TWO Colchester residents have teamed up to honour the heroic soldiers who took part in a Second World War operation by creating a beautiful knitted post box display.
Irene Jeffery, 71, of Layer Road, has been a keen knitter since childhood.
After being approached by fellow resident John Ratcliffe, a plan to commemorate Operation Market Garden was born.
Operation Market Garden took place between September 17 and September 25, 1944, and consisted of the Allied forces making a plan to cross the River Rhine and advance into Northern Germany.
The operation involved an Allied effort to capture several bridges in the Netherlands and the Battle of Arnhem was one of the most well-known parts of the operation.
Irene went to school with John’s sister and has become known in the area for creating beautiful and interesting woolly creations to fit over the top of post boxes.
He got in touch with Irene about creating a memorial that honour those who fought in the operation to mark its 80th anniversary.
While many did not survive, Edwin’s father did.
By the end of August and after many prototypes, Irene finished her post box topper which was added to the Layer Road post box earlier this week.
Mr Ratcliffe said: “I am very pleased, she has done a good job, she has the three elements, the bridge, paras, and the plane they dropped from.
“It mainly came about because our father was a paratrooper, and I thought it was worth doing for the paratroopers.
“I came up with the idea, but she put in put it into practice.
“Some people might go home, go on a laptop and just do a bit of research about the operation and that will be good.”
The post box topper features a paratrooper, a bridge, and a Douglas Dakota plane which carried paratroopers during the operation.
Irene felt honoured to be asked, but this was a new challenge for her.
She said: “I thought ‘oh dear, someone has asked me to create something, I normally do what I want to do'.
“I was worried if I would be able to create something John liked.
“John likes it and afterwards wants to keep it when we remove it from the post box.
“I never knew much about it, but we’ve learned a lot
“For John he wanted the operation recognised just as much as D-Day.
“You don’t hear much about Operation Market Garden
“It is an interesting story.”
The memorial post box topper will stay on until the end of September.
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