Right at the central crossroads of Barrow’s shopping centre, where Dalton Road, Crellin Street and the awful, modern, could-be-anywhere Portland Walk (which I will show when I can bring myself to) meet, is the huge bronze sculpture The Spirit of Barrow. It’s another piece by Chris Kelly, who gave us the Willie Horne (qv) statue.
One of the four figures facing different ways from the crossroads is a young man with a sledgehammer, all rippling muscles, noble good looks and socialist realism (or perhaps he dropped out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting celebrating the dignity of labour.) The other three are rather grittier: an electrician, a welder, and a fitter complete with pipe wrench who is my favourite, which is why I’ve chosen to focus on him. I like him because he’s such a quintessential Barrovian. Especially the face. And the hunched-but-full-of-purpose gait.
April 11, 2008 at 1:55 pm |
une très belle sculpture.
A beautiful sculpture.
April 11, 2008 at 2:20 pm |
Bien sûr Olivier. Merci
April 11, 2008 at 6:47 pm |
By any standards that is a suoerb sculpture. The photo is also superb as is the web site.
April 11, 2008 at 8:24 pm |
How big is “huge” ?
April 11, 2008 at 9:08 pm |
I think ‘huge’ might be a hyperbole but larger than life-size anyway.
April 12, 2008 at 12:40 pm |
The most disappointing aspect of the statue is the lack of a white collar worker. Leaving aside any moral qualms about was and still is built in Vickers (or whatever it’s called) it is the home of some of the most advanced technology around. That technology is the result of brain as opposed to brawn and it is very sad that that aspect appears to be have been ignored.
April 12, 2008 at 2:44 pm |
Jeff, in a way I agree with you. I spent most of my working life in computing, and my dad worked in the drawing office at Vickers (and my mum was an admin worker in the traffic section). But it is good to see, in what is essentially a blue-collar town, a fitting memorial to manual workers.
There are a number of plaques around town, devoted to engineers. I expect I’ll cover them before too long.
April 27, 2008 at 1:01 pm |
[...] was asking, when I featured the Spirit of Barrow monument, why there was no commemoration of the white-collar workers who contributed to [...]