This is the BBC after all.
The BBC will begin restoring the Eric Gill sculpture outside its London headquarters after it was vandalised in 2022. The work, commissioned to depict Prospero and Ariel from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, was attacked with a hammer by a protester last year. There have long been calls to remove public works by Gill after his private diaries – published half a century after the artist’s death in 1940 – revealed he had sexually abused his two eldest daughters.
Personally, I am capable separating the art from the artist and object to the general principle of vandalising or removing statues because they depict a part of history that some object to. However, the BBC is very much a part of the leftist culture creep. So, hoist and petard spring to mind. In this instance, I can relax my principles, given that unlike the BBC, I do actually have some and in directing criticism at them and the statue, I am engaging in selective hypocrisy here, but why the hell not? I’d also make the point that paedophilia and the BBC do appear to have some, er history. Ahem, Jimmy Savile, cough.
Not just his teenage daughters but relations with his sisters and the family dog (sex unknown).
To be fair to the BBC, there’s a lot of doubt as to whether or not the BBC knew of Gill’s proclivities when they commissioned the artworks. Gill moved in arty circles and because of this got commissions for church decoration, war memorials and other pieces of public art. He was stunningly talented and his typefaces are still used today (Gill Sans is a go to typeface for me). If I recall correctly outside of Gill’s immediate family and friends there was little or no knowledge of Eric Gill’s abusive behaviour and because this knowledge was kept close and somewhat secret, it most likely was not known to those entities and individuals that commissioned Gill’s work.
Gill was working on the Broadcasting House sculptures during the reign of Lord John Reith as Director General of the BBC, a man known for his intolerance of sexual laxness, which leads me to believe that had Lord Reith known about Gill’s activities then he would not have been commissioned for this task.
I also seem to recall that when the Gill Diaries were released in 1989 the only people who were not scandalised and disgusted by the revelations of Gill’s behaviour were the arty types connected to outlets like the Guardian.
Excellent point. There’s no way on earth Reith would have given Gill the time of day had he known. Not a chance. His father was the Moderator of the Free Kirk and Chaplain to its College; he took that strict Calvinist morality seriously.
So it’s kind of ironic that it’s the allegedly “liberal” Left who are taking his side these days. Although maybe not: he’s known to have been sympathetic to the fascists before the War, and tried to keep anti-appeasement Conservatives (“far-right extremists”, you might say) off the air. It’s all rather familiar. They think they’re “progressive”, you know.
Thank you. Lord Reith was so strict with regards to personal morality that one thing I read about him was that he had a policy that if a BBC employee got divorced then they lost their job.
FWIW I wrote a longer form piece on the issue of the Tosspot Taliban and the vandalism of the Prospero and Ariel sculpture here https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2022/01/13/the-tosspot-taliban-come-to-town/
I wouldn’t argue with any of this. I just despise the BBC so much, I’m taking the opportunity to enjoy any discomfort or damage the association causes.
I agree with on the despising the BBC bit. I can also see your point about how this entity, that has in recent years played a major part in cancelling or anathemising the views of those which the BBC disagrees with, is for a change in the firing line.
Of course I feel this is a wonderful opportunity to restore all those statues so unfairly removed because of slavery accusations.