Blog stalker #5

The assignment is supposed to be an interesting statue.
Well this is interesting in a "Feck that's ugly!" kind of way.
I could have taken the pics of this in better light on a sunnier day, but I'm afraid this waste of metal and money doesn't deserve it.
Click on the pic for the large version and just look at it for a few moments, then imagine yourself as a small child who has been naughty, now imagine your parent(s)/guardian saying that if you didn't stop being naughty then your punishment will be to visit the prom at New Brighton!


When I was a kid there used to be a huge fun fair and an open air swimming pool in New Brighton and going even further back there was a smaller version of Blackpool tower, a go-cart track and a pier. But all those things are gone now.
The pool was removed because it would cost too much to repair the damage caused by the river undermining it. And the "funfair" is more like a collection of slot machines in various guises, rides that are fun don't generate enough money.
Welcome to New Brighton entertainment HELL!!!

But that statue is only No 3

This next piece is not truly a statue as it's a little on the large side and isn't truly art as defined by most people, oh and it serves a practical purpose unlike art. And for those modern and conceptual fans, I don't want to here about your crack pot (crack head) ideas of what is art in the 21st century. People like Tracey Emin deserve being whipped naked thru' the streets of Aberdeen.
Anyhow I give you Fort Perchrock Lighthouse...


The light house has been automated for ages and so no one stays there, but a few years back it was hired out to newly weds for the honeymoon night, I don't know if that still happens tho'.
Any how this sentinel of the Mersey has made it to the number two slot.

So what is number one?

Staying with a nautical type theme, this next statue (and this next one is) is of "Mother Redcap" and two of her helpers.
Here is a clip from a longer text on smuggling in the North West of England...

The port of Liverpool in the 19th century. Click picture to enlarge

NORTHWEST ENGLAND

According to a revealing customs report dated 1750...

'Smuggling into the coasts around Liverpool ...is generally from the Isleman (sic)...in small boats that never appear on the coast but fall in with the land just in the dusk of the evening, that by their observations they may run in the night time into the place intended for the discharge of their goods where persons are always ready to assist and convey them to a proper place of safety...' [216]

One such place of safety was undoubtedly a Wallasey pub called Mother Redcap's , which stood 'on the promenade between Egremont and New Brighton ferries'. At that time Wallasey was wild and desolate:

Wirral up to the middle of the 18th century was a desperate region. The inhabitants were nearly all wreckers and smugglers — they ostensibly carried on the trade or calling of fishermen, farm labourers or small farmers...Then for smuggling: fine times the runners used to have in my young days. Scarcely a house in North Wirral that could not provide a guest with a good stiff glass of brandy or Hollands — Formby was a great place for smugglers. [217]

That part of Wallasey was separated from the rest of Wirral by a tidal pool, so the pub was more or less free of unwanted observers on the land side.

Mother Redcap's was riddled with storage places, and was stoutly defended against attack: the door was five inches thick, and heavily reinforced, and the windows had shutters in a similar style. A customs officer who succeeded in entering the door could be precipitated into the cellar via a trapdoor on the threshold: forcing the door released a catch that opened the trapdoor.

Opening the front door closed off the entrance to one of the rooms, so visitors unfamiliar with the layout of the pub would either walk upstairs, or into the north room, unaware of a second ground floor room to the south. Numerous other hiding places were concealed in a well and in the chimney breast.

The proprietor of the Inn, Mother Redcap herself, was said to be 'a comely, fresh-coloured Cheshire-spoken woman...a great favourite with the sailor men'. The inn was popular not only with smugglers, but also with lonely revenue men, who, to avoid suspicion, were entertained with the same hospitality as any other customer. This sometimes caused difficulties:

They were thus installed on one occasion when the smugglers were desirous of getting a cask of rum or some other merchandise away from one of the hiding places, but were prevented by the unwelcome presence of the officer. So it was arranged that one of the smugglers was to creep down to the shore from the Moor, and lie down in his clothes in the water, at the edge of the receding tide. The attention of the solitary officer at Mother Redcap's was called to the supposed body which had been washed ashore, and he made his way to it as quickly as possible. He had removed the watch, and was going through the pockets when the corpse came to life, sprang up, and laid out the surprised officer. By the time he had come to, the rum had been removed from Redcap's, and started its journey to the moss. No blame could be attached to the 'drowned man' who said he was walking along the shore, when he must have had a fit, for the next thing that he became aware of was that he was lying in the sand with his pockets being rifled. [218]

There used to be an inscription around the base but that was nicked almost instantly. The statue sits between a McD's and another shop in the small shopping centre in Liscard village. By rights it should be nearer the old site of Mother redcaps. Anyhow it's my favourite local statue.


And now as promised (lots of times) here are two pictures of the LYS near where I live and as you can see they're all geared up for Halloween.

I did have a couple of pictures of some coloured wool in the window but when I got home to edit the pics I had took that day, the wool was out of focus, I must remember to switch to manual when photographing through glass. Ho Hum.

I have Lately re-installed "Oblivion" on the laptop in the kitchen and as a result am finding it difficult to get things done. This time though I'm cheating my way to the top. My avatar looks like a Syth Lord and can kill with the lightning out the finger tips gag. I haven't used my sword in ages, cool.
Anyway got to dash, more bad guys to electrocute, dontcha know.

TTFN