As anyone who has built an effort-intensive snowman can surely attest, there is little more disheartening than seeing the creation vandalised before the thaw arrives.

But two sisters have gained local fame after taking unusual steps to avenge the destruction of their carefully constructed snowwoman in Gateshead. Rachael Bell and her sister, Alyx Thompson, built an army of 43 snow people in matching mourning attire after their first one, Brenda, was allegedly decapitated.

Brenda – dressed as an older woman with headscarf and handbag – was waiting at a nearby bus stop but, according to a neighbour, vandals decapitated her with a spade before dragging her away on a sledge, the Newcastle Chronicle reported.

Bell, 29, said she and her sister had built Brenda to surprise her three-year-old daughter, Layla. “We’d uploaded a picture of Brenda the snowwoman on to the Felling Facebook group, and they absolutely loved her.

“After what happened, the whole of Facebook was in an uproar, so we decided to go back and build lots more snowmen – we thought, let’s see if he can find a sledge big enough to drag away all these,” she told the Chronicle.

The pair worked until 1am creating the army, with others in the community also getting involved with signs demanding “Justice for Brenda” appearing at the bus stop while another neighbour built a tribute to Brenda, surrounded by snow mourners and black roses.

The sisters also built more snow people in the car park of the local Aldi where, they said, Brenda had planned to get a bus because of a shortage of bread in her local shop.

“I thought it was great that other people started joining in, and I couldn’t believe the response it got,” said Bell. “It was overwhelming: I just set out to build a snowwoman, and then I was getting messages from people in America and Canada saying they’d loved what we were doing.”