IF dinosaur lover Bill Jordan gets his way, the idyllic life of those loveable garden gnomes - idling their lives away on toadstools and fishing in fishless ponds - are numbered.

He wants to see mean-mouthed tyrannosaurs and soaring pterosaurs taking over their patch.

Since his heart bypass surgery two years ago, Bill, 56, has turned sculptor and transformed his garden shed into a studio.

There he has used his skills as a civil engineer to build dinosaurs - an antasaurus, an agathaumus, a pterosaur and a T rex - and now he is working on developing a flagged dinosaur's footprint.

"The days of the gnomes are numbered," threatened Bill. "These new lads are mean and have got attitude.

"There's nothing more different than having a great big dinosaur's head popping out of the shrubbery," said Bill, whose illness forced him to take early retirement from his shopfitting business.

He has now joined forces with Keighley-based Abbey Art Stone to develop an actual size three-toed footprint of an ornithomimus on an 18in square flag.

"It should be a great conversation spinner. People will be able to fit the flags in their patios as if a dinosaur has walked across," said Bill, who lives with his wife, Veronica, 55, a retired nurse, in their terrace cottage home in Bridge Street, Oakworth.

Bill was inspired to try sculpting after watching an Open University television programme in the early hours, while he recovered from his heart bypass surgery two years ago.

He was fascinated by the programme about turning plastic and fibre glass into sculptures.

"I thought I'd have a go and the first thing I did was a life size naked woman. I made it out of wire and plastic pipes and plaster.

"We called her Zanusi, because she looked like something from another planet.

"Neighbours were gobsmacked and then a young lad from nearby came to see me and brought along a small plastic dinosaur and asked if I could make one - so I did. It was a T-rex and we called her Dorothy.

"It was the children who really got me interested because they knew all about dinosaurs, so I started reading and researching about them.

"I kept seeing this photograph in so many books of a child sitting in a dinosaur's footprint and I thought I would try and make one," said Bill.

He needed to make a mould so that the concrete flag could be manufactured with the recessed footprint.

So he approached Abbey Art Stone for help and the company immediately saw the commerical potential, added Bill.

"I only came up with this idea just before Christmas, so it is the very early stages. But it's really quirky and different," he said.

He said his seven year-old grandson Daniel Morrisrow , who lives in Keighley, is absolutely fascinated by the dinosaurs as are other youngsters in the area. They really like them - they think they're a lot of fun and I get a lot of enjoyment out of making them," added Bill.

Dale Kenney, a director at Abbey Art Stone, in Pitt Street, Keighley, said the firm was approached by Bill about the possibility of manufacturing the footprint. "Our development team is now working on the project," he said. He believes it has commercial potential, especially in garden centres, DIY stores, builders merchants and for landscape gardeners.

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