Staying in East London’s Old Street area, I have many options when it comes to taking a walk. In one direction, there’s Shoreditch, home of trendy cocktail bars, hipster cafes and the lovely Columbia Market.
In another, there’s the City of London - the Barbican, the Guildhall, Spitalfields market and Liverpool Street Station. The City is where it all happens financially - more money than I can even envisage passes through this square mile every day.
I could walk to Farringdon, admire the new Elizabeth Line station, wander down to Chancery Lane and Temple (where barristers have their Inns of Courts) and even head south to the Old Bailey (aka the Central Criminal Court) where the most serious legal cases in the land are tried.
But no, for the sake of wandering, I head off down City Road, towards the Angel Islington (which is an area I actually do know!) not knowing that, along the way, I will stumble across quite an unexpected piece of art.
It’s impossible to state how much London has gentrified in the past 10-20 years, to the point where I barely recognise certain areas.
As I walk down City Road, I see soaring towers (courtesy of Norman Foster) , a Montessori school and a luxury cars showroom.
And then, out of the corner of my eye, I see it, right at the edge of London’s City Road basin, on the Regent’s Canal. And it’s enough to make me stop in my tracks.
‘Opening the Loch Gate’ is an installation by the sculptor Ian Rank-Broadley and even if you don’t recognise the name (I didn’t, I had to look it up) there’s something familiar about his work.
I eventually realise he’s the guy responsible for the effigy of the Queen on so many British coins, a statue of Her Majesty in Parliament Square and the recently-unveiled statue of the late Diana Princess of Wales in Kensington Gardens.
Now, it seems, Mr Rank-Broadley has turned his hand from the subject of royalty to the working man. Situated at the City Basin, at the edge of the Regent’s Canal, this sculpture is of two men in traditional working-class overalls, representing two of the many workers who kept the waterways going for centuries with blood, sweat and tears.
I grew up in a working-class home - my grandparents worked in a factory and my grandfather, although a bright child, was not able to take up his place at the local grammar school because his mother was too poor to afford the school uniform. My grandfather fought for social justice, organised strikes and was later ‘blacklisted’. He eventually became a window cleaner and it’s the flat caps and overalls of the men sculptured that are resonating with me. These are what he wore to work, as he set off with his ladders, and what I remember him wearing when he arrived for visits at my house, after school.
The fact is, as Mr Rank-Broadley has said himself, the commission was “commemorating a group of people who were hugely responsible for the country’s movement of goods and trade and who have been largely forgotten.”
The Regent’s Canal runs across London - from east to west - beginning out at the Thames, running through Limehouse, Mile End, along Victoria Park and up to here, the City Basin,
From there it continues onto Kings Cross, Camden Town, past the London Zoo and Lisson Wide before culminating at Maida Vale (where that stretch of the canal is fondly referred to as ‘Little Venice."‘
For hundreds of years, workers moved people and goods along this waterway, not without risk either (severe storms could be perilous) and being able to work the boats in all weathers and tides was a job that required skill and knowledge.
Many of them lived on these boats.
Conditions were appealing - completely insanitary. But few people gave consideration to the ‘floating population’ Only the fortunate received dwellings (‘loch cottages’). For sure, thousands of men and women worked on these boats, In some places, male-only crews were more common and they would return to their wives and children after a job was done. Sometimes, however, entire families lived on the boats. If the entire family pitched in with the work, the barge would arrive quickly at its destination and they would then receive payment.
Boaters were paid the ton of cargo they delivered, which meant the faster they worked, the more trips they could make and the more money they could earn and in fact, by the 20th century pay actually went down for these people.
Photo courtesy of Robert Langden
Their children rarely went to school and were sometimes even lent out to other boats with fewer helpers - many children were leading the horses at 7 years old and working the lochs at 12.
Who, walking past the canal today, would associate this beauty with such backward conditions?
With this statue, Mr Rank Broadley has done something terrific and inspiring - creating a tribute to these men and women who, with the sweat of their brow, did an honest day’s work but rarely for an honest day’s pay. These men and women received no pensions, no sick leave, and had few rights. Only when they began organising collectively would they be able to obtain better pay and conditions.
The same thing trades unions are fighting for, all over Britain at this very moment.
I find the statue moving, touching, dignified and quite remarkable. And, as a piece of art, it’s done its job - it makes me want to learn more, both about the man who created it and the people that inspired him to do so.
It’s a good lesson in not forgetting your roots, I think, as I wander on my way.