CALL it serendipity, call it what you want, but it's a neat coincidence that Michael Job, the metal worker charged with bringing the 8ft-statue of Andrew Mynarski home to the North-East, is both a former RAF man and half-Canadian.

He insists that had no effect on the welding work he carried out on the sculpture - he's self-employed, so gives every job his all - but it is clear he has a soft spot for the bronze man lying in the back of the hired white Transit van.

It's hard not to share this attachment. Even strapped in with green rope, Pilot Officer Mynarski's statue cuts an imposing and poignant figure.

From his sturdy 1943 Royal Canadian Air Force-issue boots to his gloved hand, raised to his head in full salute, he looks strikingly real, but reassuringly larger than life.

He nearly didn't make it to the back of the van in time for the unveiling ceremony, says Mike, who has worked endless 12-hour shifts to complete him, with Farquhar Laing, owner of the Black Isle Bronze foundry in Nairn, near Inverness, Scotland.

The pair had six weeks to cast in bronze and finish the clay sculpture moulded by North-East artist Keith Maddison. Their normal working time for such a job would be four months.

As I arrive at the foundry, on an out-of-town business park, on Thursday afternoon, they and Keith - who admits he simply underestimated the scale of the job - have just applied the final coat of wax.

All three look relieved, if a little exhausted - but then statue-making is a hugely physical job. Mynarski, glittering in black and bronze, looks heavy, bigger than I expected - and heroic.

"It's been a very time-consuming, labour-intensive process, which can't be rushed," says Farquhar. "The only way round it is to chuck hours into it, which is what we have done. It's been a challenge, but it's built to last," he adds, with a nod of satisfaction.

Keith sighs. "It's probably hard to imagine what I'm feeling," he says. "You get a tonne-and-a-half of clay arriving on the doorstep. You look at that and you think I have to make a statue out of that. And now here it is."

The next morning, at 6.30am on the dot, Mike - and Pt Off Mynarski - are outside my hotel, ready for the 310-mile journey south to Durham Tees Valley Airport.

We've a long trip ahead of us and the talk almost immediately turns, fittingly, to travel.

Mike tells me about his time in the RAF and about his forthcoming plans to go to Canada, the country where his father was born and from where our hero hails

"Your story should be about journeys really," he tells me. "Mynarski's journey home now and all the journeys being made this week to get to the airport to see him unveiled."

He's right too. During the nine hours we take to get from Nairn to the North-East, there is time to ponder that first journey - the one Mynarski and his fellow crew members made from Middleton St George, near Darlington, and which changed the course of all of their lives.

The mid-rear gunner, whose likeness lies behind us, was killed after battling to save his friend on their flak-hit plane. The rest of the crew survived, although none now remain.

Instead, their relatives, friends and fellow servicemen and women were travelling yesterday, too - from Canada, the US, France and all over the UK, to pay tribute to the airman and all those who fought in the Second World War.

There's time on our trip, to take in the astonished glances of those who spot the airman in the back of the van.

It's not an everyday occurrence and the faces of motorists as we pull out of service stations, from the Cairngorms to Ponteland, are a sight to behold.

There isn't time to stop and tell a gentleman who peers in the van at Jedburgh the full story of Mynarski's heroism. But he nods approvingly at the sculpture when Mike tells him the gist of the tale.

It's satisfying to think that, as of today, those who lay eyes on Mynarski will get to read all about what he did - and why it meant so much.

For now, there's still the onslaught of traffic around Newcastle to get through. The beauty of the Grampian Mountains is far behind us and the Mynarski statue - which last travelled this route in sections of clay - is on the home strait.

I'm needed back in the office so the journey becomes a little fraught - but it's fitting, Mike and I decide. Everything about making the statue has been done to the wire, so a little drama before Mynarski finally makes it back is only right.

We get to the airport, the former Royal Canadian Air Force base, at 3.30pm and pull in to the St George Hotel, where Mynarski will stand before he is moved to his permanent resting place in the new terminal building.

"Ah, it's all converted barracks," says Mike, the former RAF engineer, and I realise I'd never noticed that before. "Everything is barracks."

"It's not pretty," I say, which is true. But, it strikes me, as we pull up to the hotel and see the war veterans and their families there waiting for their hero, that it could have been in this very building that he stayed.

There could be no more fitting place for his likeness to be slotted into the ground and admired - his journey finally at an end.