Last updated 07:44, Friday, 25 April 2008

THIS WEEK I have been contemplating Workington’s new piece of civic art, the column outside the HSBC bank.

Some like it; some don’t, as you will know if you read the story in last week’s Times & Star.

It is made from rails manufactured in Workington and is a tribute to the Curwen family, which is fair enough; both of them made fine contributions to the town.

But it looks unfinished, rather like a Nelson-less column, although one of our correspondents mischievously suggested last week that it was a plinth for a statue of the Invisible Man.

But the thing is so tall that if a statue of someone were put on the top, you wouldn’t be able to see who it was anyway.

You can’t move in some towns without passing by the Princess Diana Memorial Gardens, the Lady Bogchester commemorative fountain or a statue recalling some bygone mayor or alderman.

The only statue I can think of in this area which commemorates someone is the one of Earl Mayo in Cockermouth, although there is a rather nice group of miners on the outskirts of Flimby.

We seem to prefer animals, with the Herdwick ram on the A66 and the truly dreadful monkey lion on the corner of Oxford Street, Workington.

Even Marra the late lamented dolphin has a statue in Maryport.

But it is important to remember the great and the good, and I like to read the plaques on statues to find out what they are all about.

I recall reading the one on the fine 135ft monument in Newcastle to Earl Grey, architect of the great Reform Bill.

I was with Number One Son, who has lived there for years and the conversation went something like this:

Him: Hurry up. What are you doing?

Me: I am reading this plaque on the statue of Earl Grey - (trying to discover whether his education had been wasted) - do you know who he was?

Him: Yes. He invented tea. Now come on.

He said he was joking. I only hope he was.