A Dartford biker is hoping thousands of other riders will join her today in creating the world's biggest "poppy".

Julia Stevenson has a vision of more than 15,000 motorcyclists wearing red over their jackets and driving around the M25 to mark Remembrance Sunday.

She said: "The plan is to converge on the motorway at 12.30pm, from slip roads and service stations.

"We will have leaders and tail-end-charlies and once they have all linked up we will have a ring of red, like a giant poppy."

The ride has been planned so bikers can still go to a Remembrance service if they wish and Ms Stevenson is aiming to keep traffic disruption to a minimum by keeping the bikers in single file on one lane of the 117-mile loop.

The mother of identical twins and grandmother of eight, from South Darenth, said: "There has always been an affinity between riders and the armed forces. Maybe this stems from when dispatch riders were used to carry vital messages from the front lines.

"We just want to do this to say thank you to those who gave their lives in their service of this country.

"It is also our way of paying our respects to the Armed forces, both current and previous. After all, respect costs nothing."

Non-bikers will also be able to show their support by becoming what the riders nickname "bridge babes" and standing on bridges across the M25, in places where it is safe to do so, to wave the drivers on.

Ms Stevenson said: "This is our first attempt, but I'm hopeful it will work. We've already got thousands of bikers interested.

"Who knows, if it's a success maybe next year we will have even more bikers and can have one group going clockwise and the other anti-clockwise."