Diane Catterall said she's been inundated since her son Ryan Acaster, right, was killed when his motorbike was in collision with a wire strung across a dirt track near Martin Mere on July 20.

She said: "We have only lived here (in Brinscall) for 18 months but Ryan made an awful lot of friends here and such a lot of people knew him from working here."

Mrs Catterall, who lives in Chapel Street, Brinscall, with her husband Peter and Ryan's older brother Sean, has still not been able to fix a date for the funeral as police investigations into the accident are still ongoing.

However, she hopes that people will donate money to the North West Air Ambulance in memory of Ryan.

She said: "They really tried their hardest for him and they are struggling financially. Just how many lives would be lost if the air ambulance had to shut down? Ryan loved his horses and I would like to also raise enough money to make a small donation to the (horse rescue sanctuary) ILPH (now known as World Horse Welfare) at Blackpool, but most of money would go to the air ambulance, we can't lose this service."

Mrs Catterall said that the company Ryan worked for three years, Brinscall Building and Plumbing Merchants, was also raising money in his memory.

"They put a box on the counter and within an hour of it going up it was full," she said. "Three people from his work want to do an aeroplane jump to raise money for him. They are hoping that someone will take them up free of charge so that all the money they raise can be donated."

Spokesman for Brinscall Building and Plumbing Merchants, Margaret Wilkinson, known as Marie, said they were still looking into sponsored parachute jumps to raise money for the air ambulance in Ryan's memory.

"Kate Calderbank, Debbie Stringfellow and Jake Rossall are all willing to do the jump and we are still waiting for the paperwork," she said.

"We will be putting a sponsorship form on the wall here and we hope to get some of our customers to sponsor them.

"Ryan was such a likeable lad, he worked here for three years and we just can't get used to not shouting for him to do things."

If anyone would like to sponsor the parachute team, they should telephone the company on 01254 831415.