his own personal tribute to the renowned bird painter by holding a sale of more than 200 Green paintings he has collected over his lifetime.

The sale at Hickling Barn, in Mallard Way, Hickling, is taking place from 10am to 8pm tomorrow and 10am to 6pm on Saturday with proceeds going to Norfolk Wildlife Trust (NWT).

Fans of Green's work are expected to come from all over the country while some of the paintings are expected to be bought locally by villagers who remember the late artist as a dapper man and a real character who enjoyed going into schools to share his love of painting.

Most of the paintings are watercolours but there are a few oils; prices range from �20 for a sketch to about �650 for a large work.

Cmdr Joel, who was a pupil at Paston School, North Walsham, when he met Green, said: 'He was probably the finest bird painter Britain has produced. They look so natural. He was an expert at capturing birds in flight.

'Modern artists use photographs but Green worked from observation and that's why his birds look absolutely real.'

A sale earlier this month at the Wildlife Art Gallery in Lavenham, Suffolk, saw more than 20 of Cmdr Joel's Green paintings eagerly snapped up.

He has given two Green paintings to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh in tribute to her work as a patron of NWT.