The 19-year-old son of disabled artist Alison Lapper MBE has died.
Parys Lapper died suddenly a week ago, his mother’s partner Si Clift announced.
Friend and family were invited to decorate and paint Parys’ coffin at the family home this week, ahead of his funeral on Thursday.
A motorcycle escort to celebrate the teenager’s life will also be held.
Clift said: “Ali has expressed a dear wish that she would absolutely love to see as many noisy motorbikes as possible to escort Parys on his final journey.”
It is not known how Parys died, though Clift recalled: “Ali fought many battles against the establishment to keep Parys, bringing him up by herself in some very difficult circumstances indeed and continued to fight for him through his teenage years.”
He added: “Keep Parys in the forefront of your minds and hearts for a long while...he was a mischievous, generous, kind, loving, frustrating, cheeky, forgiving, beautiful boy. He was his own man. He was a good son.”
Alison Lapper was born without arms and was the subject of a sculpture by Mark Quinn, which was on Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth for two years. She appeared in No Body’s Perfect with the photographer Rankin and the BBC series Child Of Our Time.
Often mistaken as having suffered the effects of thalidomide, Alison Lapper’s actual condition is phocomelia, a rare birth defect characterised by in most instances by malformations of the extremities.
Thalidomide was given to pregnant women for three years between 1958 and 1961 to control symptoms of morning sickness, but resulted in thousands of babies around the world being born with missing or deformed limbs and extreme shortening of arms and legs, as well as malformations of the eyes and ears, genitals, heart, kidneys and digestive tract.