SECOND World War RAF ace Terry Prendergast has been cremated in a coffin in the shape of his beloved Hawker Hurricane fighter.

The family of the pilot paid their final tributes by building him the cardboard plane casket complete with wings and propeller.

Flight Lieutenant Prendergast, 85, died following a short illness at his Bradford Peverell home.

And his wife, four children and 10 grandchildren decided the best way to say goodbye was to build a Hawker Hurricane for his final journey to Weymouth Crematorium.

His son Andy Prendergast, 53, a community film maker, said: "Some people might think it is disrespectful to put your father in a cardboard coffin but he was 85 and would have liked it.

"He was great fun, generous, thoughtful, very intelligent and very creative.

"He was also a frugal chap when it came to himself and would have thought it was a dreadful waste being put in a wooden coffin only for it to be burned.

"So it was made using the cardboard from his own garage.

"I can tell you, the funeral director was a bit taken aback when he arrived."

Terry's youngest son Ian, 49, made the coffin with his two children Otto, 12, and Octavia, 15, and niece Hannah Hay.

He said: "He was a very self-sufficient guy. Every single bit of cardboard we used to make the plane was cardboard he stored religiously for future use.

"When we were all kids he put wings on a big box and we used to pretend to fly around the garden.

"So I suppose this was our plane for him.

"We were thinking about having Dambusters music at the service but decided against it in the end."

Mr Prendergast's widow, Rodica, 83, of Yew Tree Lane, met her husband when she was 10, and they had been married 59 years.

She said: "He was always full of fun - and he made life fun."

His daughter Sue Hay described her father's wartime experiences.

She said: "He joined the RAF and was posted to Burma, where he was shot down in 1944 in a Hawker Hurricane after a dogfight with five Japanese planes.

"He had his arm almost completely shot off - it was hanging off by a thread - and when he came to in the jungle he was in a bit of a dilemma.

"He thought 'should I cut it off and run or try to save it?' "He didn't know where he was until some villagers came out and told him there was an air station nearby.

"He managed to patch his arm and get to the station and went on to be one of the first to have both skin and bone grafts."

Mrs Hay said although her father lost some use of his right arm he could still write with it.

After the war Mr Prendergast gained a degree in mechanical engineering and later worked for printer specialists Rank Xerox.

And despite being shot down and disabled, Mr Prendergast still harboured a love of flight.

"He took up hang-gliding and then later paragliding," Mrs Hay said.

"And he was presented with an award for services to hang-gliding by Prince Andrew."

She added that her father continued to paraglide until he was 82.

Andy Prendergast said that before his father died the pair created a short film together that highlighted the fighter pilot's sense of humour.

In it Mr Prendergast Snr is seen larking around the family home pretending to be an aeroplane before crashing into a door.

"It was a bit of a bonding exercise," Andy added.