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Army of knitted soldiers raise awareness for D-Day

The Longest Yarn Four rows of knitted soldiers are marching in a scene. They are wearing green outfits and helmets, holding rifles to their left hand side The Longest Yarn
Knitting these scenes takes patience, with each creation taking between 200 and 400 hours

Have you ever seen a group of knitted soldiers holding rifles and marching in unison?

It is one of 80 D-Day scenes that feature in an exhibition to reignite interest in the 1944 event that marked the start of the campaign to liberate Nazi-occupied north-west Europe.

A group named The Longest Yarn is behind the exhibition, having spent a year making the knitted figures with each scene taking about 300 hours to create.

After visiting notable places like the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, the woolly characters are now touring churches in the UK.

The Longest Yarn A knitted scene of four soldiers standing behind four gravestones. Poppies and other flowers surround the grass beyond the gravestones and green trees stand in the background. Behind the soldiers are two women standing with flowers The Longest Yarn
The exhibition took a whole year to create, with 180 women knitting the scenes

Tansy Forster, who lives in Normandy, France, is the founder of the exhibition.

She has always had a deep passion for World War Two and knitting, using wool from her Alpacas to knit a range of creations.

What started as an idea to make post-box toppers in her town ended up with nearly 1,000 people from all over the world knitting to raise money for the exhibition to go ahead.

"It is a bonkers idea that worked," she said.

The Longest Yarn A knitted solider is sitting next to a tank smoking a cigarette. Behind him are more soldiers wearing green outfits and helmets.The Longest Yarn
This soldier leans against a tank while smoking a cigarette
The Longest Yarn A postbox topper that features a green ball of wool. A man dressed in a green uniform and hat stands to the left. In the background a white poster says 'The Longest Yarn' and two women stand on either side of the poster. A woman to the left is wearing a blue uniform and the other woman wears a brown uniformThe Longest Yarn
A special postbox topper will be featured at every event

The free exhibition is at Aldershot Garrison in Hampshire until 18 November, before moving onto Stoke-on-Trent, Tewkesbury, Eniskillen and Norfolk.

It will then tour the United States for a year.

"People put their heart and soul into creating their panels," Tansy said.

"Because it's wool, it's not in your face, it brings D-Day to life and it's making everything remembered," she added.

The Longest Yarn A knitted white papered message in French which says 'Message Urgent' and warns residents to leave a townThe Longest Yarn
The exhibition focuses on every detail to demonstrate D-Day including urgent messages for residents
The Longest Yarn A knitted scene featuring black and white houses with soldiers peering out of the windows. There are three horses standing in front of the houses, a white, brown and black horse. Each horse has a soldier sitting on top of them The Longest Yarn
Soldiers ride horses while passing buildings in a town including a hairdressers

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