FORTY-EIGHT years ago a young married woman thought the display window of the Bradford jewellery store where she worked could be made more attractive by a clay model of the Venus de Milo.

Mrs Eileen Mary Wilson was 27 in February, 1966 when she set out to do with China clay what she had not done since making a rabbit when she was a seven-year-old at school.

“It all started as a joke really,” she told the T&A at the time, going on to explain that among the jobs she did at Young’s on Broadway was dressing the windows.

“I thought it would be unusual if we displayed a model of Venus. I said jokingly that I would make a bust in clay – I didn’t think anyone would take me seriously.

“I got hold of a couple of books – one for beginners in sculpture and the other giving a picture of Venus – and then took it from there.”

Mrs Wilson, who also ran a hairdressing business at home, first of all had a frame made out of wire from electric bulb stands, filled with wood and cast iron. Over 10 days she used 76 lbs of clay gathered from Bradford, Leeds and Keighley to make her model based on the ancient Greek original made in 150BC by Alexandros of Antioch – who sounds like a hairdresser.

She worked in the shop’s small staff room, building up her sculpture on and old chair and a drawer.

The finished statuette was 4 ft 6 inch high and was cast by an art student and then coated with white emulsion.

“It took three people to lift her down from the staff room and put her in the window. She is certainly having an effect on people, for the first day she was on display a man came into the shop and offered to buy her,” Ms Wilson told the paper.

The paper explained that artistic talent ran in the family.

“Her father, Mr John M Walshe paints in oils and has a flair for photography, and her aunt, Mrs Frances Bond, has sold many of her works.”

Though what this aunt’s works were the paper did not say.

Mrs Wilson’s brother John Walshe said the Venus was adorned with jewellery and remained in the window of Young’s for some considerable time.

Mrs Wilson worked there until 1971. She’s 76 now and lives in Birkenshaw and her married name is now Mrs Eileen Sowerby.