A cloak of a thousand poppies now takes pride of place on the Isambard Brunel statue in Havelock Square, Swindon Town Centre for Remembrance Day.
Swindon Stitch and Bitch, a local knitting and crochet group, have been busy knitting poppies for weeks to raise funds and awareness for the Royal British Legion.
This year they wanted to do something new and exciting with the poppies and came up with the idea of knitting a special poppy cloak for the Brunel Statue in Havelock square.
The challenge was how to fit the cloak over the 14-foot statue!
The Knitting group decided to contact inSwindon BID Company, the town centre business improvement district to see if they could help.
Through collaboration the BID contacted the contractors at Metro Bank and they organised a cherry picker to drape the poppy cloak safely over the statue this morning.
Di Powell InSwindon BID Chief Executive said: “Well done to the ladies at Stitch & Bitch knitting Club for making the poppy cloak for Mr Brunel, to mark Remembrance Day. InSwindon BID Company were delighted to be able to help with this special tribute. Thank you to the Contracting Team at Metro Bank who were on hand very early this morning to help us to make this happen. Mr Brunel looks wonderful in his knitted Poppy Cloak. Come down to Havelock Square in the Town Centre to see for yourself”.
The town centre will be remembering this weekend with:
* An Armistice Commemoration Service at the Cenotaph, at 11.00am on Saturday 11 November which will be attended by local dignitaries and Royal British Legion branch members.
* The Annual Remembrance Sunday Service will be held on Sunday 12 November at 11.00am at the Cenotaph.
Members of the public are very welcome to attend these events.
