Head is political bandwagon

“LET’S face it the Black’s Bead will never go back up.” (News Telegraph comment, November 24) Says who?

Before all this rubbish over some woke person who had decided she knows the history of Ashbourne better than anyone else and demanding the Blackamoor’s Head is removed, nobody had made a comment about so-called racism against it.

As I recall, not ONE councillor be it town, district or any other had EVER made a remark against it saying it should be removed and yet apart from the few who are defending it, they are jumping on a political bandwagon to further their careers.

It has been documented in books that have been researched by very well educated historians that the Blackamoor’s Head was up on the gallows sign long before slavery existed in the UK – but try explaining that to the woke snowflakes who just will not listen or debate the truth in any way.

The annoying part of this is that uneducated and, to put it bluntly, thick, part of the woke society possibly don’t even know what they’re arguing about, so let’s put some facts straight and hopefully more will come to light.

Firstly it’s the Blackamoor’s Head, depicting a Turkish man we think was a trader approx 400 years ago, hence Blackamoor and the fact the head has a turban on it.

Secondly, it’s called the Black’s Head because they can’t fit the whole title of the pub’s name on the sign, which again for the uneducated is The Royal Green

Man and Blackamoor’s Head Commercial and Family Hotel. It is the world’s longest hotel name and, at one time, the then manager Paul King was also the world’s youngest hotel manager at just 21.

Thirdly the colour of the head is BROWN and not black. When I was 17 years old and an apprentice for my late Dad, Richard Waring, we were given the task by Paul King to remove the head to have it restored because it was tatty.

We shut the road and made our way up to the head to lift it off only to discover it weighed a “ton” and no way could we do it: it was later removed by crane. While I was up there I noticed it was BROWN and not black, yet from the pavement it looks black due to pollution.

The head was sent away to be restored but it was returned, painted black. This was explained to both my Dad and myself by Paul King but he said he couldn’t be bothered to complain and wanted it to go straight back up because he had a deal on the crane.

As for the person who wrote the comment column in the Ashbourne News Telegraph quoting, “If it causes offence to anyone then it is, by definition, offensive” – so what he is saying if something is offensive it should either be stopped or removed? What utter nonsense.

By that definition I find the person who wrote the column to be offensive so maybe he should lose his job if I complain about it...

I cannot understand why people are hell-bent on removing history regarding it being good or bad. It’s there for us all to learn from.

So as for the headline “Black’s Head not going back up”, it us the true Ashburnians who live here that should be making the decision whether it goes back up – not some glorified councillors only interested in their own political gain and not the true facts, who don’t even live in Ashbourne. Or the woke snowflake who has no intentions of educating themselves in the town’s history.

Darren Waring

Ashbourne