Plaster sculpture perfection with Wallace and Gromit

Patients and staff at Stepping Hill Hospital’s fracture clinic waiting room are enjoying fantastic sculptures of some well-known animated characters over the festive period, and they’ve all been made from left-over casting and splinting materials.
By Ben GrangerContributor
Published 15th Dec 2023, 10:55 BST
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Wallace, Gromit, Shaun the Sheep and villainous penguin Feathers McGraw all feature in the fantastic diorama created by hospital orthopaedic technicians in their spare time, which they began in June. The technicians also created versions of themselves in the unique style of Aardman Animations, and each figure even has its own Stockport NHS Foundation Trust staff badge.

The scene depicts Wallace using the ‘Christmas Cast-O-Matic’ as one of his inventions, providing glittery Christmas plaster casts for patients. Shaun supplies the wool for the machine, while Gromit is the test subject. Feathers has stolen the plans!

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Orthopaedic technicians Liz Halliday, Sally Mooney and Shelly Lay-Flurrie treat orthopaedic patients at the hospital, applying casts and splints to their injuries. The scene was created by using out-of-date materials such as plaster-of-Paris and Benecare synthetic casting tape, and other products such as used splints, scraps of wool and other items found in the store cupboard.

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Liz Halliday, Shelly Lay-Flurrie and Sally Mooney with their fantastic sculpturesLiz Halliday, Shelly Lay-Flurrie and Sally Mooney with their fantastic sculptures
Liz Halliday, Shelly Lay-Flurrie and Sally Mooney with their fantastic sculptures

Liz has been combining her talent for sculpture with her role as an orthopaedic technician for several years now, creating special scenes based on Christmas films. She has entered these into the annual national Christmas Casting Competition run by Benecare Medical, whose products they use on a daily basis. Previous scenes have been based around The Muppets Christmas Carol, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Gremlins, which have all won first prize. In the past two years her colleagues Shelly and Sally have also joined her in the creations.

Liz said "It's great to see how much everyone enjoys them when they come into the clinic. Shelly, Sally and myself all bring our own skills into it, and it’s a joy to create, though at times technically difficult! We'd like to thank everyone for the support and encouragement, which kept us going with the project. We have also had nearly 10,000 views of the photos taken by one of our consultants which he uploaded to his X (Twitter) account. We hope we do Stepping Hill proud in the competition”.

The sculptures will be up for everyone to enjoy until the end of the Christmas season.