Life-size knitted tank in Ripon created by 30 volunteers ahead of D-Day Landings anniversary

The knitted tank took dozens of volunteers nine months to create. Credit: ITV Tyne Tees

A life-sized knitted tank has been created by a team of volunteers to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

About 30 members of the Ripon Community Poppy Project spent eight hours a day for nine months knitting eight-inch squares to produce the artwork.

Modelled on a Churchill AVRE tank, the creation is made up of the olive-green squares and stands at an impressive 24ft wide and 7ft tall.

Organiser Stuart Martin, 67, said the knitters initially set out to create a smaller, scaled down model but changed their mind.

The small army of volunteers spent nine months knitting impressive piece of artwork. Credit: ITV Tyne Tees

"We wanted to do something that will bring attention and extra footfall into our city to try and help businesses," he said.

"So then we came up with the idea of the knitted tank. The original idea was to do a scaled down model and put it on the back of a trailer.

"But we saw someone on Facebook do one and it didn't look as impactful as I wanted it to. We then realised that a full-sized Churchill tank would be 24ft long so we decided to do that and then had to work out all the logistics of it."

The 80th anniversary of the D-Day Landings will be marked on 6 June.

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