There's always something new to discover in London, even if it takes over 45 years to find it...
I'm sure that I have mentioned before that I am one of the small team of volunteer guides who leads tours in The Royal Parks, specifically in Kensington Gardens and St James's Park. See more here. We report to staff within the Learning Centre building in Hyde Park, AKA The Lookout. I'm mentioning this because had I not been helping out as a steward* for a small 5km run last week I would still be none the wiser about what I am about to share with you.
As I left the Learning Centre, hi-vis in hand, I glanced sideways at the toilet block and pondered that I'd never had cause to use these facilities. This is probably why, until this particular day, I had never noticed the free-standing sculpture that faces the building. With time to spare before the runners set off, I went to take a closer look.
Well, blow me down, the artwork is marvellous.
I looked closer and saw that it is festooned with toys and some well-worn buttons. Turns out it's a drinking fountain.
I pressed one of the buttons and strong jet of water jetted across my left shoulder. I repositioned myself and tried again but didn't manage to catch anything in my mouth. I tried another button which produced the same strong squirt effect but only managed to splash my face – but, oh, what fun!
I assumed it was a fairly new installation. But no. Who made this, when, and why? I could see no information panel on the plinth or at the base. I made a few circumnavigations to investigate the details and the other buttons and found some crudely-carved lettering around the bottom edges that show this artwork commemorates a huge event that happened here in 1979. It was hard to see very well so I took lots of snaps to be able to decipher it later.
"This fountain was made to commemorate the great children's party during the International Year of the Child 1979 when two hundred thousand children came to Hyde Park on two days in June"
Blimey! First I knew about it!
I did a bit of googlywooglysleuthing and discovered that the event was organised by The United Nations. However, there are a couple of errors in that inscription in the sculpture – the event actually happened in May that year, not June, specifically on the weekend of May 5th & 6th, and other info such as here states that "over 160,000" children attended, which is short of 200K.
There's a pic of the event on Alamy, but I haven't as yet found any newspaper reports. Surely it must have been covered on Nationwide? Thanks to David at London Inheritance for finding this filmed footage on YouTube. It's likely that similar gatherings happened in other major cities around the world.
At that time I would have been 16 going on 17 and in the first year of Sixth Form. My Romford school was within OLEA (Outer London Education Authority) so surely this mass gathering must've been known to all schools? May 5th was/is my mate Gill's birthday and she confirms that she had a party at her home that Saturday. None of us who are still in touch from that time can recall hearing about the Hyde Park event at all. Hmm. Perhaps it was only the Inner London schools that got the memo.
Back to the whimsical sculpture. It was created/installed two years after the event in 1981 and I'm delighted to discover that it was designed by Theo Crosby, sculpted by Polly Hope. I've not seen anything similar except, perhaps, The Elfin Oak in Kensington Gardens, but that doesn't have interactive capabilities such as water spouts.
Imho, Theo Crosby was one of the most important and innovative designer/architects of the 1980s. He was responsible for the revamp of Unilever foyer where his marvellous geometrical Retro-Deco panels and lighting were installed into any area that had, post-WW2, been stripped of its 1930's features. But his efforts were subsequently removed – a sad loss because, these days it appears that much of the innovative eighties is being dismantled, being not old enough yet to be revered. However, fans of alternative architecture clamour to see the MDF creations within Jencks' The Cosmic House, which I have visited (twice) and now realise that I haven't written about or shared my photos, so here's a montage:
That's it. Please get in touch if you have any personal memories of or info about the Hyde Park event, either in the comments or via jane@janeslondon.com
*This basically entailed wearing hi-vis polyester (ugh!) and pointing 'this way' whilst standing aside a post that had an arrow on it. It was actually a very pleasant ways to pass an hour or so because not only were the runners very jolly and thankful as they passed me, park users also came up to me and asked for directions.
All pics: Jane Amelia Parker / Janeslondon
