Man turns 80,000 matchsticks into Minster
Clive Holmes spent two years modelling York Minster out of matchsticks
- Published
A former firefighter has created a model of York Minster out of 80,000 matchsticks.
Clive Holmes, 87, spent two years fashioning his 6ft (1.8m) long creation, which was inspired by his granddaughter moving to York for university.
Mr Holmes, from Durham, has built models of churches and cathedrals for about 40 years.
However, his wife has asked him to give away his model of York Minster, as it was taking up too much room in the house.
Listen: Clive and his daughter on the two-year build of the matchstick minster
His daughter, Sue Todner, then launched an appeal on social media to give the artwork a new home in the city.
"I work on them all day- I am retired," Mr Holmes said.
"I like to keep my hands busy."
He explained he had placed each matchstick at a time, trimming it down to the exact size he wanted.
"There’s a lot involved before you actually start doing the matchsticks because I take photographs, hopefully get a ground floor plan and then I scale it all down in drawings," Mr Holmes said.
"If they’re curved windows, they all have to be trimmed into little bits and stuck together."
Ms Todner said her dad had been modelling with matchsticks for years.
"I certainly know that as kids growing up, it used to be how my sister and I earned our pocket money, just trimming off the ends of donated matches," she said.
"We used to get 10 pence for about 200 matches."
Mr Holmes has spent the last 40 years making matchstick models
Ms Todner added she thought her dad was "amazing and so clever", after he also completed models of Grimsby Minster and Durham Cathedral.
"My daughter moved to York for university, she’s settled there now and it seemed like an obvious choice to do York Minster," she said.
"The reason I put it online is because he said if I didn’t find somewhere for it to go, he would torch it on 5 November.
"It was so important it had some sort of recognition."
The family has since been in touch with York Minster hoping they would accept the model.
On the Minster's Facebook page, a spokesperson said: "There's something poetic about this matchstick model coming to light (no pun intended) during the 40th anniversary of our last major fire in 1984!"
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