Public art of the bovine variety: The GWH Cow Sculpture
Cow sculpture at Great Western Hospital
Whenever I see the GWH cow sculpture it makes me smile and think of one of my favourite Ogden Nash poems:
‘Two cows, mildly mooing: No bull; nothing doing’
Which, if you think about it, is a masterclass in understatement. As is:
‘The cow is of the bovine ilk; One end is moo, the other milk’
‘Cow’
Date of Installation : 1987 Material : Welded Steel
Anyway, I just like that it’s there. Though why a cow exactly? Any particular reason for that, do we know? What I DO know is that it was created in 1987 by Tom Gleeson – the same hand that welded the gorilla that now lives in Queen’s Park.
From Swindon History blogspot: ‘The long time resident gorilla took up his present position in 1994. The welded steel sculpture by Tom Gleeson was purchased by the Borough following an exhibition in the Theatre Square in the mid 1980s.
19/07/2013: UPDATE:
Okay. We might not know why a cow rather than any other animal. But we do now know, thanks to a comment on the blog that it used to be at PMH. In an internal courtyard/garden as I remember. It got moved from there when the GWH opened. I don’t remember exactly how long it had been there. Only that it appeared some time between 1983 and 1990 (dates I worked at PMH).
Ken White – Swindon’s Mural Man. Known and loved by many Swindonians for the murals that once dotted the Swindonscape. Only one now remains, and that’s his first one, the Golden Lion Bridge mural.
If you haven’t heard of him and think you don’t know his work then you couldn’t be more wrong. An extract from the artist‘s website will explain:
‘Ken White is perhaps best known for his murals, sited in a wide variety of locations all over the world. To date, he has painted over one hundred murals.
He was, for many years, the personal artist for Virgin boss Richard Branson and has completed works for him in many Virgin establishments throughout the world, including record shops, hotels and airport lounges.
With the launch of Virgin Atlantic in 1984, Ken produced what is probably his most well known work: the “Scarlet Lady” emblem which features on all the airline’s aircraft’.
Image by Roger Ogle for Link Magazine
Ken’s early life
Life his brother and his father before him, Ken began his working life in the GWR works aged 15. He started out as a rivet hotter, later getting a move to sign writing in the carriage and wagon works.
As soon as he could he went to night classes at Swindon college to do his ‘O’ and ‘A’Levels in art. Those attained he left the works and entered Swindon’s art college to undertake a full-time art diploma.
Ken White – Swindon’s Mural Man
Ken’s mural painting activity didn’t restrict itself to Swindon though. As the personal artist for Richard Branson he travelled the world painting Virgin Megastores, airport lounges and more. You’ll find a great selection of Ken’s artistic output in this book: Ken White Muralist and Painter.
The Virgin Scarlet Lady
So yep. Not only has Ken painted murals all over the world he is the creator of Richard Branson’s ‘Scarlet Lady’. See, I said you’d know his work. So is he not something to celebrate about Swindon?
Well, as far as I’m concerned he’s worthy of his own place on my personal selection of ‘Ten things to celebrate about Swindon’list. Which I haven’t compiled in any particular order.
You can read more about Ken’s Swindon murals on SwindonWeb.
You’d be forgiven for not knowing anything of the West Swindon Sculpture Walk. This morning I chatted to someone on the bus about this, and she, a long-time resident of Swindon had no idea that these sculptures existed.
The route to this one takes you through a part of West Swindon I’d never even heard of, let alone walked through: The Bramptons. Blimey! It was like entering another universe. They have a club. With a swimming pool! It was all a bit Stepford actually.
White Horse Pacified
‘White Horse Pacified 1987. Artist: Julie Livsey. Materials: Steel and concrete. Project details: The sculpture was completed during an international artist exchange between Swindon and Lisbon, Portugal. Funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Southern Arts, Wiltshire County Council and Thamesdown Borough Council. The work is an interpretation of the famous chalk cut white horses surrounding Swindon’.
Promote it?!
A further point – the friend doing the walk with me lives in Bristol so this was all new to her. So by this point in the proceedings she voiced questions already in my mind: ‘Why is this not better known?’, Wouldn’t some signage be a good idea?’ and ‘Some labelling on the sculptures themselves could be quite good too’.
As I said earlier – people who’ve been here a long time – or even were born here – have no awareness of this thing as an entity. So what flippin’ chance does anyone else stand? SBC, Swindon and Wiltshire tourism – you are missing a trick!
Walk it, cycle it, picnic it!
You can walk or even cycle this trail. It can be pic-nic(ed) There’s pub stops and play parks and out-door gyms along the way. It’s a great with a dog. Yeah – if you want to romp through it all, you could do it in a couple of hours. But hey – you could actually make a whole day of this thing. But nobody knows about it! Well not enough people anyroad!!!
Anyway dear readers, next up is ‘Hey Diddle Diddle”. I’ll leave you to think on that one. Until next time…. Here is a link to a map of this sculpture trail.
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!
