The Barnsley-born sculptor travelled down to the foundry, in London, where the finished bronze statue was being produced, to do a final check.

"In the sculpture, Laurel and Hardy's dog, Laughing Gravy, is tugging at Ollie's trousers and he's shooing it away with his hand and the people at the foundry wanted to know exactly where I wanted the sculpture welded.

"It just so happened that in there at the same time was a huge sculpture of Kate Moss sitting topless in a yoga position. And as I'm looking at this, I hit the crown of my head on the back of Ollie's hand and knocked myself out for a couple of minutes.

"I was lifted onto a chair and I remember coming round and there's Kate Moss looking at me. I thought I was in heaven for a second," he says. "It was like some Laurel and Hardy gag, I think perhaps it was their way of having a laugh."

The Stan and Ollie statue has been a long time in the making. Ibbeson was first approached nine years ago by the Sons of the Desert – the international appreciation society for the comedy duo – who commissioned the work, after being impressed with his Eric Morecambe statue.

"I made the sculpture with just enough money to cover the bronze casting, and then it went in storage for four years while they were trying to raise funds.

"But they were happy with the end result and they've even made me an honorary member of the Sons of the Desert."

In April, more than 2,500 people turned up for the unveiling in Stan Laurel's home town of Ulverston, with comedian Ken Dodd on hand to oversee the ceremony.

Ibbeson says the whole occasion was, at times, quite surreal. "I was standing talking to a couple of people at one point and I looked behind me and there was a queue of look-a-like Laurel and Hardys waiting for my autograph, it was really bizarre."

But it wasn't the last strange thing that happened. "Nine days after the unveiling ceremony, the North-West had its biggest earthquake in 30 years, and the epicentre was in Ulverston of all places."

But if a sculptor's life is unusual at times, it can also be stressful. "When we unveiled Eric Morecambe, he had been in a box for a month. When it came to the ceremony, we took the sculpture out of the box the morning before the Queen was due to unveil it, and the whole thing was green because of the micro-climate inside the box.

"I thought, 'Christ, the Queen's going to arrive in three hours.' So I was desperately polishing the statue to get rid of this green film that had formed, which I did just in time."

Ibbeson has become known to many people for his celebrity statues but although he has several waiting to be unveiled, including Yorkshire icons Dickie Bird and Fred Trueman, they make up only a fraction of his work.

"I've never seen myself as a portrait sculptor. I've been tagged as one since I did Eric Morecambe, but he was probably the first celebrity sculpture I did. I've got well over 25 public sculptures up and down Britain, and only four of those are portraits."

And while his artworks are hugely popular with many people, he was criticised recently by Janet Street-Porter who described his statues as "banal". Which misses the point of his work and the innate skill and humour that pervades it.

"I believe my work is challenging, but it's also about fun and it's about laughter. I've been told off for calling my sculptures 'gags' but in a way they are, they're visual gags."

Like, for instance, The Barnsley Superman which depicts a miner wearing a blue flat clap and red and blue y-fronts, standing proudly in his pit boots.

Such creations, he says, come from his own past, growing up in South Yorkshire.

"A lot of it's taken from my own childhood, being brought up on a council estate and the humour and camaraderie that goes with being part of a mining community."

But when it comes to celebrity statues, he agrees to do only those in who he's interested.

"If you look at Laurel and Hardy, they had this great affection for one another, and I have great affection for them, which, hopefully, comes out in the work."

Which is why he says he wouldn't be interested in doing a statue of Alfred Wainwright.

"The people I do lived their lives in the limelight and I'm only extending that, and I only do people who I have a true connection with, otherwise I couldn't do it. With Wainwright, he wasn't a big celebrity, and rather than a statue what would perhaps be more appropriate is something like stones along the Wainwright Way – that would be a far more fitting memorial."

He accepts that everyone has their own idea of what Laurel and Hardy, or Fred Trueman should look like, and says that his sculptures are just one man's interpretation.

"I just create my vision of that person. Ultimately, the only other people I've got to please, other than myself, is the family, and if they think it's good enough, then that's what matters," he says.