Meet Bryony Nierop-Reading, an 81-year-old retired maths teacher and widow from Happisburgh, Norfolk — affectionately known locally as “Granny Canute”.

In December 2013, a massive storm surge tore away the cliffs beneath her bungalow. Her bedroom was left literally hanging over the edge. She lost nearly everything, including precious sentimental jewellery that the demolition team even tried (unsuccessfully) to recover from the beach below.

Bryony refused to give up on the place she loved. She lived in a caravan for five years before buying a second home further back on Beach Road in 2018.

Then, in April 2026, history repeated itself in heartbreaking fashion. The local council deemed her new house (along with two neighbouring properties) at “immediate risk” of collapsing into the North Sea due to relentless coastal erosion. It had to be demolished.

Now, Bryony lives in a portable home set further back on the same plot of land where her second house once stood.

Despite losing two homes to the same unforgiving coastline, her spirit remains unbroken. “I love this place and don’t want to leave,” she says. “This is my home.”

Happisburgh is a beautiful, picture-postcard Norfolk village with a 16th-century pub, thatched cottages, and Britain’s only privately owned lighthouse — but it sits on soft, eroding cliffs made of sand, silt, and clay that are disappearing at an alarming rate. The village is also facing difficult decisions, including potential mass exhumations at the historic churchyard to protect graves from the sea.

Bryony continues to fight for better coastal defences, even as she settles into her mobile home, hoping she has at least another eight years before the sea threatens her again.

A truly remarkable story of resilience in the face of nature’s unstoppable force.