For almost half the population of voters, the Brexit result was no time for jokes.

But Lowestoft man Shaun Cole saw the humorous side of Britain voting to leave the European Union.

The 55-year-old posted an image on Bungay Town FC's Twitter account on Wednesday night of Thomas the Tank Engine's path blocked by a bricked up Channel Tunnel, alongside the comment 'a bricklayer friend has told me that he's on standby to brick up channel tunnel at 10pm tomorrow if we vote leave.''

It went to have over a quarter of a million shares on Facebook.

Just after midnight on Friday, he added 'live scenes from Kent'. The meme went viral almost immediately, being liked and viewed on Facebook throughout the week, resulting in over 256,000 people sharing the image.

Cole, who looks after social media and marketing for Bungay Town, created the meme by photo-shopping bricks onto the much loved children's cartoon to fashion a 'partly satirical' and witty image to delicately illustrate his Brexit stance.

Cole claims his 'subtly political' meme was intended only to be 'daft' and amusing, as he is overtly 'wary not everyone has the same views'.

The image rapidly spread over the internet, but Cole was disappointed the original source of the image was lost.

'It was rather galling to have a joke published nationally without Bungay Town FC getting the credit for it,' he said.

He said a Facebook page called 'Spotted: On the Train' appeared to have borrowed the image from someone who took it from him.

And as the image gained publicity, the initial captions were altered and removed, much to Cole's dismay.