There is a short stretch of New Bond Street, in London’s
fashionable West End, that is pedestrianised. (It is very short – just a few
yards between the junctions with Clifford Street and Grafton Street). There is
a bike rack here, a couple of trees, and a bench on which to rest your weary
limbs as you pause during your upmarket shopping spree between Watches of
Switzerland and Aspreys.
But wait – there’s not much room here! The bench is already
occupied by two familiar looking gentlemen! There is just room to squeeze
between them, and many tourists do exactly that to have their photos taken
between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, who are the gentlemen
in question.
This imaginative piece of street sculpture, called “The
Allies” was created by an American sculptor, Lawrence Holofcener, and placed
here by the Bond Street Association in May 1995 to commemorate fifty years of
peace since the end of World War II.
Some people might object that the allies should have
included Joseph Stalin, given that the Soviet Union’s sacrifices were greater
than those of any other nation during the war, and that the three allies
famously sat together at the Yalta conference in February 1945, but Joe Stalin
taking a rest in New Bond Street? That would have been more than a bit
incongruous, given Stalin’s record and the fact that this area is oozing with
conspicuous capitalism, which the Communist leader would hardly have found to
his liking.
As it is, a smiling Roosevelt sits in a relaxed pose and
Churchill, cigar in hand, leans towards him as if trying to catch the
President’s latest quip. Stalin would have been a complete party-pooper, apart
from taking up room that a star-struck tourist would probably like to occupy!
©John Welford
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