A novel way to ride high
QUESTION Why is the Duke of Wellington riding bareback on the statue of him outside the Bank of England?
The statue was sculpted by Sir Francis Leggatt Chantrey (1781-1841), Regency Britain’s most eminent portrait sculptor.
Chantrey sculpted three major equestrian statues; that of Wellington, George IV in Trafalgar Square and the statue of Sir Thomas Munro in Madras, where he was governor.
None of these statues has saddles or stirrups; indeed, Munro’s statue is known locally as The Stirrupless Majesty. Chantry disliked any excess ornamentation in his works, which is why he dispensed with riding accoutrements.
his chief aim was to impart character and dignity to the head, evident in the many busts he produced. Wellington’s head is particularly fine and noble.
It took intense negotiations to persuade him to decorate the royal robe of George IV on the bronze statue at Brighton. Yet the King, pleased with result, told him: ‘Chantrey, I have reason to be obliged to you, for you have immortalised me.’
Bella Henderson, Falmouth, Cornwall.
QUESTION Is 1986’s White Nights the most obscure film to have produced a Best Song Oscar?
WHITE Nights is a relatively unknown film about a Russian ballet dancer, Nikolai Rodchenko (Mikhail Baryshnikov) who defects to the U.S but crash-lands in Siberia and is forcibly ‘repatriated’.
The film won an Oscar for Best Original Song with Say You, Say Me, written and performed by Lionel Richie. It also featured Stephen Bishop’s song Separate Lives, performed by Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin, which was also nominated. Another candidate is You Light
Up My Life, better remembered as a song than a film. It was a No 1 hit for Debby Boone, daughter of singer Pat Boone, and on the U.S. Billboard hot 100 chart for ten consecutive weeks in 1977. The lightweight film concerns a young woman (Laurie), played by Didi Conn, with dreams of becoming a singer. But Conn lip- synced the song to lead vocals provided by Kasey Cisyk. Donna Summer’s Last Dance, a soso disco number from the widely panned 1978 disco musical film Thank God It’s Friday, beat hopelessly Devoted To You from Grease to the Oscar.
Helen Morrison, Worcester.
QUESTION Why is a deer the Babycham logo?
FURTHER to the earlier answer about the chamois deer, alcohol in 1960s Northern Ireland was restricted for women.
In the 1960s, when I was seven, my teacher asked us all to draw a picture of any advert we’d seen on TV the previous evening. I chose the Babycham ad.
When she saw my drawing of the Babycham glass and leaping deer, she was horrified. She made me stand at the front to show it to the entire class, before insisting that I tore it up and put it in the wastepaper basket ‘where it belonged’.
Edna Gilmour, Crieff, Perthshire.
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