A clay sculpture of Tommy Cooper's head has been unveiled, which fans hope will be cast in bronze as part of a full statue.

The Tommy Cooper Society has so far raised £15,000 of the £40,000 needed to erect a 13ft statue of the comedian in his home town of Caerphilly.

And yesterday the group unveiled the head as part of the town's Big Cheese festival, in the hope of attracting more donations.

The have already identified a site in front of Caerphilly Castle for a statue of a fez-clad Cooper, standing 9ft high on a 4ft plinth.

Society secretary Tudor Jones told the BBC: 'The reason we are having the ceremony is to say we have got this far and to encourage people to give us the money for the arms, legs and everything else.

'It's an original design. When people see the Little Mermaid statue, they think of Copenhagen. We want people to look at this statue and say, "That's Caerphilly".'

Cooper was born in Caerphilly in March 1921, and died on the stage of Her Majesty's Theatre in London in April 1984.