Shop mannequin has poppy appeal

Poppy woman was created with 700 hand-made crepe paper poppies

A Devon florist's shop has been featured on the website of the Royal British Legion.

Sidmouth Florist's window is displaying a life-size mannequin made from about 700 hand-made poppies.

The sculpture is entered in the town's annual window competition which is held the week before Remembrance Sunday to raise money for the poppy appeal.

Kelly Dorman, John Hollick and florist Christine Drew put in 20 hours of work to complete the display.

Mrs Drew's husband Paul told BBC News he was amazed and delighted to discover the mannequin on the Royal British Legion's website.

'Fuller figure'

"I'd taken some pictures and sent them in, but I wasn't expecting this to happen," he said.

"They were very keen on our mannequin, because they are using a 'poppy man' in London for the appeal.

"The legion are calling ours the 'poppy woman' because it has a much fuller, rounder figure.

"The truth is, we did use a female mannequin and tried to mask it with the poppies, but the legion spotted it straight away."

The Remembrance competition was set up in 2000 by widow Eileen Hodges in memory of her husband.

The competition will be judged at the end of the week

Mrs Hodges is the president of the local branch of the legion and is one of the competition judges.

Sidmouth Florist won the competition in 2003, 2004, and was a joint winner of 2005's competion, with a wartime kitchen display using flowers for food.

"We're rather hopeful poppy woman could make it four in a row," Mr Drew said.

The mannequin will remain in the Drew's shop window until next week.