If dinosaur lover Bill Jordan has his way, the days of the garden gnome are numbered.

He wants to see towering Tyrannosaurs and petrifying Pterosaurs taking over their patch.

For, since a heart bypass two years ago, Bill, 56, has turned sculptor and transformed his shed into a studio.

He used his skills as a civil engineer to build dinosaurs - an Antasaurus, an Agathaumus, a Pterosaur and a T-Rex - and he is now working on developing flag stone dinosaur footprints.

"The days of the gnomes are numbered. 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, who took early retirement from his shopfitting business.

He has now joined forces with Keighley-based Abbey Art Stone, to develop a life-sized three-toed footprint of an Ornithomimus on an 18ins 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 terraced cottage home in Bridge Street, Oakworth.

Bill was inspired to try sculpting after watching an Open University programme in the early hours of the morning, while recovering from surgery.

"I thought I'd have a go and the first thing I did was a life-sized 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," he said.

"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 a photograph of a child sitting in a dinosaur's footprint and I thought I would try and make one."

Dale Kenney, a director at Abbey Art Stone in Pitt Street, Keighley, said they were approached by Bill about the possibility of manufacturing the footprint. "Our development team is now working on the project," he said.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.