ASHLEY Jackson is to give his wife Anne a special 65th birthday present next week - a statue of himself as a boy aviator.
It will depict the young Barnsley artist in an old jumper, short trousers, flying goggles and cardboard wings as he prepares to take off and head towards Barnsley.
The work of art, by Barnsley sculptor Graham Ibbeson, will be placed in Ashley's garden at Holmfirth and will point in the direction of his home town.
Ashley said:"Anne loves Graham's work but I also want to show my four grandchildren what it was like when we were young and we had boots and pullovers with holes.
"My step grandmother bought me a pair of brown shoes from a jumble sale when I was a kid. They turned out to be fur lined and I would not wear them because they were girl's shoes.
"The statue also shows that we had imagination in those days, something that children today do not have."
Graham said the statue, entitled Home from Holmfirth, was all about the naive optimism that children have when they think they can wear a set of cardboard wings and fly. The work reflected a typical 1950s childhood.
