This colony of nine penguins sits on Redcar promenade. As I wandered past, I found myself contemplating the artistic intent. Two of the penguins are off to the side looking out to sea, and one—as can be seen in the background of both of these photos—appears to be inspecting another artwork.

The installation has, in fact, been moved three or four times since its 1994 installation, including once to make way for the bandstand. They were designed by the artist Tony Wiles, who was commissioned by the Council to create a ‘jolly’ addition to the esplanade.

The Council in question was Langbaurgh-on-Tees Borough Council—renamed in 1996 as Redcar & Cleveland. I’m surprised that I’ve never come across that historical nugget before—I don’t recall ever seeing a reference to Langbaurgh anywhere!

I’ve featured a lot of memorial fountains recently, and you may have thought that they’re looking a bit worse for wear. But over in Newcastle’s Exhibition Park, the clock erected in memory of Mr T H Nicholson in December 1927 is faring somewhat worse. The clock has been missing so long that even the Local Authority isn’t certain when and where it departed: ‘the clock was probably removed due to vandalism’ is as much as they’ve got.

I’ve struggled to find much record of T H Nicholson: even local history websites seem at a bit of a loss to who the clock was commemorating. The Newcastle Journal has a short entry about his funeral in December 1927, though restricts itself to listing the mourners rather than any facts about the man himself—though it does reveal his first name to be Thomas. His grave appears to be in St Andrew’s cemetery, just across the Great North Road from the site of this clock.

Given most of the connections in similarly aged Newcastle memorials, I strongly suspect he was in the shipping trade. There is a single sentence about TH Nicholson launching a ship on Tyneside in one contemporary press article. But—brace yourself for a handbrake turn—there is a much longer report on a Mr Thomas H Nicholson in the North Star in 1921:

“You are nothing more nor less than a contemptible hound; you shall go to prison for three months with hard labour!”

Ald C Stableforth, the chairman at Newcastle Police Court, made the above remark yesterday afternoon when he sentenced Thomas H. Nicholson, 104 Violet Street, Benwell, for inflicting cruelty on his three children.

Witness after witness said that the man not only thrashed his wife, but that he also severely punished his children and struck his infant.

Ald Stableforth said the magistrates had no doubt but that Nicholson had deliberately struck his infant and wife. It was the most disgraceful case he had ever encountered.

There are more, desperately grisly, details in the article which don’t bear repeating: suffice it to say that he’d be getting far more than three months in prison nowadays.

I’ve no way of checking whether the clock and the newspaper article refer to the same Thomas H. Nicholson. Surely they can’t be the same person, or the greater mystery would not be the missing clock, but the fact that the frame and plaque are still standing.

I often think of bandstands as morsels of Victoriana, relics of past forms of recreation in simpler times. Yet Redcar’s bandstand is so modern as to have solar panels on the roof.

It was installed in 2008. The story goes that during the filming of Atonement, the residents came to like the look of the bomb-damaged bandstand that formed part of the set. They liked it so much that local fundraising and an application for a lottery grant won them their very own permanent version.

I don’t think anyone can accuse it of being excessively ornate like some of it’s antique cousins—‘utilitarian’ might be the word—and I’m surprised it was constructed with steps rather than a ramp. But it’s great to see people invested in improving the public realm in their community.

I’m amused by the fact that a company would go to the effort of printing this notice on hoardings and also feel like this could make valuable feedback for an awful lot of written reports in my line of work these days.

The last editions of the Yellow Pages in the UK were printed in 2019, so no-one’s really ‘in the book’ any more.

The hit film Atonement, based on Ian McEwan’s novel, was partly filmed in Redcar, including the famous five-minute walkthrough of the Dunkirk beach. To commemorate the even, the film’s director (Joe Wright) and producer (Paul Webster) unveiled this steel sculpture by Lewis Robinson.

The artwork is successfully photo-bombed by sportswear brand Discipline. The juxtaposition of the boneheaded slogan ‘attitude wins the game’ with a tribute to a film about the complexity of profound guilt, reconciliation and the impossibility of true atonement is certainly eyebrow-raising.

At the weekend, Wendy and I went to see the son-et-lumiere installation Space, by the Luxmuralis collaboration, at Durham Cathedral.

It was visually impressive, lending the Cathedral an unusual ethereal quality, and changing the feeling of a building we know reasonably well. The sound was also effective, and at moments, the combination was genuinely breathtaking.

But we were slightly left wondering: what’s the point? What is the artwork trying to say? In one installation, there was audio of Richard Nixon speaking to the Apollo 11 astronauts, saying

For one priceless moment in the whole history of man all the people on this earth are truly one.

One wondered if this was a bit of a dig at the divisiveness of religion, exhibited in a Cathedral—but the whole thing left me with the impression that it wasn’t intended to be that deep (especially after I was handed a prayer card on my way out).

I think it may just have been spectacle for spectacle’s sake, and perhaps there’s nothing wrong with that.

You’ve seen that rock before.

Your preparation for a future Only Connect round about people commemorated by fountains on Newcastle’s Great North Road continues. Having ticked off WD Stephens and ED Colvill, our attention is inevitably drawn to William Laing’s memorial fountain:

The inscription reads:

Erected by the widow of the late William Laing of Newcastle and Gosforth in affectionate remembrance of his lifelong interest and kindness to all dumb animals. 1895.

Laing was a business partner of Stephens, so perhaps memorial fountains were just de riguer in their social circle. Laing was also one of the founders of the Town Moor Temperance Festival, which has morphed these days into The Hoppings, which ordinarily takes place just across the road from this fountain.

The Laing art gallery in town is associated with the wine merchant Alexander Laing rather than the shipbuilding William Laing commemorated by this fountain. I’m not sure whether the two were related.