A knight in shining armour came to the aid of a quilter creating a memorial to the 96 people killed in the Hillsborough disaster.

Last summer Linda Whitfield from Ellesmere Port sent out a request on Facebook for donations of Liverpool football shirts to create a Hillsborough memorial quilt.

The response was slow to start with and it took a few months for people to trust in her vision.

But she soon had enough shirts to make a quilt in memory of those who lost their lives in the 1989 disaster. Once Linda had sorted through all the shirts she washed and dried them on the washing line.

“God knows what my neighbours thought when looking at them hanging in my garden to dry.

“They must have thought I was working for the football club washing the shirts for the squad,” said Linda.

She then cut off the badges and made choice cuts of the material to ensure all the squares used were from football shirts past and present.

“To do the quilt the justice it deserves I decided I would prefer the 96 names embroidered,” Linda said.

Linda contacted The Uniform Shop, Whitby Road, Ellesmere Port and spoke to the owner Mark.

“He listened to my idea and seemed extremely enthusiastic. As a big Liverpool fan himself, Mark turned out to be my knight in shining armour and agreed to embroider all 96 names.

“After getting to know him, due to the amount of times I must have annoyed him checking for updates on his progress, he assumed his generous work was done until I asked him to help me once again.

“I thought the quilt needed a centre piece and who better to help than Mark? He listened to my idea and once again agreed it would look fantastic.

“He began working on it immediately and created the beautiful centre piece on the quilt. I worked on stitching the names onto each badge and did some further research into the 96 who lost their lives.

“I have tried to keep the names of family members, partners and friends together.

“I have also tried to put children aged 10-15 with a badge taken off a child’s donated shirt.”

“My final request for help from Mark was to print all the names of the generous people who donated the shirts to me to attach to the back of my quilt,” said Linda

“Once again he come to my rescue and did a fantastic job.”

“I would like to take this opportunity to say a massive thank you to all the people who donated shirts, to my daughter Hannah for the help she has given me over the last few months and to Mark and Jordan at The Uniform Shop who stayed long after closing time to help complete the favours I asked.

“The quilt is now finished and although it will be extremely hard to part with my hope is to donate it to the Hillsborough foundation.”