Martin has got a friend in Woody – and he’s the People’s Choice too

Mr Spratt, 62, said his wife, Jane, had come up with the idea of building a model based on Woody from the iconic Toy Story film series because of the material he had available to him.

An appliance engineer with Valpys, he built Woody using timber from the protective packaging that comes with washing machines.

All the joints move, apart from the fingers and toes, and Mr Spratt said it had taken him about two weeks of evenings and weekends to make.

‘I’m really pleased with it and it turned out much better than I expected,’ he said.

Several youngsters had their photo taken with Woody over the course of the weekend and a lot of people said they were impressed with the engineering.

‘It’s was something we really did for the kids,’ said Mr Spratt.

He said he had received several offers in relation to Woody but he was reluctant to say what they were or whether he would take any of them up.

Woody is currently sitting on a bench outside the couple’s home at the top of Les Sages. It marked the second Torteval Scarecrow event in a row that Mr and Mrs Spratt have won the People’s Choice award. The event was cancelled due to Covid in 2020, but in 2019 they caught the people’s imagination with ‘Room on the Broom’ which was based on a witch story by author Julia Donaldson.

‘We were really surprised to win it again,’ said Mr Spratt.

‘The first we knew of it was when we read it in the Guernsey Press.’