Sep 272013
 

‘I want to be there, there being no top of tree, no glory or honour, simply working good and well, and producing stuff that will last the ages.’ (William Lamb, 1923)

As a young lad growing up in Montrose in the 1960s I first came across William Lamb’s work when my uncle used his old studio. Surrounded by statues of massive figures, disembodied heads and nude young boys, the place had a strange, neglected atmosphere. These days, his large bronze figures are proudly displayed in the town and the studio is open to the public.  John Stansfeld’s new biography can only add to the reputation of an important artist, often described as ‘a Scottish Rodin’. Graham Stephen reviews.

People's-Sculptor3Lavishly illustrated, the book details Lamb’s artistic achievements and gives us insight to a complex man who, despite a reluctance to leave his beloved home town, once solo-cycled over 4000km through Europe on his trusty Raleigh, had a trial for Aberdeen FC and briefly became a playmate of the current queen.

From a variety of sources, most notably the Simms’ family archive, Stansfeld examines Lamb’s struggle to create superb work despite personal hardships.

Rooted in his community and landscape, Lamb chose to ‘starve among (his) own folk’ rather than dilute his native culture by moving away in search of a more lucrative market.

His portrayal of working men and women, real people often struggling with life and the elements, are a particular feature of his work.

The Lamb who enlisted in 1915 was a skilled stonemason, respected artist and all-round sportsman. He returned a broken man, temporarily struck dumb, physically and psychologically devastated and, tragically, with a permanently damaged right hand.

By sheer force of will he taught himself to work again with his left, skilled enough to win commissions to create the war memorials which funded his European travels in 1923. His surviving letters from this trip are one of the highlights of the book, an insight into a man with a meticulous eye for detail, realising that art would be his life, never taking the easy path.

Stansfeld’s detailed research unearths intriguing aspects of Lamb’s life. He was almost perpetually penniless, relying on friends to feed him, often on a daily basis. Any money he made was invariably used to fund materials, or help fellow artists like Ed Baird, another undervalued Montrose talent.

The local council, disturbed by his nude figures, suggested adding kilts for a major exhibition, and Lamb reacted predictably. He was a lifelong teetotaller, disgusted by his alcoholic father, supressing his probable homosexuality, living alone in a freezing attic. His attendance at fledgling Nationalist meetings held by poet Hugh MacDiarmid in the 1920s was more likely for the heat of the fire than for the rhetoric.

Lamb later took his revenge on the arrogant MacDiarmid by making his bust look ‘like him’.

Most intriguing is his commission to sculpt Princess Elizabeth in 1932 when he spends many hours alone with the future queen, playing house and crafting plasticine tea-sets, before returning to Montrose, and his ultimate decline.

In a rare speech in 1930 William Lamb described Scottish sculpture as ‘hopeless’, unappreciated and unloved by the majority of the population. Even today it would be hard to argue against him. This fine book should help to bring his achievements to a wider audience.

The People’s Sculptor: The Life and Art of William Lamb (1893-1951)
John Stansfeld
Birlinn Ltd
£14.99

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Sep 162011
 

Voice’s David Innes’ benchmark indicator of biographical literature quality is more or less, “Would I have a pint with this guy?” It was with some interest and not a little thirst that he approached the latest revelations from inside government, written by the man who achieved heady high office as President of the University of Aberdeen’s Student Representative Council in the mid-1970s and then went on to reputedly greater things.

Tabloid is a newspaper shape, although the term is now universally used to describe populist low-rent journalism. Not here at Voice where your screen size delineates layout and low-rent isn’t our way.
Tabloids’ views on Back From The Brink have been almost prurient in their seizing on the Darling-Brown relationship as their focus for summarising the book’s content and offering review.
Whilst this is interesting, and is probably welcome relief from the views of Debbie from Doncaster, 22, 38-22-36, on monetary policy within the Eurozone and its effect on Greek public expenditure, far more interesting is Darling’s take on the events and decisions forced upon him during his tenure in No 11, as the economic crisis of 2007 threatened to destroy global financial systems.

The former Chancellor’s view is that the Financial Services Authority (FSA) failed due to its never having had to deal with a financial crisis, as the regulatory system had only ever had to operate in good times.

When the chill economic breeze blew over the North Atlantic and the unregulated mortgage free-for-all was found not only to have been the preserve of US financial institutions, the UK banking system clammed up, investors panicked and the reliance on UK financial service companies for 25% of UK tax revenue was shown up for the short-term folly that it was. Not before those responsible had lined their own pockets, of course.

As banks pleaded poverty and our mortgages and pensions were put at risk, these self-same bankers, previously vocal in their demands to be left alone, free from governmental intervention, queued up at the Treasury door, looking for a bail-out, courtesy of Mr and Mrs Joseph Soap of Gullible-At-Sea, also demanding that the “toxic assets” (those’ll be debts which will never be paid, then) be taken on by taxpayers whilst the banks continued to rake off the top line from profit-making accounts.

It is to his credit that the Chancellor extracted significant pounds of flesh from these banks in charges for the liquidity handout they received.

Here’s a very interesting fact to ponder next time you’re trying to have a cheque cleared through our banking system, where processes move at the pace of traffic in King Street on a rainy Thursday night, the week before Christmas – $6bn was reputedly taken from the UK Lehman Brothers’ UK operation on a Friday evening so that it could be in the US operation’s empty coffers on the Monday morning. As the author observes, this

“demonstrates…how quickly money can be moved from one jurisdiction to another”.

Of course, when it suits the usurers.

It is to Darling’s credit that much of the technical content is made easy to understand, even to economic illiterates like your reviewer. He is also very clear on timescales, forensically-sharp on the decision-making processes and pays suitable tribute to a Treasury team worked to exhaustion putting measures in place to prevent meltdown.

He stints neither from taking credit for saving the banking sector – and by definition everything else in the economy – from collapse, nor shies away from admitting where errors were made.

Among those errors was the Prime Minister’s approach to the 2010 General Election. His “Tory cuts v Labour investment” was a line easily seen through, a false promise which the electorate didn’t buy. Darling’s view, over-ruled, was that voters could be persuaded that whilst cuts were to be made, they would accept that they did not need to be made to the degree and on the timescale gleefully endorsed and seized upon zealously by public sector-despising Tories and their Lib Dem patsies.

As sometimes sweet relief from the incessant round of IMF, G7 and G20 meetings, Spending Review speeches, Budget statements and Treasury late-night sessions, Darling writes affectionately about his family, the social and charitable aspect of life in No 11 and of his bolt hole in the Hebrides. He comes across as mild-mannered, thoughtful, loyal and reliable. He describes himself as “managerial”. That’s a fair self-assessment.

Of course, this insider account is one-sided, although credible. It will be interesting as others’ takes on the financial crisis are published and comparisons can be made.

So, would I have a pint with the former Chancellor? Yes, without a doubt, if only to point out that “the late Tommy Docherty” referred to on page 119, is very much alive.

Your round Alistair, just don’t put it on expenses.

Back From The brink. 1000 Days at No. 11
Alistair Darling
Atlantic Books.
ISBN 9 780 85789 279 9
337pp

£19.99

Aug 122011
 

An unconfirmed rumour that the controversial Westboro Baptist Church  is about to open a church in Aberdeen came to the fore this week, when an alleged biography of the incoming WBC minister was discovered by your intrepid reporter Dave Watt.

The elders at Westboro HQ (obviously taking seriously US televangelist Pat Robertson’s claim that Scotland “is a dark land overrun by homosexuals”) have apparently decided not to risk their incumbent being attacked and sodomised by the gangs of gay rapists that infest the Granite City – and have agreed to send one of the wimmenfolk instead.
www.godhatesfags.com/index.html  

Biography of the new WBC Minister to Aberdeen

The Reverend Walmartina Navratilova ( pictured ) was born in Westboro County in June 1982, to Jim-Bob and Loribelle Navratilova (nee Pork). Her rather unusual Christian name was chosen in celebration of the location of her conception back at Thanksgiving in Walmart the previous year. This was the result of a romantic moment when Loribelle was in the store checking out the Grilled Racoon Special – and Jim-Bob was in having his banjo re-strung.

All went well in the Navratilova shack for several years, with the doting parents basking in the reflected glory of their eldest child being named for one of the US’s top female tennis players. However, in 1988, during one of the Sunday readings of the National Enquirer to the congregation by Pastor Jack Perspex, the unfortunate couple discovered that not only had their daughter’s role model been brought up a ‘godless red commie’ but was, in the Pastor’s own inimitable words, ‘a self confessed rug muncher and crack snacking dyke of the most insatiable kind’.

Although the couple were initially devastated by this revelation – and even Jim-Bob’s coon hound, Skeeter, was ostracised at the local Canine Obedience School – they gradually came to accept the situation. Following a long discussion with the Rev. Perspex, they decided to wait to see how things developed, and keep a close eye on the young Walmartina during puberty for any outward signs of a tendency towards lesbianism, communism, and even worse, tennis.

Fortunately for Jim-Bob and Loribelle’s peace of mind, the youthful Walmartina developed a 225 tenpin bowling average, became the county’s first Junior Imperial Wizardess in the Ku Klux Klan, and has presented the Navratilovas with a grandchild each year since her fourteenth birthday (some of them even to fathers outwith her own family).

Adulthood presented its own problems to Walmartina, when the Roadkill Canning factory at which she worked closed down. She spent several years on Welfare with her steadily increasing brood, until one day she found an advert in the local newspaper for Genuine Degrees in Theology for $50 and, amidst the rolls of baling wire and rusting station wagons, she found God in her hour of need.

Since then, Walmartina has travelled the length and breadth of the US Midwest preaching that the love of God is universal except for fags, commies and anyone with a three-figure IQ. She is looking forward to the challenge of bringing God to the backward heathens of Aberdeen, and has stated that her wayside pulpit message shall be :

“Repent Now, Scotch Limeys – or Burn In Hell!”