SEVEN sculptures made from driftwood by one time Hereford resident Guy Taplin are expected to fetch around £20,000 at an auction.

The most valuable Taplin creation in the auction at Christie’s in London next Thursday is simply titled ‘Swan’ and is expected to fetch between £3,000 and £5,000.

Another Taplin work called "Curlew" could sell for between £2,500 and £3,500, while Taplin’s sculpture, Egret, is tipped to fetch between £2,000 and £3,000, at the same auction.

Guy Taplin and his parents, George and Gladys Taplin, fled to Hereford during the Second World War to escape the Blitz of London’s East End.

The Taplins rented a flat above a tobacconist’s shop in Commercial Street and George Taplin worked at the Rotherwas Munitions factory in Hereford.

It was while in Hereford Guy Taplin’s lifelong passion for ornithology began when he discovered a birds’ nest in a hedgerow.

Now Guy Taplin is acknowledged as “Britain’s leading bird sculptor.”

Broadcaster and former Monty Python star, Michael Palin, says Mr Taplin is a “magician.”

Channel Four News presenter Jon Snow described Guy Taplin as “one of the most prolific and innovative artists of our age.”

While the Queen, the late Oscar-winning Hollywood film director Mike “The Graduate” Nichols, Lord Heseltine, the Guinness family and the Sainsbury family are among those who own or who have owned Guy Taplin’s work.

Before he became an acclaimed artist, Guy Taplin did all sorts of jobs. At different times he was a brewery labourer, a hairdresser, a window cleaner, lorry driver and market trader.

Now 77, he lives and works in Essex, where he transforms flotsam and jetsam retrieved from the river Colne .

Mr Taplin once remarked: “When you are sitting there in your shed with a cup of tea and Radio Four on you tend not to think of the high prices the carvings bring. I don’t need a lot of money to live.”