News that 70,000 fans have signed a petition to have an erection of Paul O’Grady (he’d appreciate that) put up in his hometown Birkenhead sees us dragging up the statue debate again.
Whether the proposed O’Grady statue over the Mersey from Liverpool would be of pets’ pal Paul with a beloved pooch.
Or his beloved alter ego, Lily Savage, a celebration of this towering figure would be most welcome.
We make no apologies for dredging up this contentious subject again because simply put statues are a fixture of every tourist’s city break trip.
And it is our mission to redress the balance.
By putting up more cultural figures on pedestals to match, replace or overtake the mystery military statues that look down on us.
Who’s a hero?
Statues was all the talk in of all places Barbados a few years ago.
When the Ski Club of Virginia made their annual pilgrimage down to the Caribbean.
And our new friends from the Deep South were alerting us to the gathering storm.
Over the statues of the Confederate leaders proliferating there.
Which I saw for myself when I went out to Virginia.
And visited Manassas, site of the first fighting in the Civil War, and home to Stonewall Jackson.
And alas the fighting was to resume not long after on the streets again.
I was fortunate to illicit the opinions of those on both sides of the divide through further adventures in the Deep South.
And meet the likes of Dr Martin Luther King and his unfinished statue in Washington DC.
And Fannie Lou Hamer, the little big woman who got tired of being tired in Mississippi.
The extraordinary ordinary
Of course for every celebrated soldier, conceited king or quaffed queen there are real heroes and heroines who have rightly been placed in marble and stone.
Such as Anne Frank in Amsterdam, Workers’ champion Jim Larkin in Dublin or devoted doggie Greyfriars Bobby in Edinburgh.
Ah yes, you’ll see the message we’re sending out here, more children, women, working-class heroes and animals.
Gay giants
And LGBTQ+ champions and more drag queens.
Our trawl of statues turns up unexpectedly and disappointingly precious few of either.
Again our beloved Ireland leads the way somewhat and in spite of its repressive Catholic past.
With the louche and lounging statue of Oscar Wilde in Merrion Square.
While he is lauded and lipsticked in his gravestone in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, his last resting place.
Where Wilde led, the likes of Harvey Milk, the ‘Mayor of Castro Street’ in San Francisco.
Whose bust smiles at us from its plinth in City Hall, followed.
And Greenwich Village in New York, spiritual home for the Gay Liberation Movement, made a statement with a bust to Marsha P Johnson.
All of which makes the case for more statues which truly represent the people who live among them and represent them.
Redressing the balance
Alas, here in the UK as in most places representation is in short supply.
With only Alan Turing, the decoder who helped defeat Hitler, represented long after he was vilified and criminalised for his homosexuality.
So let’s hear it for the real heroes and heroines of our society.
Those we can identify with and look up to.
And that’s who I want to be looking at it on my city breaks.
And why I’m dragging up the statue debate again.
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