Puzzle mad parishioners are filling their dull church hall with giant jigsaws

PARISHIONERS are slaving over giant jigsaws to transform their church hall.

Over the past two years a puzzle mad group has decorated the walls of St Paul’s Church Hall, on Vicarage Lane, Helsby, with massive pictures made up of thousands of tiny jigsaw pieces.

The three ladies, Mavis Robinson, Joan Langton, Elyvey Trevett, from Helsby, have spent their evenings and weekends battling to finish the puzzles under the guidance of self-confessed jigsaw addict the Reverend Margaret Saville.

Now as they start work to fill the last space on one wall with their third 5,000 piece puzzle the group are facing their biggest challenge yet – a 13,200 piece jigsaw.

Measuring a massive 10ft long and 4ft 6inch deep, the ladies have started work on the jigsaw that will eventually fill the inside of the hall with their first religious themed puzzle – Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper.

Despite soaring temperatures on Saturday (June 4) the ladies headed to the hall to take part in the third annual “Jigsaw Marathon” spending 12 hours tackling a mermaid puzzle to raise money for the upkeep of the church.

Speaking at the marathon the Rev Margaret Saville said: “We have split it into six sections, we are each tackling a part at home with David Johnson also taking a section.

I am already on the second of my sections. We are hoping to get it done by June next year when we are having a massive celebration called Precious Memories at the church.

“The last one we did has one piece missing, I think that was because we moved it around so much. So far the marathons have raised around £300 for the church.”