For John Plummer
After lengthy negotiations between
Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council
and Another Place Ltd, the cast iron
statues that comprise the installation,
‘Another Place’, will be removed from the beach.
A third of the statues is completely
submerged. At a high water a third more
disappear, and those, nearest what remains
of the sand dunes, show only their heads.
The hundred figures, all cast from a mould
of the naked body of the artist,
Sir Antony Gormley, will be erected
along the perimeter of a nearby
golf course the Council acquired under
the Global Warming Mitigation Act.
The barnacles, which adhere to the statues,
will in time, it is anticipated, drop off.
A spokesperson for the artist explained
that the protracted negotiations focussed
on which direction the statues would face.
A compromise was reached whereby some would face
south towards Liverpool’s two cathedrals
high up at either end of Hope Street;
some north towards Southport’s hinterland
and the flooded fields of the Fylde’s coastal plain;
and some still westwards towards what used to be
the ambiguous promise of the oceans.
Before the installation of the art work
the beach was seldom visited – unsafe
for swimming, a rudimentary car park
beside the Coastguard Station, no toilets.
The occasional dog-walker might note
the profusion of razor clams, or specks
of coal, scattered among the seaweed, from seams
at Point of Ayr on the distant Welsh coast.
The influx of visitors required
a tarmacked car park and proper toilets –
both frequently inundated now.
The Coastguard Station is on twenty foot piles.
Crosby Beach is seven miles or so
from the centre of Liverpool, most of which
was razed in the May Blitz of ’41.
Much of the rubble was dumped on the beach,
cordoned off from the public throughout the war.
The detritus is so wind-swept and now sea-swept
that it resembles pebbles spring tides have cast –
except for the tell-tale clay of a brick,
a fragment of cut stone.
Note: ANOTHER PLACE – Sylvia Selzer: https://www.sylviaselzer.com/2014/08/17/another-place/
By David Selzer