ACM Park Statue (Merged)

[Early Stacker]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7282183.stm

Gets my vote:ok:

[PPRuNe Pop]

I will be voting for the great man for he was such a man. A brilliant tactician and without a doubt loved by his men. At the age of 9 I lived within 3 miles of Croydon, and within the sight and sound of the battle fought there and overhead my home.

No modern art in a place that has so much history please. Save it for the man whose leadership saved us all.

[Jackonicko]

I absolutely support the idea of having modern art in central London, though I haven't liked any of the stuff that they've put on the fourth plinth so far.

In Trafalgar Square, with the surrounding buildings and the other monuments, however, I'd say that we need something in keeping with what's already there - a traditional, representational bronze statue of some kind of military geezer, preferably Georgian, preferably on a horse.

No-one's going to stump up for a new statue of some so-far unrecognised Napoleonic war general (Cornwallis or one of the other Generals from the Indian theatre in the 1790s or early 1800s), however, so Keith Park has some merit as a distinguished military man, and perhaps his part in saving London trumps the fact that he wouldn't (presumably) be on a horse, bewigged or frock coated.

This ought to be a campaign that everyone could get behind.

Sign up at:

http://www.sirkeithpark.com/petition.aspx

[polyglory]

Duly signed,

A very deserving choice indeed:ok:

[Archimedes]

Park could be on a horse, JN - he transferred to the RFC after being blown off the horse he was riding (as an officer in the Royal Field Artillery) and sustaining injuries which the War Office medics declared made him unfit to ride a horse. So he looked for another job, discovered being unfit to ride was no obstacle to becoming a pilot, and the rest, as they say, is history...

[Chugalug2]

We, the undersigned, are aware that there is no permanent memorial or statue to Air Chief Marshall Sir Keith Park GBC, KBE, MC and Bar, DFC, RAF who was in direct command of the pilots and all those who helped them defend London, the South East and the whole country from invasion during the Battle of Britain in 1940. We are aware that there is a suitable statue currently being commissioned and agree that a suitable position for this statue to occupy is the 4th Plinth in Trafalgar Square, where Sir Keith Park would join other heroes.

Thanks for the link Jacko, duly signed. Given the wording of the petition (above) I think he rather outranks your 18/19th Century worthies, even minus wig or horse, and in two hundred years time might be better known than today!

[Eject!Eje....]

... Signed. A long overdue memorial.

[JT Eagle]

And the funny thing is that the current occupants of two of the plinths, Havelock and Napier, are more remembered in New Zealand for the towns named after them (two in the case of the former). I believe that the authorities there were quite keen on getting those statues if they were deemed no longer needed. I am all in favour of Park, not just for the BoB, but, it can be argued, because he saved Malta as well, and was fairly shabbily treated at the time.

JT

[D120A]

Before we submit this petition, to what will be I suppose in the first instance will be a number of faintly uninterested and pedantic civil servants, can I gently ask that we get his rank correct, which is Air Chief Marshal with one 'l', and his principal decoration which is a GCB and not 'GBC'?

Hope it helps.

[Brewster Buffalo]

Isn't there a statue of Dowding in London already...why not put that on the plinth??

[Chugalug2]

Isn't there a statue of Dowding in London already...why not put that on the plinth??

Er...because the object of the petition, and of this thread, is to put a bronze statue of Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park GCB, KBE, MC and Bar, DFC, RAF (check D120?) on the plinth, isn't it...???

[Mystic Greg]

Proposals for a permanent occupant of the 'fourth plinth' have been appearing on-and-off for as long as I can remember. A statue of Sir Keith Park is the most worthy suggestion I have heard to date, so I'm another who has signed up to support the campaign.

[Tocsin]

Signed, and will be forwarding the site address to a few auggie mates.

I saw the original article in the FT - it came from an unexpected quarter, but I heartily agreed with the sentiments.

[OCDave]

Signed, and will be passing on the link to a few friends, and members of the UAS I'm in.:ok:

[Samuel]

I'm all for the statue of ACM Park; it's long overdue in my opinion, but there is a certain irony in the issue of a statue for a famous New Zealander at a time when the UK Government is about to remove ancestral rights of New Zealanders to access visas. They're lumping New Zealand, [and Australia] in with all the free-loaders and bludgers of the EU.


Recently, the Government published a Green Paper on immigration and citizenship that raised the question of whether the ancestry visa should be abolished. This is a consultation document and is not final policy; but since it is the second time in four years that the Home Office has suggested scrapping the ancestry visa, someone in Whitehall clearly considers it to be expendable.

The Green Paper states: "Given that the proposed immigration system provides explicit routes to the UK for those coming as economic migrants, family members or refugees, we need to decide whether a Commonwealth national’s ancestral connections to the UK are sufficient to allow them to come here to work without the need to satisfy a resident labour market test. We are therefore asking this question as part of the consultation contained within this paper."

[1.3VStall]

Petition duly signed - a worthy cause!

[goudie]

From the Daily Telgraph.
A pilot who played a key role in saving Britain from Nazi invasion should be honoured with a statue in Trafalgar Square, say campaigners.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2008/03/08/nmilitary208.jpgLeigh Park believes a statue could honour the sacrifices of all Commonwealth troops


Air Vice-Marshal Sir Keith Park fought in the battles of Gallipoli and the Somme before injury forced him to join the Royal Flying Corps, where he achieved at least 20 kills against the Germans.

[The Helpful Stacker]

Well it has to be better than a statue of ex-terrorist and now everyones best mate Nelson Mandela.

Whilst his cause was a noble one his means pursuing it was despicable to say the least and should really strike home more so in these troubled times we now live in.

[Dan D'air]

There certainly weren't any pilots who looked like that during the Battle of Britain!!!:O

[noregrets]

Fixed-pitch prop in the Battle of Britain?

:8

[Rakshasa]

Never saw what some of the ATA pilots looked like, Dan? ;)

[Rakshasa]

Sandy Nairne, Chair of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group, said it would continue with its remit to commission contemporary art for the plinth.

"There are many other options across London for locating an important memorial to Sir Keith Park and identifying the most appropriate one will have my strong support," he said.

Solution: Build another plinth. :ugh:

[Chugalug2]

Sandy Nairne, Chair of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group, said it would continue with its remit to commission contemporary art for the plinth.

Solution : Change the remit. :ugh:

Anyway, whose remit? Did the London ratepayers demand that this plinth be used to display commissioned contemporary art? They did? Well what do you know?

[Navaleye]

Gets my full support.

[tablet_eraser]

Hmm. Sounds like Red Ken is willing to support the statue as long as it goes anywhere BUT Traf Sq. Shame... I'm all for modern art, but the current atrocity adorning the Fourth Plinth has all the artistic merit of a mashed turnip.

Given the classical surroundings, and the fact that one of our nation's other great heroes stands on top of a rather tall column in the middle of the Square, I'd say that the Fourth Plinth is an ideal location to honour - permanently - someone who did so much for us.

There is plenty of space in front of the gallery for an additional plinth, if the authorities that be wish to commission more work for the Square. Rather than shuffle Sir Keith to a lesser location, let's invest something in someone we should all be proud of, and establish a prominent and permanent memorial to him.

[Chugalug2]

Update on the 'Sir Keith Park Memorial Campaign':
New website at; http://www.sirkeithpark.com/image_library.aspx
New Downing Street petition; http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/SirKeithPark/
under 200 signatures so far so please make it far far more.:ok:
With this campaign and the one fronted by the Heritage Foundation (President BeeGees Robin Gibb) and backed by the Bomber Command Association for a London Memorial to the 55,573 'Old Lags' who died in that arduous and bloody battle, together with the recent Fighter Command memorials on the Embankment and at Capel le Ferne, there is at last some re-awakening of the debt owed to those who died in these two great struggles against Nazi tyranny. A reminder that the Bomber Command Memorial thread is now on the Aviation History and Nostalgia Forum:
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=296590
Please visit it and support the Downing Street petition on there. A post both on this thread and that one to say that you have done so greatly encourages others to do the same and keeps the thread at the top (though in fairness the BC one is locked there as a sticky, thanks to PPRuNe Pop. :ok:)