It sounds a bit like a case for Holmes and Watson or a deep dark plot line of Edgar Allan Poe and other writers and exponents of mystery in the 19th Century.
There is however a simpler explanation.
We moved into the house on The Park some 43 months ago, early September it was. The run-up to the flit had been in beautiful late summer weather, one of those rare periods of settled weather in the UK that makes everyone leave out their garden chairs and barbecues for day after day rather than the usual process of in-out-in-out-up-down-up down as wave after wave of alternate dry and wet conditions prevail.
The Park, donated by a self made entrepreneur businessman and one time Lord Mayor of the City was until the mid Victorian era just a scraggy plot on the outskirts of the urban area. It will have been a cheap bit of scrap land, probably regularly waterlogged, marshy and infested with vermin and airborne irritants but when gifted to the population it became elevated to the status of an Elysian Field.
This magnanimous but self publicising act was way back in the decade of 1850 to 1860 when the man was affluent and respectable. Profits from cotton mills and other enterprises in the town and indeed nationally and internationally made for a good basis for nurturing the growth of what are now magnificent Horse Chestnuts guarding the central greenspace, an exotic range of other species of trees and shrubs, a rather disturbing looking brackish water filled lake, a pavilion, a crafted drinking fountain in the Indian sub continent style and a hot house conservatory with lizards and tropical fish.
Unfortunately, prudency and efficiency in business did not follow through in the politics or sympathies of our great Benefactor and in siding with the Confederate South in the American Civil War and in attempting to run guns and supplies to them his fleet of ships, all on Hire Purchase, were impounded and confiscated causing a ruinous situation.
He ended his days on the periphery of his gift in fallen grace and poverty.
The entrance to the Park from the main east side is through a triumphal edifice in metal which if you squint in foggy weather and are under strong medication could be mistaken for the profile of the Arc'de Triomphe.
Our house is located on the South side. It is part of a 1970's redevelopment on the site of a former Convent and Manse comprising two and three storey town houses. We may not be able to compete in a Grand Design competition for our plain red brick box but in the scheme of things we are winners, hands down on the basis of a fantastic view into the heart of The Park.
Families are drawn from the now densely populated terraced housing surrounds for a summer picnic, autumn frisbee session and early season blow-out in the open air away from the hot streets and confined forecourts and back yards. Groups of friends or co-tenants from the rented accommodation as commonly found in the inner-city share a beer and a game of football. Bulky and shaven headed Eastern European workers chatter and laugh in their rare leisure time from the production lines, glasshouses and agricultural fields.
Keeping vigil over what appears to be a good cross section of all nationalities is the bright white marble sculpture of Queen Victoria amongst the low cut heather hedging and well stocked borders of the ornamental gardens.
I was at first unsure of whom the statue was of.
Our perception of the great Monarch is mainly grounded in her later years, a perpetually black mourning clothes clad, stooped and hunched old lady, dour and not easily amused.
What is striking about the figure on this pedestal is that it was contemporary for the 1860's . It depicts Victoria aged 41, very much in her petite prime and seemingly unaware and unsuspecting of the impending death of her beloved Albert which would be within some 12 months.
She is slim and charismatic even allowing for the carved folds of her seated pose and at the height of her Empire. Regal and Inherited Power ooze out of the stunning and dazzling representation of her rule, at that time exactly half way through with the luxury of hindsight and an on-line reference site. It was at the time a prestigious commission for the London based sculpture and in marble from the same Italian source as, it appears, Michelangelo's magnificent David.
Granted, the marble has gone a little bit green from natural tarnishing from moss and lichen but restricted to her north facing parts. On occasion I have seen her festooned in police incident tape usually as a student prank. I must say that Vicky can sport a traffic cone on her head as well as any civic statue.
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| Vicky with the hot house behind- you know what I mean |
As the thick foliage and heavy laden tree boughs fell back in the Autumn I became aware of a clear line of sight from the house to the statue.
It would loom out of the early dawn mist as a ghostly apparition or seem to take on a strange iridescence as it caught in rota the rising of the sun and its setting.
Through the winter H.M has been a constant presence, a solid figure of reassurance.
She has also caused me some pangs of conscience and serves as a reminder that as a Nation we are now in payback mode to receive willingly and with compassion the peoples of a global community that as the British Empire we ruthlessly pillaged, exploited and extracted great wealth and prestige from.
It is now almost summer. I looked out of the window onto the Park this morning.
It was extremely colourful and lush, verdant and all other similar descriptive words or just various shades of green.
Not entirely unexpected but there was, in my mind, a sensation of it being just too green. Then I realised that the distinctive white character was not in view. I panicked a bit as there have been cases in our fine City where statues and outdoor works of art have gone missing but then again, marble cannot be melted down and has, in my understanding, few other applications apart from kitchen worktops, headstones and sanitary ware.
I got dressed quickly and set off to investigate.
It was still early and the Park Rangers had not unlocked the series of little gates leading into the landscaped gardens so I skirted around using one of the paths that criss-cross the grassed areas. There was the usual trail of beer cans and pizza boxes from the revellers of the night before taking their usual short cut.
Encouragingly, and to allay my earlier fears there were no chewed up sections of turf or deep set vehicle ruts to indicate the passage of a statue compatible sized transit van.
I was a bit anxious as I approached the gentle curve of the wrought iron fence which would bring me into plain sight of the pedestal and figure.
The boughs of a large shrub suddenly parted in a whirling breeze and my gaze fell on a rather bored looking deceased monarch.
I cancelled the Emergency Only dial function on my mobile phone being rather relieved at not having to report to the police that Queen Victoria was missing.
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