Owner Mudita Karnasuta

Surapee Mudita Karnasuta (Mudita) was born in Bangkok, Thailand into a very privileged family. Her father was Suchart (Thienlai) Karnasuta, a very successful businessman and her mother was Areerat Devahsadin, who comes from a long standing aristocratic Thai family known to go back over 400 years. Career : Mudita’s schooling life started at the Mater Dei convent school in Bangkok, continued in Penang, and then she went on to study at the Conservatoire of Music in Sydney, Australia. In 1969 she came to England and found herself working with Bernard and Laura Ashley, where she modelled and publicised their first “Victorian” dress which became a huge success. She was to stay with them for six years working as their general manageress. In 1970 Mudita opened her first traditional Thai restaurant, The Siam, in Kensington, London. Many more restaurants were to follow and in 1991 she moved to Newcastle for health reasons. Mudita moved to West Sussex in 1992, to The Hamilton Arms in Stedham, near Midhurst where she now lives and runs the Pub and Nava Thai Restaurant with her business partner Suhail Hussain. The Mudita trust to help children of prostitutes was granted a charity status with the registration number 1029665 in 1993 and The Hamilton Arms became the Head Office. Awards In 1998 Mudita was presented with the Woman in the Community award by the Chichester and District Club of the Soroptimist International. In 2003 she was given The Golden Buddha Award by the Thai British Buddhist Trust UK. In April 2005 she was awarded the Direkgunaborn Medal (the equivalent in Thailand of an OBE) for the work she does through the Trust. The first Thai national living outside her home country to receive the award. In June 2005 She was made a Paul Harris Fellow by the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International.