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The Islington Green war memorial |
‘Doughnut’ war memorial and tasteful images
WITH its unconventional “doughnut” shape, the new war memorial at Islington Green didn’t impress many old soldiers when it was erected three years ago.
Today, the sculpture to Islington’s war dead appears to have captured the imagination of residents as an interesting local landmark, with many holding it in great affection.
A new photobook, Art and Remembrance, is a celebration of the monument. It includes interviews with artists, residents, veterans and the sculptor himself, Royal Academy artist John Maine .
The book includes a photograph of the late Bill Bayliss, one of the greatest critics of the monument, and a leading member of the local Royal British Legion.
Alice Predgen is also featured. She has been an active local member of the Legion since 1947 and worked as a mechanic during the war.
Winston Klass, a member of the West Indian Ex-Servicemen and Women’s Association, is also included, as is Angela Sinclair, a former Red Cross worker turned peace campaigner and secretary of Islington Pensioners Forum.
Completed over two years, from 2004 to 2006, the project formed part of the upgrading of the Green, with landscape design by J+L Gibbons, and Maine’s eight-ton granite ring replacing a “temporary” memorial, which had stood on the site since 1918.
Describing the brief for the memorial, Mr Maine writes: “It needed to have gravitas, a weight to it, but not be solemn. It needed to be convincing but not unleavened, so you can see the contradictions coming together.”
Claire Waffel took the photographs and the book was edited by Isabel Vasseur and Sophie Brown.
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