I joined the well-heeled crowd, as it snaked through the Chelsea Flower Show, past world-glass gardens with elite-level designs, horticultural artistry and then a cow with a traffic cone on its head. Immediately I knew it: this guy must be from Glasgow.Scotland’s biggest metropolis has the most facetious humour of any city in Britain. For example, regular visitors may be aware of its ancient – definitely at least decades-old – tradition of lobbing a traffic cone on to the head of the Duke of Wellington.The grand old duke’s statue is mounted on a huge plinth outside of Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art. There is always a cone on his head, usually placed there by a local in high spirits, often at night, most probably to a soundtrack of sniggering laughter.The local council used to discourage people from doing it. About 20 years ago, officials announced plans to double the height of the plinth so that drunkards bearing traffic cones couldn’t scale it to bequeath the duke his traditional Scottish hat. There was uproar in Glasgow and a petition against the plan garnered thousands of signatures.The council dropped the plan. The cone tradition continues. The council still takes them down. But usually within an hour – day or night – a cone reappears on the duke’s head.The Duke of Wellington statue crowned with a traffic cone outside the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow. Photograph: Emily Macinnes/Bloomberg via Getty Images So what was a traffic cone doing on the head of a rusty metal Highland cow at the world’s biggest and poshest flower show in the heart of one of London’s most salubrious districts? I found the owner of the exhibit, which seemed to be based on the reconstruction of an old farmyard barn with graffiti.Kev Paxton is a sculptor and artisan blacksmith based in a rural area not too far from Edinburgh. He stood out at the rather genteel Chelsea Flower Show, and not just for his cone-wearing cow. Paxton has a liberty spikes punk hairstyle that Johnny Rotten would have been proud of in the 1970s.His ArtFe blacksmith metal sculpture business, run with partner Cat Stops, has had a stand at Chelsea for the past six years. The first year they applied, they were knocked back by the organisers. Paxton refused to change, so eventually they let ArtFe in.[ ‘A nice treat’: Catherine Connolly greeted by Irish gardeners at Chelsea Flower ShowOpens in new window ]The Chelsea Flower Show truly is a force of nature. Think Ireland’s National Ploughing Championships crossed with the Bloom festival. Then double the price and scale of everything. About 150,000 people will pass through the gates this week at the prestigious event, held on the grounds of the Royal Hospital in Chelsea.Paxton was delighted with the attention generated by ArtFe’s cone-wearing “Highland coos”.“I put the cone on for a bit of Glasgow banter. Everything else you see here is made out of scrap metal. It is 100 per cent upcycled,” he said. “The metal was given a second chance at life. Just like some of us have been.”Paxton said that most of the London crowd had no idea what the cone signified, but “if you know, you know”. Many passersby who had visited Scotland came over to chat.“You associate things with places. If you go to the US, maybe you wear a Stetson and you say ‘yee-haw!’ In Scotland, we’ve always got a traffic cone on the go. If we’re not using them as loud hailers, we’re wearing them on our heids. That’s just how it is.”Paxton said he was “an anarchist, a bit of a rebel”. He was never going to alter his wacky ways for the Chelsea Flower Show.“Originally, we didn’t fit their criteria of having everything polished and perfect. When we said we were bringing a corrugated barn, the organisers were nervous. Do we change to follow the rules? No, we stay true to ourselves.”[ Farewell to a Glasgow classic: the chippy that fed me the best £11 meal of my lifeOpens in new window ]Paxton said that all of scrap metal artworks – he once spent 1,500 hours making a Clydesdale horse scaling a gate – are inspired by nature.“We’ve got to reuse things, to give back a wee bit to Mother Nature. I started making things out of scrap metal about 20 years ago. I had a shed on an old farm and there were always bits of metal lying around. Some of it would have rust marks – I thought it looked cool,” said Paxton.“So I left the rust marks on it. We’ve all got scars. So why not embrace them? You can’t change the scars that you’ve got.”A Covid-era interview with him in the Edinburgh Evening News suggested Paxton may have been a tad “wayward” in his teenage years. It said blacksmithing gave him “focus”. Now his business employs a team of artisan blacksmiths, all trained under him, helping to make these upcycled sculptures.“We’re like a punk band with no musical instruments,” Paxton told the Edinburgh Evening News, in 2021.This week among the Chelsea crowds, with his liberty spikes and grin, Paxton seemed as relaxed as if he was sitting in his own back garden.“Some of the Londoners can give us strange looks. But I think most of them probably have a wee smile behind all that seriousness.”[ Mark Paul: Monty Python and the site of one of modern Britain's darkest crimesOpens in new window ]