A former Coventry Telegraph reporter who recently joined the Mirror was handed an unusual assignment as one of his first jobs on the national daily.

Warren Manger, until recently the Telegraph’s award-winning health reporter, attended the Chelsea Flower Show dressed as a garden gnome.

The stunt was arranged to mark the show’s decision to allow gnomes in to help mark its centenary after banning them for the past 100 years.

Warren duly donned a gnome outfit and penned an in-character first-person piece for yesterday’s paper.

Warren at the Chelsea Flower Show. Picture courtesy of the Daily Mirror.

“After arriving, I immediately felt I was home sweet gnome and the whole event turned into a pixie’s paradise,” he wrote.

“In fact, it was less like the Chelsea Flower Show and more like the Ideal Gnome Show. Gnome pun intended.”

Not everyone was impressed, with one show visitor telling Warren he was “the scariest looking gnome I’ve ever seen.”

However the stunt went down a storm with warren’s former colleagues back in Coventry.

Political editor Les Reid tweeted:   “Priceless! Mirror get their new journo @warrenmanger (ex- @covtelegraph) to dress as garden gnome.”

Warren himself tweeted a link to the story with the comment: “So much for serious journalism.”