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Bizarre logic applied to Marc Bolan plaque
• I HAVE read with interest the correspondence concerning English Heritage’s ruling that Marc Bolan was not suitable for a blue plaque in his name.
Their logic seems bizarre. He died aged only 29 and therefore further time should be allowed to pass for his reputation to grow, alongside that of the likes of David Bowie.
Eh? So are they saying that we Bolan fans have to wait for David Bowie to die, sometime in the next 40 years, before Bolan is considered worthy? Or are they saying that when David Bowie dies, Marc Bolan will get a plaque because, um, David was famous too? I don’t get it.
The ‘logic’ here seems different to that applied to Jimi Hendrix, whose plaque in Mayfair was erected in 1997.
Call me old fashioned but, thoroughly deserving of a plaque though Jimi was, he was actually American and lived for only about four years in London.
Bolan was born in Homerton Hospital, brought up in Stoke Newington, lived in Notting Hill, Maida Vale, Fulham, and finally East Sheen, and indeed died in London too. A London Boy, as his song had it...
Hackney Council has been more in tune with contemporary culture, having honoured Bolan with a Hackney brown plaque on his Stoke Newington Common home back in the early 1990s.
I was not involved in the proposal for Bolan’s (rejected) English Heritage plaque, but would invite their representative to contact me for a chat about how this regrettable situation might be turned into a positive one – especially with the 30th anniversary of Bolan’s passing, 16 september 1977) and what would have been his 60th birthday, 30 September 1947, looming.
MARTIN BARDEN
Director, Born to Boogie Productions Ltd
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