When I worked for my first below-the-line advertising agency called CounterAttack on The Albert Embankment, I lived in Shepherds Bush with a bunch of housemates, including a married couple, a young homesexual, a budding entrepreneur, and a Kiwi before the Spanish cousin turned up.
It was pretty normal stuff.
We were all what might be described in those days as young urban professionals, though my housemates had all attended better schools, and spoke better than I.
They were never condescending in my memory.
I think I had my first dinner party there, and a brother(in law?) of the married couple remarked as I stood up from the dinner party table.
'You seem very statuesque Charles', or words to that effect.
I'd never heard the word Statuesque used before, but I could kind of figure-it-out, and so the memory of the word has always been imprinted on my mind.
If I was to stick to the subject of Statues in Southampton, there are only three I'm well researched on.
One is Palmerston, who is a big effing deal in the follies of England.
The other is Sir Isaac Watts, and the last I wont mention.
Sir Isaac wrote hymns, in a time when hymn writing and singing was very popular.
What's this bro's statue, doing in my home town, I asked myself?
Isaac Watts (17 July 1674 – 25 November 1748) was an English Christian minister (Congregational), hymn writer, theologian, and logician. He was a prolific and popular hymn writer and is credited with some 750 hymns. He is recognized as the "Godfather of English Hymnody"; many of his hymns remain in use today and have been translated into numerous languages.
I read up on Isaac and his Southampton connection, but what really intrigued me was his contribution to William Blake's work, and thus Jim Morrison.
A couple of years ago, when I was researching Southampton statues, I formulated an hypothesis(sic).
I determined that either we left nothing or kept everything, with respect to Statues.
Back in those heady days of 2018 or maybe 17, I thought let's keep them all. Even the genocider and well expensed.... Winnie sodomized cadets at Sandhurst, Churchill.
I've changed my mind.
Tear them all down.
They are an obscenity to the study of history.
... wait, they are an obscenity to historians too.
