Diana Dors, born Diana Mary Fluck (1931–1984) Artist: Jon Clinch. Unveiled in 1991 by film director David Putnam and Diana’s son, Jason Dors-Lake
Right then, hands up. Who knew there was such an entity as the West Swindon sculpture walk? No? Me neither.
I only discovered it when rooting about the interweb for info for this blog. In the course of my research I came across this information and map of the trail.
How interesting I thought. And how cool it would be to do the walk and see how many of them still exist and write about it.
So this is WSSW Part 1: Diana Dors.
Dors was born in Old Town, Swindon and spent her early childhood there. The statue, entitled ‘Diana Dors – Film Star’ depicts her in a slinky evening gown and stole as she appeared when starring on the silver screen in the 1956 crime drama Yield To The Night.
Diana Dors – Film Star 1991. Artist: John Clinch. Material: Bronze
I’m the kind of girl that things naturally happen to. When they don’t, I give them a push’.
‘Project Details: Commissioned by Thamesdown Borough Council through the Percent for Art Policy, funded by Carter Commercial Developments. The sculpture is a flamboyant tribute to one of Swindon’s most famous and glamorous residents’.
As this is a long walk with a lot of material I’ll break it up into digestible chunks – so here we have WSSW Part 1: Diana Dors
So a visit from a fellow student and a warm sunny day provided the perfect opportunity/excuse to give it a go.
According to the blurb about the walk, the five miles it covers should be completed in two hours at a leisurely pace. Ha! We were at it for nearly four hours and we still didn’t get them all done! But perhaps that’s because we took time out to slide down slides; try out the outdoor gym behind Shaw Ridge; chat to people along the way; stop for ice-cream at Shaw Village centre; get a bit lost, and have a beer at The Windmill, Freshbrook … all of which could just have had something to do with our failure to complete the route. Oops.
Anyway, as I can only just about find my home from the town centre I put my friend, Kim, in charge of the map and appointed myself curator of the ‘blurb’. First on the schedule is the statue of Diana Dors at Shaw Ridge leisure complex.
A legend on a legend
Obviously I’d seen this one before but Kim spent some time studying and discussing it. We decided that it’s clearly fitting that she is immortalized outside a cinema. It’s fitting also that it’s larger than life – as she most certainly was.
We also liked that the ‘legend’ (see picture) on the statue had been made to appear that her name was in lights – as indeed they had been. But we weren’t sure that it was particularly flattering of her – something of a caricature. And it’s really a pity that someone has stuck chewing gum under one of her nostrils which gives the effect of a giant bogey hanging there – deliberate I dare say! On the whole though, a cool thing that Britain’s answer to Marilyn Monroe has been remembered and recorded.
‘Legend’ on Diana Dors statueDiana Dors close up showing chewing gum ‘bogey’. 🙁 Dors at Shaw Ridge cinema
Diana Dors Memories
Being of a certain age I remember watching old black and white films starring Diana. I also have stronger memories of her being the lead in ‘Queenie’s Castle’ a British sitcom set in early 1970s Leeds, West Yorkshire that aired on ITV from 1970 to 1972.
Little did I know then, that one day I would be living in the town that is her birthplace. And, better still, be in striking distance of a cinema (Shaw Ridge, West Swindon) that is home to a statue of one of the town’s most famous daughters.
If you want to know more about the divine Diana, aka Diana Mary Fluck, you could do worse than visit the official website: http://www.dianadors.co.uk
Lola Vavoom
Diana Dors has a literary alter ego. She’s Lola Vavoom in the stupendously surreal parallel universe created by the author Jasper Fforde in his Thursday Next novels. In his 7 Wonders of Swindon she is Wonder No 5.
Desmond grew up in Purton and Swindon and enjoyed a youthful fling with Diana Fluck as she then was. So his lovely talk was full of wonderful reminiscences of the youthful Diana. You can see Desmond’s talk here on YouTube:
As we were wending our way to the next one Kim decided that she would have a crack at interpreting it to see how close she got to the legend on the blurb. Close by were a play park and the outdoor gym. So those things distracted us for a good ten minutes or so. Eventually tiring of the pleasures (????) of the gym equipment we moved on to study statue no 2. But that dear reader is another story for another day.
Buy Diana Dors Movies via this Amazon affiliate and I get a phial of unicorn snot!
‘Swindon Viewpoint is Britain’s original and longest-running Community TV service. And as such it holds a special place in Britain’s media story.
44 years ago we began life on cable. But nowadays you can find us online at www.swindonviewpoint.com. There you’ll discover thousands of locally-produced videos and photographs on wide-ranging topics. For example: Music, Visual Arts, Social Action, Politics, Sports, Festivals & Community Events, Education, Health, Public Service Broadcast, Drama, Documentary and Independent/Creative Film. We may be long-lived, but we’ve always been progressive, and as we develop the service, we hope to be introducing new kinds of media.’
Original and long-standing
I’m intrigued to learn that Swindon Viewpoint is Britain’s original and longest standing community television service. It began recording programmes in 1973. Moreover, the oldest film on Swindon was made almost a century ago. How cool is that?
Hearing about this service underlines the whole point I am trying to make about Swindon via this blog: that there is so much more to it than meets the eye and that it can always surprise one as this has surprised and me.
Swindon Viewpoint belongs to YOU in case you didn’t know. Or if you simply want to support free, accessible and accountable local media. The service is free, accessible and accountable to you, the people of Swindon.
Railway Town
See also Railway Town Film. This film made by Martin Parry – ‘Railway Town’ is the unique story of Swindon and the major challenge it had to overcome to establish and flourish. Click here to purchase it.
Yeah, I know, strictly speaking a statue rather than a sculpture but it’s close enough eh? And he has to be mentioned somewhere does old Isambard Kingdom Brunel – such an awesome name! And he, together with Sir Daniel Gooch, did put Swindon on the map.
I love that I live somewhere with such a heritage. I love that the Designer Outlet Village has retained much of the character of the old railway sheds and has pieces of engineering equipment dotted about and a train in the food court. It makes it really personal to Swindon. When shopping there I often think of the men and women that laboured so hard in the railway works.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Statue in Swindon. Erected in 1973.
Back to Brunel
Anyway, returning to this statue of Brunel. Without him and Gooch putting their GWR works where they did, Swindon would arguably have remained a small, insignificant rural market town.
The statue you see in the image above is located close to the Brunel shopping precinct looking straight at Iceland; the frozen food store not the country.
As it says on the STEAM museum website: ‘The pioneering vision and engineering genius of Isambard Kingdom Brunel led to the Great Western Railway network becoming regarded as the most advanced in the world’.
There’s a wealth of information on that there interweb for anyone wanting to know more about the founder of new Swindon. Or even better hotfoot it to the STEAM museum in Swindon which is well worth a visit. I’ve been several times myself now and have always enjoyed it.
STEAM – ‘The Museum of the Great Western Railway is housed in a beautifully restored Grade II railway building in the heart of the former Swindon railway works. Situated right opposite the Swindon Designer Outlet, the museum tells the story of the men and women who built, operated and travelled on the Great Western Railway. The railway often referred to by historians and railway fans as ‘God’s Wonderful Railway’. www.steam-museum.org.uk
Wax sculpture of Brunel in Swindon’s Steam Railway museum.
Why not make a day of it? When you’re ready for a spot of light refreshment why not try out some ofthe eating places I’ve written about on here?
The town centre of course has its McDonald’s and numerous Wetherspoons. All of which are fine and dandy in their place and I visit them too. But if you fancy a change then eschew them and give one or more of the ‘independents’ a try.
10 things to celebrate about Swindon. No 4: The sculptures. A – ‘Looking to the future’
Looking to the Future – West Swindon ‘Looking to the Future’ -1985. Artist: Jon Buck. Material: Glass Fibre Resin. Project Details: This sculpture was completed by the first artist in residence during the development of West Swindon and funded by Thamesdown Borough Council, Southern Arts and Property 3.’
Swindon is home to an assortment of statues and sculptures –WSSW Part 7: Looking to the Future is one of them.
Not to everyone’s taste, arguments rage about whether the council should spend money on such things when services are always crying out for funding. It was ever thus.
Whatever the merits or otherwise of that argument, on a personal level, I rather like the fact that they exist even if I don’t love them all. They’re still interesting.
In fact, Thamesdown Borough Council commissioned the pieces that comprise the West Swindon sculpture trail in the period from the early 1980s to the early 1990s. Funding came, in part, from the housing developer’s contributions to the Percent-for-Art public realm scheme. An important feature of Swindon’s cultural make-up, these sculptures have neither the recognition nor attention and care that they deserve.
They’re tucked away with nothing to draw attention to them. One simply chances upon them when walking the many foot/cycle paths around Swindon. Installed in 1989, when West Swindon was developing, Looking to the Future is a case in point.
From the road one can see the pond and the footpath but not the figures as they recline in a corner almost obscured by reeds and undergrowth. The pond is in a disgusting state too. I’ve even seen ducks walk across it.
When I first conceived this blog I needed a starting point. So I came up with the idea of 10 things to celebrate about Swindon. This post is No 2: Arts and Culture
I have often heard it said that there is no culture in Swindon. Of the arts sort that is, rather than the bacteria type. I daresay there’s a lot of the latter around but I know for certain that there’s plenty of the former.
It might be well hidden, one might have to root it out – but it is there nevertheless. For starters Swindon hosted, for 25 years, a literature festival – thanks to the efforts of Matt Holland. That literature festival has now moved into a spring arts festival.
Town Hall Swindon – the home of Swindon Dance. A fab example of No 2: Arts and Culture in Swindon
Poetry in Swindon
The vintage bus from Swindon poetry festival 2012
Back in 2012 I went on a journey on a Vintage Poetry bus – an actual embodiment of a magical mystery tour. I’ve never done drugs, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that an acid trip is similar to my experience on that bus. It was, quite simply, the most stupendously, superbly surreal experience of my entire life!
Collecting its passengers at the bus station, the tour had two guides: Barry Dicks (aka Michael Scott) and Mabel Watson (aka Hilda Sheehan) who between them provided hysterical commentary, banter and badinage interspersed with poetry readings.
The journey took us around corners of Swindon that we might rarely see and highlighted some surprises – the view of the Marlborough downs from Penhill for one of many.
We stopped for refreshments and a comfort break at Lower Shaw Farm, http://www.lowershawfarm.co.uk, in West Swindon before returning to the bus station where, somewhat dazed (well I was anyway!), our journey ended. A truly fabulous and fun experience.
According to their website: “The Western Players originated as “The Great Western Railway(Swindon) Mechanics Institute Amateur Theatrical Society” in the early 1900’s (the first production was of “Checkmate” by A Halliday on April 25th 1904) and celebrated its 100 year anniversary in 2004. It has performed over 240 plays at the last count (although research is still ongoing!)”
