Village knits poppy cascade for Remembrance Day

Residents of a Shropshire village have knitted thousands of poppies which are on display, cascading down their local church.

Inspired by the poppy display at the Tower of London in 2014, people in Cockshutt created the installation for St Simon and St Jude's Church to celebrate Remembrance Day.

The tower is about 60ft (18m) high, and the flowers are attached to camouflage nets.

"It all started after Remembrance Day last year, because we couldn’t go out by our memorial cenotaph in the graveyard because the weather was so bad," said Andy Mole, who organised the project.

"I thought: 'What could we do next year to make things better?'"

"Ladies in the village and friends started knitting poppies and crocheting poppies, and we've got hundreds and hundreds of them. There's over 2,000."

Alongside the traditional red poppies - which are a show of support for the Armed Forces community - there are dozens of purple versions of the flowers, too.

"We put purples ones on because they represent the dogs and horses in the war," said Mr Mole.

The link to war animals is close to the hearts of those in Cockshutt - as Rob, a black and white collie from nearby village, Tetchill, parachuted in World War II.

He completed 20 jumps, which led to him being awarded the PDSA's Dickin Medal for Gallantry.

"He’s there with all the other chaps from the village who went and served in the army," he added.

The display was put up on Tuesday, which Mr Mole said was "incredible."

"The red poppies against the green camouflage net looks lovely," he said.

"We’re going to put a floodlight on it, as well."

The plan is to put it up on the church every year.

"We ran out of time so we've still got some poppies to put on...so we’ll put those on next year as well, to make it even better hopefully."

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