A BOURNEMOUTH resident has made a D-Day diorama to commemorate its 80th anniversary.

Charminster resident Nick Burr, 64, has spent four years handcrafting a military-accurate diorama of the D-Day landings in time for its 80th anniversary.

Hidden away in Nick's attic, the diorama stages the landings on the Juno and Sword beaches in Normandy, France, with 10s of figure soldiers running onto the beach to face the German defence. 

He said: "I started one which wasn't as historically accurate as this but I've been collecting the vehicles for up to ten years. Watching The Longest Day and several trips to France and Sword beach. 

"It is as accurate as I can get for this size of that particular beach, it has the right number of men, the right number of vehicles and all these landing crafts."

Nick stated he based his work off of visits to the Tank Museum in Bovington to see the 'real deal' in person and also numerous photographs in which he noted one in particular taken from a landing craft. 

It was particularly useful to his work as it showed the beach defences and more importantly the two houses at the back of the diorama.

He said: "There is an actual photograph taken from a landing craft which is absolutely brilliant because it shows those two houses, twin villas as they were called, and the beach defences. The houses themselves are still there. 

"I've been making models since I was eight so I was inspired from a very early age. I used to be in the cadets but that's as far it got in terms of military background."

While many of the pieces are from kits, Nick has had to make many of the pieces from scratch which includes a beach armoured tractor which was used to help get the landing craft off the beach if they got stuck. 

His diorama also includes Churchill  A.V.R.E armoured vehicles, oil engineers and trenches dug into the polyester hills. 

He said: "I wanted somebody to see it and I'm pleased with it but I don't know what I'm going to do with it now."