Knitter creates bollard covers of doctor and nurse in tribute to NHS

A knitter has created woollen bollard covers of a doctor and nurse in tribute to the NHS.

Ruth Britton, 62, spent two weeks making the characters to cover two bollards outside her home in Oldland Common, south Gloucestershire.

The characters are wearing scrubs, masks and blue surgical gloves, with stethoscopes around their necks, and carry a message of support for the NHS.

They are among a number of bollard covers created by Ms Britton, who posts her designs on a Facebook group called Oldland Knitted Bollards.

She has received hundreds of comments and thousands of shares since Wednesday when she posted images of the NHS workers, which are each made from 150g of wool.

Ms Britton began knitting bollard covers for two concrete posts outside her home in 2015 and has since crafted more than 20 of the 53cm tall characters.

Previous designs include the Simpsons, Minions, Daleks, Star Wars characters, the Flintsones and Dennis the Menace.

“Usually, if I’m focused, it takes a couple of weeks to knit one, but because of the lockdown I finished these two in two weeks,” she told the PA news agency.

“They are wearing face masks and I posted that they are social distancing because of where the bollards are to try to encourage people to do the same.

“I couldn’t get out to buy any wool but fortunately I had enough blue and a brand new green in the house.

“Since I posted the pictures it has gone wild – I’ve had messages from people all over the place.

“It is a bit of fun and makes people smile at a time when we could all do with a smile.”

The knitted covers are padlocked at the back when they are on display during the day, and are put away at night to keep them safe.