ON A PEDESTAL: A Trip Around Britain's Statues

'From slavers to rock icons, from comedians to the Great War's fallen, Lytollis goes into the why they are there in bronze and granite, but also talks to the people who pass them every day. Fascinating and funny.' - Mike Craven. Part history, part travelogue, this is the first book to examine public statues around the nation. Lytollis travels Britain and encounters a man at Liverpool's Beatles statue convinced that Rod Stewart was in the Fab Four. In Edinburgh he walks into a row over Greyfriars Bobby's nose, and in Glasgow learns why the Duke of Wellington wears a traffic cone on his head. London brings a controversial nude statue and some hard truths about racism. He sees people dancing with Eric Morecambe, finds a statue being the backdrop to a marriage proposal, looks at the emergence of statues into our culture laws, the trends for portraying musicians, pop stars and comedians rather than monarchs, politicians and generals, and tells amazing tales of many of those commemorated on our streets. It also features interviews with sculptors including Sir Antony Gormley who discusses the Angel of the North and more traditional statues. As soon as Captain Tom Moore, Dame Vera Lynn and Prince Philip died, there were demands for statues. They will continue to stand over and among us, inspiring, amusing, enraging or just blending into the background and they all have stories to tell. 296pp, eight pages of colour and b/w photos.