Honour

First published in Column 8 on the 25^th November, 1992

One recent balmy Friday evening I spent part of my tea-break taking a turn round the Queen’s Gardens, imbibing a little late afternoon Vitamin D while sheltering from the Harbour breeze on the leeward side of the statuary. The stroll caused me to consider how little and how short-lived is the honour we give to people these days.

There are three monuments in these Gardens: one enormous pole honouring the Glorious Dead of the century’s two major wars, and two more than life-sized statues of figures who were notable in their time. Both statues were put up within a few years of the deaths of those they portray, which gives some indication of our forebears’ respect for them.

Who would we honour with a statue today? We’re more prone to raze statues, in line with the communists, than raise them. And along with razing statues we raze the characters of people to whom we once might have considered giving honour.

The statues in the Gardens are of Queen Victoria, (accompanied by two somewhat sorrowful ladies), and of Dr Donald MacNaughtonStuart, D.D. While the Queen stands stolid and sure, Dr Stuart sits comfortable and relaxed in his study chair, legs crossed, the sole of his shoe swinging high above your head.

I was told an interesting anecdote about the Stuart statue. It was the first to be erected, in 1898, four years after the venerable doctor had died. Originally he faced the Exchange, perhaps casting a quizzical eye at Jacob’s Corner. But when the Queen arrived about 1904, with her ladies-in-waiting, it was felt not fit that the doctor should have his back to her, and with considerable effort he was turned around 180 degrees. However, I suppose it as a bit late then to get him to stand.

I’m reminded of all this honouring of past figures today – and Dr Stuart was noteworthy enough to have a bust of him placed in the KnoxChurch grounds as well – when I read about the fire at Windsor Castle. The present Queen is said to be devastated.

The fire is just one more thing for her to be devastated about. I don’t think we should necessarily go back to the days when school holidays were declared if a royal figure toured (though it was a more reasonable excuse than sending school pupils onto the street to sell raffles), but I do think we need to ponder the destructive tone we’ve taken towards the Royal Family.

And I say ‘we’ because all of us are involved in this destructiveness. We’re involved when we read the latest piece of media gossip, much of it totally false. We’re involved when we watch a satirical television programme that uses real film of royal personages but adds new dialogue, making a mockery of their every move and expression. In each and every case we’re guilty of shameful behaviour.

The Queen’s life this last year must have been hellish, to say the least. She may be a distinctive and experienced public figure, but she’s still human, a mother and a grandmother.

To see her sons and their wives reviled at every turn, to see photographs that pinpoint their folly displayed for all the world to see, to hear of tapes that purport to record unwise relationships, and to read of books that threaten to ‘tell all’ would be enough to destroy the best of families.

What’s changed our attitudes? We prefer to read and watch garbage about this family’s life than to give them honour. Ultimately our merciless criticism of them – and other public figures – must rebound on us as a society.

 

Queen Victoria and the Cenotaph

 
Dr Stuart

he ‘enormous pole’ is called the Cenotaph. The Queen’s Gardens (the Queen being Victoria) were once a proper single garden but due to a gradual increase in traffic a road was cut through the Gardens, isolating Dr Stuart from Victoria. The shop I managed at the time this was written was literally across the road from them. 

Jacob’s Corner was the corner of High St and Princes St, a famous meeting place in my youth for the young people of the city on a Friday night (in the days when shops were open on Friday nights, rather than on Saturday mornings). It was named after Jacob’s tobacconists, and although that particular shop was occupied by other businesses over the years, the Jacob name attached itself well and truly to the corner.