I hope it's ok my posting this:
My interest in London's statues began when I found I had embarked on a quest to photograph them all!! Here's the full story which I originally wrote about eight years ago, now:
"If you were to ask what possessed me to photograph every single statue in London, I could always invoke the 'Everest' clause: because they're there. Actually, the initial reason was purely a practical one. Having just taken up photography as a hobby, I was looking for a target for my snappings, and that was when I started photographing statues
This quest began innocently enough as I clicked away at the likes of the queens, Elizabeth and Victoria; the generals, Eisenhower and Monty; and the Nelsons, Horatio and Mandela. In hardly any time I had the makings of a small collection, but as with stamps and butterflies, my collecting took on a compulsive character and suddenly I was tearing around London at every opportunity, virtually sniffing the air for a scent of bronze. Prowling the city's squares and crescents for hidden gems, I could be spotted jumping on and off my mountain bike twenty or thirty times in each session catching a Dickens here, a Disraeli there and Queen Victoria just about everywhere.
In time, I grew so eagle-eyed that I could spy a plinth or a bust out of the most distant corner of my eye. Taxis swerved and pedestrians recoiled as I radically altered course, having spotted some new quarry. My compulsion swiftly escalated into obsession. I mean, I'd always enjoyed something of a love affair with London and it's sights and history, but behaviour like this? What would come next? Morning sessions train-spotting at London Bridge station, thermos and sandwiches close by?
Supping a much needed pint one evening in the art-deco ambience of the Black Friar Pub just along from Blackfriars Bridge (with a statue of said friar over the doorway, as it happens), I laughsident in Whitehall. Now, take a walk down this esteemed address and you'll meet such luminaries as Charles I, Field Marshal Haigh and good old Monty, but not our Walter. Eventually, I had been up and down Whitehall that many times, reconnoitoring Raleigh, I was almost on waving terms with Tony Blair. A double frustration as I had had already snapped him in Greenwich. (Raleigh that is, not Blair). Aha! The penny dropped. One time SW1 resident was now to be found in SE10. Case solved. But what about Frederic Chopin? Last seen close to the Royal Festival Hall, who knows where he is now?† A helpful commissionaire suggested he was possibly in storage somewhere. I could only hope that the celebrated consumptive is not marooned in some damp warehouse tucked behind a discarded Damian Hirst sheep.
Still, for each mystery or disappearance there has always been the pleasure of turning a bend in the road and coming across a gem of a statue one didn't know about:† the young Mozart in Ebury Street standing on two volumes of music close to the house where the prodigy composed his first symphony; the feisty Chelsea Pensioner who stands before the Royal Hospital, his walking stick raised above his head in an ambiguous gesture of salute and defiance;† and the very refined and striking figures that adorn many of London s Metropolitan drinking fountains. Exquisite examples of the Victorian's desire to elevate even the most mundane of fixtures.
By now, I was beginning to understand what was driving my compulsion to photograph these statues. Spend enough time in their company, or even just to pass a figure briefly by, and statues, even the indifferent ones, always seem to provoke a response. You can t help but develop a rapport with them. Take the Queen Victoria on Blackfriars Bridge. Yet another statue of the sombre queen, but look more closely and admire how realistically CB Birch's casting conveys the texture of Victoria's silk gown. You can almost feel the material. Then there s Nelson Mandela s proud bust by the Royal Festival Hall. A figure that excellently conveys the subject s sense of destiny, 'the long road to freedom' and all that, but still a work I can never pass without thinking what twit stuck him there with nothing better to look at than Hungerford Bridge and its unceasing parade of cramped Kentish commuter trains.
Poignancy, as you might expect is often a reaction generated by various statues but not always for the most apparent of reasons. There s the statue of Robert Scott of the Antartic in Waterloo Place opposite the Athanaeum. He stands beaming optimistically in his Arctic gear, the work of noted sculptress, Kathleen Hylton, who also happened to be his widow, Lady Scott. Or there's the plaque on Victoria Embankment in honour of the noted journalist and reformer WT Stead. He died while on transit to America to make a lecture tour on public reform, his ship having lost an argument with an ice-berg. He was, of course, a Titanic passenger and in an entirely characteristic act of selflessness he stood back from the ensuing melee, declined a place in one of the lifeboats, and was last seen reading his bible on the open deck, calmly resigned to his fate. Then there's the elegant, classical, marble portrait of former parliamentarian, William Huskisson, in Pimlico Gardens. Ardent advocate of the repeal of the corn laws, further research reveals that he was also the first ever person to be killed in a rail accident.
There are many more stories to be told by London statues and it's ironic to think these tales are often inspired by smudgy, plinthed figures that have long disappeared into their backgrounds, forlornly beached by a receding tide of indifferent passers by. Is it the case, perhaps, that London's statues and memorials no longer capture the public imagination? Have they become an outdated aide memoir? Certainly, we don't erect memorials with anything like the passion of our Victorian and Edwardian predecessors, and after all, in this multimedia age, are there not a multitude of sophisticated alternatives to memorialising someone other than in statue form? Think of all the articles, biographies and TV documentaries that are trotted out in respect of more contemporary heroes, or indeed why not go hi-tech and follow the example of that latter-day trend setter, HMQ, recently served up as a hologram. Much more 'interactive', much more 21st century.† A smart electronic tribute for sure, but gone all too soon if someone decides to pull the plug. Isn t the very virtue of a statue it s permanency? Literally a standing memorial, accessible to all and open to any compliments and brickbats that come it s way, and if you want interactive, what about Landseer's lions in Trafalgar, clambered over by hundreds of children every day.
Statues may be outmoded but I'm pleased to say that they are still being commissioned and when new erections do appear, like their predecessors, they continue to ignite debate, sometimes derision and in the rarest of circumstances, decapitation. No sooner had Arthur 'Bomber' Harris taken his stand outside St.Clement Danes in the Strand than he was daubed in paint; Oscar Wilde, all too bizarrely peeps out of an emerald marble sarcophagus,† his mangled plasticine head apparently 'looking up at the stars'; more like the begrimed windows of Charing Cross Station; and of course poor Margaret Thatcher who stood, briefly, in the Guildhall, all in glowing white stone before being beheaded by a father with his son who clearly took severe exception to her statufication.
So, there they all are on my computer, countless images of the old, the new, the good,† the bad and the darn right ugly. But what exactly have I gained from this statuesque quest and, having almost reached my holy grail, what happens next? Over the last few months, I've come to appreciate that London's statues are a very significant jewel in the capital's crown, a recurring feature of the city's landscape and a reminder of its heritage. To help celebrate this resource I plan to establish a website that can be easily consulted by Londoners and her many visitors.† Guided Statue Walks are another possible innovation and wouldn't I have fun hosting a tv programme. I could be the Lucinda Lambton of stone and bronze. But in all earnestness I would genuinely like to see the establishment of a London Statues Appeal. I describe them as a 'jewel in the crown' but frankly the jewel is looking rather grubby in parts and wouldn't it be a welcome facelift to the city to launch a programme of refurbishment to cleanse the more needy cases of their grime and pollution†and re-present them afresh in the eyes of all those passersby rushing to their meetings, and who knows, make a few pause for a moment and think, Hello ... who's this?!
END
(* At the risk of repeating myself, it is possible I posted this at some point on the old Radio 3 boards)
My interest in London's statues began when I found I had embarked on a quest to photograph them all!! Here's the full story which I originally wrote about eight years ago, now:
"If you were to ask what possessed me to photograph every single statue in London, I could always invoke the 'Everest' clause: because they're there. Actually, the initial reason was purely a practical one. Having just taken up photography as a hobby, I was looking for a target for my snappings, and that was when I started photographing statues
This quest began innocently enough as I clicked away at the likes of the queens, Elizabeth and Victoria; the generals, Eisenhower and Monty; and the Nelsons, Horatio and Mandela. In hardly any time I had the makings of a small collection, but as with stamps and butterflies, my collecting took on a compulsive character and suddenly I was tearing around London at every opportunity, virtually sniffing the air for a scent of bronze. Prowling the city's squares and crescents for hidden gems, I could be spotted jumping on and off my mountain bike twenty or thirty times in each session catching a Dickens here, a Disraeli there and Queen Victoria just about everywhere.
In time, I grew so eagle-eyed that I could spy a plinth or a bust out of the most distant corner of my eye. Taxis swerved and pedestrians recoiled as I radically altered course, having spotted some new quarry. My compulsion swiftly escalated into obsession. I mean, I'd always enjoyed something of a love affair with London and it's sights and history, but behaviour like this? What would come next? Morning sessions train-spotting at London Bridge station, thermos and sandwiches close by?
Supping a much needed pint one evening in the art-deco ambience of the Black Friar Pub just along from Blackfriars Bridge (with a statue of said friar over the doorway, as it happens), I laughsident in Whitehall. Now, take a walk down this esteemed address and you'll meet such luminaries as Charles I, Field Marshal Haigh and good old Monty, but not our Walter. Eventually, I had been up and down Whitehall that many times, reconnoitoring Raleigh, I was almost on waving terms with Tony Blair. A double frustration as I had had already snapped him in Greenwich. (Raleigh that is, not Blair). Aha! The penny dropped. One time SW1 resident was now to be found in SE10. Case solved. But what about Frederic Chopin? Last seen close to the Royal Festival Hall, who knows where he is now?† A helpful commissionaire suggested he was possibly in storage somewhere. I could only hope that the celebrated consumptive is not marooned in some damp warehouse tucked behind a discarded Damian Hirst sheep.
Still, for each mystery or disappearance there has always been the pleasure of turning a bend in the road and coming across a gem of a statue one didn't know about:† the young Mozart in Ebury Street standing on two volumes of music close to the house where the prodigy composed his first symphony; the feisty Chelsea Pensioner who stands before the Royal Hospital, his walking stick raised above his head in an ambiguous gesture of salute and defiance;† and the very refined and striking figures that adorn many of London s Metropolitan drinking fountains. Exquisite examples of the Victorian's desire to elevate even the most mundane of fixtures.
By now, I was beginning to understand what was driving my compulsion to photograph these statues. Spend enough time in their company, or even just to pass a figure briefly by, and statues, even the indifferent ones, always seem to provoke a response. You can t help but develop a rapport with them. Take the Queen Victoria on Blackfriars Bridge. Yet another statue of the sombre queen, but look more closely and admire how realistically CB Birch's casting conveys the texture of Victoria's silk gown. You can almost feel the material. Then there s Nelson Mandela s proud bust by the Royal Festival Hall. A figure that excellently conveys the subject s sense of destiny, 'the long road to freedom' and all that, but still a work I can never pass without thinking what twit stuck him there with nothing better to look at than Hungerford Bridge and its unceasing parade of cramped Kentish commuter trains.
Poignancy, as you might expect is often a reaction generated by various statues but not always for the most apparent of reasons. There s the statue of Robert Scott of the Antartic in Waterloo Place opposite the Athanaeum. He stands beaming optimistically in his Arctic gear, the work of noted sculptress, Kathleen Hylton, who also happened to be his widow, Lady Scott. Or there's the plaque on Victoria Embankment in honour of the noted journalist and reformer WT Stead. He died while on transit to America to make a lecture tour on public reform, his ship having lost an argument with an ice-berg. He was, of course, a Titanic passenger and in an entirely characteristic act of selflessness he stood back from the ensuing melee, declined a place in one of the lifeboats, and was last seen reading his bible on the open deck, calmly resigned to his fate. Then there's the elegant, classical, marble portrait of former parliamentarian, William Huskisson, in Pimlico Gardens. Ardent advocate of the repeal of the corn laws, further research reveals that he was also the first ever person to be killed in a rail accident.
There are many more stories to be told by London statues and it's ironic to think these tales are often inspired by smudgy, plinthed figures that have long disappeared into their backgrounds, forlornly beached by a receding tide of indifferent passers by. Is it the case, perhaps, that London's statues and memorials no longer capture the public imagination? Have they become an outdated aide memoir? Certainly, we don't erect memorials with anything like the passion of our Victorian and Edwardian predecessors, and after all, in this multimedia age, are there not a multitude of sophisticated alternatives to memorialising someone other than in statue form? Think of all the articles, biographies and TV documentaries that are trotted out in respect of more contemporary heroes, or indeed why not go hi-tech and follow the example of that latter-day trend setter, HMQ, recently served up as a hologram. Much more 'interactive', much more 21st century.† A smart electronic tribute for sure, but gone all too soon if someone decides to pull the plug. Isn t the very virtue of a statue it s permanency? Literally a standing memorial, accessible to all and open to any compliments and brickbats that come it s way, and if you want interactive, what about Landseer's lions in Trafalgar, clambered over by hundreds of children every day.
Statues may be outmoded but I'm pleased to say that they are still being commissioned and when new erections do appear, like their predecessors, they continue to ignite debate, sometimes derision and in the rarest of circumstances, decapitation. No sooner had Arthur 'Bomber' Harris taken his stand outside St.Clement Danes in the Strand than he was daubed in paint; Oscar Wilde, all too bizarrely peeps out of an emerald marble sarcophagus,† his mangled plasticine head apparently 'looking up at the stars'; more like the begrimed windows of Charing Cross Station; and of course poor Margaret Thatcher who stood, briefly, in the Guildhall, all in glowing white stone before being beheaded by a father with his son who clearly took severe exception to her statufication.
So, there they all are on my computer, countless images of the old, the new, the good,† the bad and the darn right ugly. But what exactly have I gained from this statuesque quest and, having almost reached my holy grail, what happens next? Over the last few months, I've come to appreciate that London's statues are a very significant jewel in the capital's crown, a recurring feature of the city's landscape and a reminder of its heritage. To help celebrate this resource I plan to establish a website that can be easily consulted by Londoners and her many visitors.† Guided Statue Walks are another possible innovation and wouldn't I have fun hosting a tv programme. I could be the Lucinda Lambton of stone and bronze. But in all earnestness I would genuinely like to see the establishment of a London Statues Appeal. I describe them as a 'jewel in the crown' but frankly the jewel is looking rather grubby in parts and wouldn't it be a welcome facelift to the city to launch a programme of refurbishment to cleanse the more needy cases of their grime and pollution†and re-present them afresh in the eyes of all those passersby rushing to their meetings, and who knows, make a few pause for a moment and think, Hello ... who's this?!
END
(* At the risk of repeating myself, it is possible I posted this at some point on the old Radio 3 boards)
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