A Monmouth woman is celebrating the anniversary of the D-Day landings with a poppy display in her garden.
Witha Butts was inspired by the cascade of poppies at the Tower of London which marked the end of the First World War and decided to use the bottom of plastic drinks bottled sprayed red to create her own in her garden in Dixton Close.
The soldier that stands over them was made with the help of her neighbour who cut out a piece of MDF in the shape of the RBL 'Unknown Tommy’, or silent soldier that is seen at war memorials.
She uses the bottom of plastic drink bottles which she sprays red and then uses some craft back material to make the centre, then fixes them to the ground with wire.
Witha was born in Berlin in 1943 but left when her mother remarried after the war when she was four-years-old and moved to Edinburgh.
She moved to Wigan when she was 16 and this was where she was to meet her husband, Joe.
They moved down to Monmouth in 1966 when her step-dad, John Wallace who lived at Osbaston, found her husband a job at the factory on Wonastow Road what was Tillotsons back then, now TriWall.
She worked at the boys’ school in the science department for 17 years before she too was offered a job at Tillotsons alongside her husband.
In later life, she worked at Ruby Tuesday’s one day a week alongside Liz, Suzanne and Lynne.
“I have a bit of a reputation for celebrating Valentine’s Day, Easter, Hallowe’en and other events in the calendar” she said.
“It’s my passion for being stupid” she smiled, “This is something I find important to do!”
The major art installation Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red at the Tower of London marked one hundred years since the first full day of Britain's involvement in the First World War.
888,246 ceramic poppies progressively filled the Tower's famous moat between July and November 2014.
21,688 people volunteered to install the poppies. Each poppy represented a British military fatality during the war.