A YOUNG autistic young man is on a quest to have his photograph taken with every Welcome to Essex sign along the county's border - in a bid to boost his confidence.

Kireon Wicks, 20, has already travelled hundreds of miles around the county to find the signs and posed up with 15 of them so far.

He became fascinated with the signs after looking at a map of Essex and now spends his weekends hunting for the signs with his mum Emma Church, 36.

He particularly likes seeing the three seaaxes featured on the county's emblem, his mum said.

The pair have now visited numerous locations. Emma says: "Seeing them on street view is not enough for him - he has to actually go and see them.

"We've spent many hours driving around in the car and we've been out every weekend for the last month trying to find them.

"But this has been going on for a good few months now and we've been looking and trying to work out where they are before we go out.

"But it's been fun."

Another sign ticked off for Kireon Wicks.

Emma said that her son lost all of his confidence last year when he was told by somebody at a local park that he had 'no right to be here.'

She said Kireon just 'shut down' after the moment was made but now he is challenging himself to find all of the signs, it's 'got him talking to people again.'

Emma, of Braintree, said: "It was really sad because he's such an amazing person and everyone that meets him just becomes infected by his smile and his laugh.

"Now this has got him talking to people again and asking where the signs are and trying to interact with people.

"We've gone to different cafes and shops along the border and met people who are just walking their dog and wondered what we was doing.

"It has been quite nice and quite lovely."

Kireon also has severe learning disabilities and a global development delay which means he often makes repetitive or unusual movements or noises called stimming.

Emma has said that when he is stimming, he does 'little happy flaps' and she sometimes thinks 'he's going to take off' as he's so happy when he sees the signs.

The Girl Guide leader said: "He has his little happy flaps which is actually stimming which is part of his autism.

"But he actually flaps and I actually think he's going to take off one day because he's flapping so hard when he sees the signs.

"He just jumps out of the car and he's so good at spotting them."

It is currently unknown how many 'Welcome to Essex' signs are in the county and Emma is now appealing for locals to get in touch with her if they know where a sign is.

The married mum-of-four said: "We don't know how many signs there are and not even Essex Highways have the answer to that question.

"You can't even Google it either as nobody has ever done it.

"You can find a couple of pictures when you Google it but it's not 100% where they are.

"So we're reaching out to people as I think it's the only way of doing this as people know their local area.

"Some of the signs are off the beaten track because some of the towns were once a big, booming area so they needed those signs.

"But we no longer use them roads to know that the sign is there."