IN this 75th anniversary year of the Battle of Britain, a Herefordshire sculptor is in search of a collector who might help him complete a project close to his heart.

As a boy, Marcus Henke made model aircraft, and since setting up his workshop at Kington over 20 years ago, he has turned out an impressive array of sculptures.

A sizeable model of a Spitfire has to be one of his most ambitious to date, and owes much to his late father’s wartime memories.

Amid a workshop filled with his creations – including a full-size steel horse and a weather vane destined for an Irish castle – is a large model of Marcus’s plane.

If he can find a backer, he will realise his dream to build a Spitfire in the same weathering steel as the Angel of the North.

“I want to make a Spitfire, one third the size of the real thing, to get the right feeling,” says Marcus. Much of his time is taken up with commissions, but the plane is an idea he has nurtured for some time. Now he simply needs to get funding to build his plane.

“Many boys made a model Spitfire, and I was one of them!” he explains. His father, Giles, a noted sculptor and teacher who moved to Kington with his wife, Daphne over 40 years ago, worked in RAF Intelligence on Malta during the war.

“Malta was the most bombed island in the world, and my father had an awful time, he never wanted to talk about it,” added Marcus.

“But when the Spitfires arrived, everything changed.”

Unsurprisingly, the Henke family felt a deep regard for the Spitfire.

“My Spitfire is based on the Mark 1 model, the one that mostly flew in the Battle of Britain,” said Marcus.

Work continues apace on more commissions at his workshop, in what was originally Merediths’ foundry at Kington. When Marcus finds time, he has plans for making a full-size shire horse.

“Maybe I’ll also have a plough and ploughman, that would be very powerful – and very big!

“It’s nice to let your imagination free sometimes!”

Anyone interested in helping Marcus further his Spitfire project can call him on 01544 231690.