Empty plinths

I have a plinth. Which I stand on. Before you become jealous, I should add that it’s a wooden structure, only a few centimetres high. And it was very kindly made by the resident carpenter so that I would have a flat surface for my tai chi practice in the garden. What passes for our lawn, but is largely moss and daisies, is very uneven and really not well suited to any sort of exercise. So once a day I clamber onto my plinth, do 30 minutes of tai chi and then descend before anyone can take exception,  throw paint at me or try to pull me off.

Plinths and statues are much in the public consciousness these days and it’s one of those things that most people pass by without a second glance or thought. An evaluation of these public statues is long overdue. Who are all these people, anyway? Mostly they look like interchangeable white men, sometimes on a horse, sometimes looking noble and sometimes on a column. Sometimes all three at once. The only statues of people of colour I can recall in London are Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. There are also very few of women and when you do see them they’re usually unnamed, representing grief or hope or some such thing, and often wearing minimal clothing. Except for the statues of Queen Victoria – she was very good at ensuring her legacy in stone while remaining fully clad.

I think communities need to consider each statue individually and decide whether it’s worth keeping, and I imagine that a lot wouldn’t be. Although who could argue with a statue of the wonderful Joseph Bazalgette, the engineer who created London’s first sewer system and built the embankment while he was at it? Or the fine one of Isambard Kingdom Brunel in Neyland, Wales? His hat is so impressively tall that it really needs a plinth of its own. Although if you were to dig deep, who knows what murk you’d find in their pasts?

But what would we do with all those empty plinths? I think characters from fiction are a good bet, but also not without controversy. The bronze of Paddington Bear at Paddington Station is charming and much loved. Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens is also very popular, but I’m not sure that Sherlock Holmes (looming in bronze near his fictional home in Baker Street) would stand up to too much scrutiny as a white, sexist, middle-class drug addict.

We might be on safer ground with statues of comedians. However, a lot of comedy doesn’t age well and, like historical figures, comedians might be admired in their time, but later generations might not be so impressed. Statues of people like Morecambe and Wise (there’s a lovely one in Blackpool) and Victoria Wood (she has one in Bury, Greater Manchester, but lovely it isn’t) might be a safe bet, but who’s to know? We can’t speak for generations unborn. And if you’re looking for diversity among these statues, you’ll struggle. There’s one in Melbourne of Dame Edna Everage, who is a man in drag, so that might tick some sort of diversity box.

I think the solution is statues of animals. My personal preference would be camels, but I don’t think that would be a popular choice. My second choice would be elephants. There seem to be quite a few elephant statues in Asia, but not so many in the UK, which I think needs to be urgently addressed. Even better, what about a cute fictional elephant like Babar? Oh dear, I’ve just remembered that he’s male, upper class, sexist and racist. It’ll have to be camels.