Update: Liz will be talking about making the visors on BBC Radio Surrey on Saturday (June 6) at 2.45pm, and on Sunday at 7.45am.

Liz Larkin, a design and technology teacher from the parish , has spent lockdown not only teaching her pupils via the internet, but making hundreds of visors to be used as essential personal protective equipment (PPE) for hospitals and doctors’ surgeries.

Liz, who lives in Weybourne and teaches at Farnborough Hill School, has been in the workshop at the school creating visors out of PVC and polypropylene, using a laser cutter. “I use the laser cutter for the polypropylene straps and the PVC visors are made by hand,” said Liz. “I then clip them together by hand. It takes 20 minutes to make about 12. I’ve made around 700, many of them with the help of my family too.”

The visors are then sent to places which have been making desperate pleas for PPE for frontline workers, including the Scrub Hub which is making and collecting PPE for Frimley Park Hospital.  “I’ve given around 200 to the Scrub Hub and I have sent them to doctors’ surgeries here in Farnham and further afield. For instance, I’ve sent 70 to a practice in London which a school contact told me about.”

Liz sourced the materials herself. “I raised £700 through Go Fund Me for materials and started making the visors when we went into lockdown. I’m part of a huge network of design and technology teachers across the country doing this and thousands and thousands have been made for hospitals, hospices, care homes and surgeries which are absolutely desperate for PPE. People will get in touch and say ‘we are running out, we need some now’, and we will respond.”

Liz has been doing this in her spare time while also teaching a full timetable online for her pupils at Farnborough Hill, having to rework all her plans in order to teach a practical subject at a distance without the use of all the normal equipment.

She remains unfazed however. “I could see there was a need for the visors,” she said. “People in design are always spotting a need and doing something about it.”

Meanwhile people are still making scrubs for Frimley Park Hospital. If you can help by donating material – duvet covers, pillowcases, sheets, etc, or making caps, masks and scrubs themselves, let us know. Contact Stella Wiseman for information. Patterns can be supplied. Currently the hospital has enough scrub bags but desperately needs caps, masks and scrubs.

Pictured above are Liz, Chris, Hannah and Matt Larkin with some of the visors they have made.