THIS is the first image of exactly how the statue of Barbara Castle in the centre of Blackburn - the town she made her own - will look.

The clay model prepared for the final casting shows her striding purposefully forward as the actual bronze statue to be unveiled in the new Jubilee Square on Saturday will do.

It has been a long journey to finally get the tribute to Blackburn’s MP from 1945 to 1979 in place.

Saturday marks the success of the third attempt to mark the legacy of Baroness Castle who died in 2002 aged 91, with a physical tribute.

In the 1980s the local Labour Party raised £19,000 for a community centre named after her and a there was a failed bid for a statue in 2004.

Despite the naming of a health centre and part of Blackburn’s ring road after Baroness Castle - who held five high-profile government posts and served as a Euro-MP for Greater Manchester and as a member of the House of Lords - Ewood ward's Cllr Maureen Bateson was determined to put a permanent image of her hero in the centre of the town.

She spearheaded a successful three-year campaign for the statue which will come to fruition this weekend despite having to be delayed a year by the coronavirus pandemic.

Both ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and former Tory Prime Minister Theresa May donated to the statue.

In May 2019 leading artist Sam Holland was commissioned to create the sculpture later saying: “Barbara should have been celebrated 50 years ago. She was a great advocate for those who aren’t heard. At the time, she was a lone woman among men in power.”

Blackburn with Darwen Council’s Conservative group has objected to the use of an open space contribution from a housing developer to top up the thousands of pounds raised from donations by the Labour Party campaign.

Current Blackburn Labour MP Kate Hollern has no such doubts and said this week: “It is absolutely fitting that we recognise Barbara in Blackburn, the town she represented for more than thirty years. Statues help to illustrate in a physical way, the story of our history, so having this physical embodiment of Barbara will ensure that her legacy lives on long after we have all gone.”