Knitivity knitter crowned community hero (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

Christmas nativity knitter crowned Community Gold Award winner

5:20pm Saturday 8th January 2011 in News By Manisha Mistry

A CREATIVE knitter whose woolly nativity characters proved to be a delightful sight over the Christmas period has been crowned the latest Community Gold hero.

Ann Hudson's tireless work includes volunteering for youth groups and spreading the Christmas message despite the fact she suffers from serious health and mobility problems.

The 61-year-old's dedication was recognised by Canon Stephen Lake at St Albans Abbey who nominated her for a Community Gold Award, which is run by the Review in conjunction with solicitors Debenhams Ottaway.

Ann said: “I'm obviously delighted. It was hard work and took up a lot of my time but I loved the challenge.

“I did an awful lot of knitting, around 350 to 400 hours, but I love it. The donkey and angel were new this year which took me the longest to knit.

“Since the articles about the figures appeared in the Review I had a knitting pattern which someone was finding difficult sent to the abbey for me, which was a surprise.”

She added: “It's been amazing, I've had lots of people come up to me saying they had seen the knitted figures and I was hoping nobody would ask me to knit them a set.”

For this year's figures Ann has plans to add a camel to the set and is appealing to anyone who has a pattern to send it in to the abbey.