MATCHSTICK making - it’s a labour of love for 86-year-old John Smith.

The talented grandfather took up the hobby when his beloved wife Joan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1994.

She had made her devoted husband worry a number of times after leaving the house to look for him even though he was cooking the pair’s dinner.

So, as well as having a voice message with his voice loaded onto the front door mechanism, John began spending much of his day sitting in his living room with his wife.

To help pass the time, he started making models out of matchsticks.

His first success was a train, which was a set with instructions bought to him by his granddaughter.

But his artistic mind soon began to think bigger.

John, a former bread salesman, welder, bricklayer and fish salesman, said: “When I finished the train, I thought I might be able to do some more difficult ones so I had an idea about a castle.

“So I sat down and started planning it. It took me four months and pretty quickly I found what I thought to be the best way to do it.”

Instead of creating the models completely freehand, John, of Finchingfield Way, Colchester, began roughly making the shape of the models using Weetabix boxes.

He then used matches to reinforce and shape the cardboard.

When the castle was finished, religious John turned his attentions to churches which have impacted his life.

He has since completed models of St Albright’s Church, in Stanway, All Saints, in Shrub End, where he sang as a choir boy, and Birch Church, where his parents were married.

He has also donated a detailed model of St Margaret’s Church, in Stansted Road (pictured top left) to church elders.

It includes every detail, including church pews, clothes hooks and even a well-known red clock.

Wheelchair user John added: “I could still get around then and I drove to the churches and took photographs, inside and out.

“The Monkwick Church (St Margaret’s) took me ten months.

“They kept asking me if it was ready yet but I just kept saying: ‘Just a little bit to go.’

“They couldn’t believe it when I took to them and it had all the detail inside it. They were so happy with it.”

John has tried a number of times to create a model of the church he and Joan were married in but he has given up because he finds it too hard.

He added: “I had 65 wonderful years with her,” as he points to his head, “and it’s all up there.

“That’s one church I will just never do.”