The Museum Exhibit That Serves as a Memorial

Inside the London Transport Museum is an unusual, if not unique, memorial.

The waxwork of the bus driver in the museum's  Routemaster bus is based on a real person, Christopher Moyes.

 Chris Moyes was a former bus conductor who became a key player during the privatisation of the bus and rail industries in the 1980's and 1990's. He was the founder of one of the largest transport companies in the country, Go Ahead, who still run trains and buses all over UK.

“He averaged 1,000 miles a week on public transport – preferably his own buses and trains – and even took his enthusiasm home with him, owning, maintaining and driving a collection of vintage buses. Though criticised for phasing out the Routemasters among the 1,000 London buses operated by Go Ahead, he bought one himself "just for the fun and enjoyment of it" but thought it too uncomfortable for the modern passenger."

Chris Moyes died of a brain tumour aged just 57 in 2006.

When the London Transport Museum reopened, after a lengthy refit, in 2007 they decided to commemorate him with this waxwork and portrayed him as the driver of their Routemaster.


Other waxwork figures in the museum are also based on real people connected with London's transport. The museum's current Director, Sam Mullins, sits as a passenger inside a "padded cell" carriage from the 1890 the City and South London Railway, for example.

But I can't think of anyone else who has deliberately and posthumously been commemorated by a waxwork in quite this way.

Quotes come from the Daily Telegraph obituary of Chis Moyes, the full obit. is here.

Yuri Gagarin and Henry Moore in Cultural Exchange

As the new Yuri Gagarin statue was unveiled in London today it was revealed at the reception that a familiar London landmark will soon be leaving for the Kremlin in Moscow. One woman connects the two unique public exhibitions - Elena Gagarina, Yuri Garagin's daughter.

 

The Yuri Gagarin statue was unveiled this morning outside the British Council's offices on the Mall near Admiralty Arch. It is an exhibition copy of the original which stands in Lyubertsy.  

 

The unveiling was performed by HRH Prince Michael of Kent and Elena Gagarina in front of a large crowd of press, dignitaries, and well wishers. Perhaps the most unusual feature of the morning was a greeting delivered live and direct from the International Space Station's crew, in a reception immediately prior to the unveiling.

Elena Gagarina is not only the daughter of the the first man in space, she is also Director of the Kremlin Museums. In this capacity, she, together with the British Council have arranged for the Kremlin to have its first ever show of Modern Art.

The Henry Moore exhibition will open at the Kremlin in Feb 2012 and will feature many sculptures and drawings by the British artist. The highlight of the show will be this familiar London landmark.

This is Moore's Knife Edge Two Piece made between 1962 and 1965. It stands near the Victoria Tower at the Houses of Parliament and regularly crops up in the background of political interviews.

 

The international loan of such a well-known London landmark is very unusual but then the gift of a Russian memorial or monument is equally rare. Special permission was required from the Governor of Moscow and Lyubertsy authorities to make a copy of the original Gagarin statue so that Roscosmos, the Russian Space Agency, could present it as a gift to the people of Britain. It will stand in the current location for one year before moving to a permanent site.

The statue's unveiling could not have been better timed. This year marks 50 years of manned space flight and today, July 14th is the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's lunch with HM the Queen. 

Gagarin visited the UK in July 1961. The authorities were wrong-footed and underestimated the enthusiasm with which he was greeted by the British public. What was to have been a pretty low-key 2 day visit was hastily extended to 4 days and a meeting with Harold Macmillan and lunch at Buckingham Palace arranged. During that lunch the Queen gave Yuri Gagarin a present of two dolls for his daughters, Elena and Galina. I wonder if they both still have them?

There is also an accompanying exhibition celebrating 50 years of manned space flight at the British Council but I will post separately about this.

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout Westminster, see tabs for details.

First Weekend Elephant Winner

This Friday's first Weekend Elephant was published here.

 

 The idea is that each Friday we will publish a picture of a different London elephant. You then have the whole weekend to email the location to discoveringlondon@hotmail.co.uk . Pride is all there is at stake.

The first person to correctly locate this first Weekend Elephant was that noted London expert, Matt from Londonist. Congratulations! Of course Londonist are the acknowledged experts on London's pride of lions, it seems their expertise extends to elephants too. Can anyone pip them to the post this Friday when the next elephant is published?

This pink elephant is painted on the wall of a WWII deep level shelter at Stockwell Memorial Garden. It dates to 1999 when Brian Barnes and Myra Harris created a mural based on the the ideas of pupils at Stockwell Park School.

The London Mural Preservation Society who "work to protect, preserve and celebrate murals in communities where they were created" have a good feature on the mural here.

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout Westminster, see tabs for details.

The Violette Szabó Mural 10 Years On

This mural in Stockwell was unveiled on the 26th June 2001, on what would have been Violette Szabo's 80th birthday. Click to enlarge images.

The mural is part of the Stockwell War Memorial, Stockwell Road. It is painted on the side of a WWII deep level shelter.

It commemorates, Violette Szabo who lived in Stockwell and who was an undercover secret agent for the SOE (Special Operations Executive) in Occupied France during WWII. After undertaking two secret missions, she was captured, tortured and executed in 1945.

Her life was famously dramatised in the film Carve Her Name with Pride, starring Virginia McKenna and  the book of the same name by R. J. Minney. As an agent in the SOE, she was issued with the haunting coded poem The Life That I Have.

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours


The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours


A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause


For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours
And yours

This is not the only memorial to Violette Szabó in London but it is the only one under threat. A decade of sunshine has faded the colours and the paint has started to peel.


London Mural Preservation Society exists to "protect, preserve and celebrate murals in the communities where they were created." There is a link to their feature on this mural here. There is also an opportunity to volunteer or to donate to their work.


For more on the remarkable life of Violette Szabó and her Stockwell connections, see this article from  Stockwell News. For details of her other memorials in London see the excellent London Remembers site here.


The full text of the accompanying accompanying plaque reads:

In Memory of 

Violette Szabó GC

and the

Stockwell Residents

who gave their lives in World War II

Unveiled by Virginia McKenna at a Special Remembrance Service on 26 June 2001, the 80th anniversary of Violette’s birth,. in the presence of Tania Szabó, the Mayor of Lambeth and the Brixton & Stockwell British Legion.

Mural designed & painted by Brian Barnes and Marya Harris, based on designs from pupils at Stockwell Park School.

A Stockwell Partnership project with the Clapham & Stockwell Town Centre Initiative and Transport for London Street Management

Monumental Children Return to Meet Their Saviour at Liverpool St

Flor Kent's much admired sculpture "Fur Das Kind" has returned to Liverpool Street Station.

 

These two haunting figures are a memorial to the WWII Kindertransport rescue of children, partly made possible by Sir Nicholas Winton's  missions, during which 669 children of mostly Jewish origin were saved.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the “Winton Train” which brought children from Prague to London. 

Last Saturday, the 21st May, Sir Nicholas Winton was met at Liverpool Street station by descendants of the real-life rescued “children” together with their families who had arrived on a special steam locomotive that had just retraced the original route. He duly rededicated the statue in the week of his 102nd birthday! An amazing and inspirational man, more about him and his work here.

The original statue was dedicated in 2003. In that version the girl stood next to a glass suitcase, which  contained objects that the real children had brought with them to England. Problems with conserving the objects and the need for planning permission to be granted to add the figure of the boy have caused the delays in it's return. Photos of the statue in it's 2003 incarnation from "The Poor Mouth" Blog here.

The statues are part of an international network of commemoration, which also includes Für Das Kind/ For The Child- Vienna in Westbahnhof Station,  Pro Dite / For The Child- Prague in the Central Hlavni Nadrazi, the Für Das Kind Collection of Original Objects at the Imperial War Museum and  the Für Das Kind International Travelling Exhibition.

The very high winds last week damaged an exhibition also timed to coincide with this event. "Winton's Trains" was due to have opened for a month in the Bishopsgate entrance to the station. It is currently being rescheduled details here http://www.wintonstrain.com/

I think we owe it to all concerned, to visit the exhibition as soon as it re-opens.

Grinling Gibbons - A Memorable Name

If I was ever asked to choose a book for Desert Island Discs it would be the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and if I ever win the lottery it will be a very early purchase. For now I rely almost daily on the online version to clarify and illuminate. A genuinely authoritative source of immense scale.

There is so much nonsense written about Grinling Gibbons on the net. A quick scan of the DNB and many myths can be cleared up in moments.

The distinctive name "Grinling" has been written as "Grinlin, Grinlen, Grinilin, Greenlin, Grindlin, Grinsted, Gringling, Gringlin, Grialin, Griblin, Grymlin, Grimling, Grimblin, and Grumblin".

Where did the name come from? Well his father's name was James Gibbons and his mother's was Elizabeth Grinling. In a sentence or two David Esterly's DNB article nails down the answer "It is a metronymic, memorializing his mother's maiden name."

This plaque commemorates Grinling Gibbons' home in Bow Street. "The house collapsed in January 1702 and was rebuilt as a substantial brick structure, which Gibbons then insured for the sizable sum of £700" The house no longer stands but nearby inside St Paul's Covent Garden there is another memorial.

Above this is the little example of lime-wood rendered exquisite, as referred to in the panel.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I think the work of Grinling Gibbons is almost impossible to photograph properly. But I will plod on with one of the aims of my blog to document all examples of his London work and any other associations. See labels for other related Gibbons posts.

The Rainbow Division Reach the Royal Academy

This very impressive new statue has arrived at the courtyard of the Royal Academy in London's Piccadilly. I thought at first it it must be by Charles Sargeant Jagger, but somehow it seemed too contemporary.

The new work  is actually by James Butler RA and has only recently been cast, though its subject and style are much older.

It is a memorial that has been commisioned in honor of the Alabama 167, the Iowa 168th and the 42nd Rainbow Division  for their deeds in the WWI Battle of the Marne, July 25-26, 1918 in which the Germans were defeated and compelled to retreat.   The Croix Rouge Farm Foundation, Montgomery, Alabama, sponsored the statue. It will be dedicated on November 12, 2011 at the Croix Rouge Farm memorial, in France.

The Rainbow Division, full name the 42nd Infantry Division,  is still a division of the National Guard and United States Army. Douglas MacArthur, once Chief of Staff of the 42ID, is often credited with the naming it. Regiments from 26 different states were rapidly drawn together in August 1917 to form the Division and  MacArthur said "Fine, that will stretch over the whole country like a rainbow." More here.

As the work will only be temporarily available to view in London, as part of The Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition, it is well worth making the effort to see it soon. If you do miss it, there are several other permanent James Butler's in London, including the Memoria lto the Fleet Air Arm's Daedalus on The Embankment and his statue of James Greathead, the Grahamstown born, tunnelling Pioneer in Cornhill, or I would suggest it is well worth getting the Eurostar on, or after, November the 12th..

Update: 18th May For a full history and many more photos of the sculpture's creation visit the Croix Rouge Farm Foundation Pages here.

The Seven Seas of Wheeler

I mentioned Edward Maufe, the architect, the other day when talking about Heal's. Another of his London works is the Mercantile Marine Memorial for the 1939-45 War at Trinity Square Gardens, Tower Hill. This is often referred to as the Merchant Navy Memorial.

This sunken garden was completed between 1950 and 1955. A number of sculptures were commissioned by Maufe from Charles Wheeler, (see labels below for more Wheeler posts).

At one side of the entrance to the Memorial stands Wheeler's "Officer of the Mercantile Marine" and in the garden itself are seven allegorical reliefs of "The Seven Seas", each of these stands well over six feet high. You can see a couple on either side of the bench in the photo above.

Bit by bit I will publish photos of every Charles Wheeler I can find in London.

Before the Frog

Another William Reid Dick statue, this is his eagle on the 1923 RAF memorial on Victoria Embankment, London.