I recently walked past this sculpture next to London’s ExCel exhibiton centre and thought, “that’s new!”

It’s not, though. It’s been there since 2009. I evidently walk round with my eyes closed.

The sculpture shows three dock workers, and was the result of a long campaign supported by the Queen Mother, among others, to commemorate the people who worked at the docks between 1855 and 1983. The figures are based on the likenesses of real dock workers, including Johnny Ringwood who helped raise money for it. Now aged 89, he re-visited the statue earlier this year.

The bloke with the hat and the book is Patrick Holland, depitcted as a tally clerk but in reality a stevedore, a word I last thought about in April 2021.

The scene is loosely copied in Mychael Barratt’s Mile End Mural.