A TATTOOIST from Farnham marked Remembrance Day this week with a 24-hour tattooing marathon, inking hundreds of people with a poppy as a permanent reminder of Armistice day.

Max Chambers, proprietor of Maximum Image tattoo studio, began the tattoo marathon at 11am on Monday. Twenty four hours and 300 tattoos later Max had raised £3,000 for charity as he put down his needles at 11am on Remembrance Day itself.

A lot of soldiers' wives were among those taking part and had the small red, black and grey poppy inked on their skin.

Max and his partner, Beki Blade will donate the money raised to the British Legion and the Army Benevolent Fund.

Ex-forces Max, 46, has been at the Maximum Image studio for five years, and has been tattooing for nearly 30. He hoped the event would increase awareness about the worthy messages behind Remembrance Day and has since been invited to go and tattoo at Army bases in Afghanistan.

Beki, who spent "months and months" running around organising the event, said: "It was a really good day. We are really pleased with the result."

As well as raising a stack of cash for charity it was hoped that Max would beat the world record for the most tattoos in 24 hours, which currently stands at 415.

"We didn't quite have enough people to break the record," said Beki, "but we are really pleased, it went really really well.

"The record attempt was secondary, we just wanted to do something good," she added.

This isn't the end for Max's poppy design however and it is hoped this will be the "start of something big". Max will continue to do the poppy tattoo and donate the money to charity.

"We are busy over the next few weeks with people who want it done but couldn't make it."