PLUCKY Caitlin Hopes might be scared of heights, but that wasn’t going to stop her talking her place on artist Antony Gormley’s fourth plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square.

Caitlin, 21, perched on top of the empty monument for an hour as a way of raising awareness of the disease cystic fibrosis, which claimed the life of childhood pal Lorna Jones, 20, earlier this year.

Caitlin tossed 65 paper roses to bemused passers-by as tourists snapped her with their cameras.

Caitlin, of Highview Avenue, Clacton, said: “When kids are little and are diagnosed with cystic fibrosis they call it 65 roses because it’s easier to say.

“I put little tags on each rose telling people about my friend, as a way of raising awareness.”

Caitlin was picked at random from thousands of hopefuls as part of the 100-day art project.

She continued: “A crane lifts you up there, which is quite frightening.

“I didn’t realise how scared I was of heights. The wind was blowing quite a bit so I just sat down.”

Her stint on the plinth has already raised hundreds of pounds for her appeal.

Former Tendring Technology College student Caitlin described her friend Lorna as “a small girl with a big personality and a big heart”.

She added: “She’d have loved it, though she might have been a bit embarrassed if she’d known I was doing it for her.”

You can still contribute to Caitlin’s appeal, by going to www.justgiving.com/Lorna-Jones * Essex University art historian Dr Natasha Ruiz-Gomez, who moved from New York to work at Colchester two years ago, has also had a spell on the plinth.

Her hour in the spotlight was spent “in contemplation”.

She said: “It was a luxury to have a full hour to spend in contemplation, and a peculiar privilege to have it on that spot.

“I spent a lot of my time on the plinth thinking about how I’ve got to this point, as the child of Cuban immigrants to the United States, now an immigrant myself in a new country.”