Who new that Winston Churchill wrote a bad novel about fighting the tyrant when he was in his 20s? Of course, Mike did. And apparently it is now being published 104 years after being written.
I sometimes wonder what influence the Winston statue in Halifax had on his interest in Churchill growing up. It stands between the main public library, a row of great chip wagons and on the main route down to the pubs. Very influential spot. Halifax, come to think of it, has a great deal of public statuary downtown - I can also think of the major ones of Cornwallis, Burns, Joe Howe, the Boar War memorial. It is not something there is much of here in Kingston other than the great Sir John A. MacDonald in City Park.
Comments
Mike - November 23, 2004 12:55 pm
On the statue's influence on my interest? The answer, None.
My knowledge of Churchill consisted of the Dog Chow commercial ('this is Dog Chow's finest hour') and maybe a mention from a Hogan's Heroes episode. In my late 20s, I was in Trident Booksellers on Argyle, and just happened to pick up Churchill's "Finest Hour" ... "I never knew he wrote anything," said I. If I had known it was merely one of six volumes of his war memoirs, I probably wouldn't have bothered. I was caught by his writing style, the story itself and the decisions he faced, and it went from there.
Alan - November 23, 2004 1:34 pm
And here I thought it was civic art. My attempt to recall the statutes has me one blank - are there in fact two Robert Burns facing each other at the South Park Street and Spring Garden Road intersections?
Mike - November 23, 2004 2:02 pm
Burns is on the south side of Spring Garden in Victoria Park and there's a bust of Walter Scott at the entrance to the Public Gardens.
As you say, a very British statuary; I believe the Burns and Scott ones were put up by the North British Society (which is/was, of course, Scottish).
Alan - November 23, 2004 2:06 pm
That is right. And it is Wally's bust that gets or at least got the ciggie treatment.
Dr_Funk - November 27, 2004 10:35 am
Ottawa has quite a lot as well. The two that stand out for me are odd ones: the statue of Hamilton Gault (industrialist who personally raised the PPCLI during WWI and later in the war became its commander) near the War Memorial and the statue of Simon Bolivar on Boteler Street. The Bolivar statue was apparently donated by one of the South American embassies.
Churchill is a fascinating character...I have a few of his histories, most of the Second World war volumes, one or two of the History of the English Speaking Peoples. But the best for seeing his character, I thought, was Gilbert's mini-memoir on writing the official Biography: In Search of Churchill.
One of the things that I learned there was that Churchill's best known photograph was taken here in Ottawa at Karsh's studio in the Chateau Laurier. Its usually called the Lion or something along those lines..I think Mike wrote a bit about it in his Blog.
portland - November 27, 2004 7:43 pm
you mean that statue isn't about dog chow?