General   (General discussion, talk about anything.)

Wiganread

What on earth are you on about ?

Those statues are about the 'people' who worked in the coal mines, not about mining equipment, and it shows those people putting their best foot forward, or putting their best clog forward, which depicts the hard-working and forward-thinking, and the get on with it mentality from those times, because you have to remember that at that time, Britain ruled the waves, has well as most of the planet, the sun never set on the British Empire, and the coal which was mined in this country, fuelled the British Empire, coal was used for just about everything, from steel making to domestic heating, transport etc and they made chemical products from it too.

So the statue of the adult miner, depicts how a miner would have looked, how he dressed, with his snap tin and davy lamp hanging from his belt, the young lad also on his way to the pit, depicts how children were employed in the mines, and the pit brow lass, and Ok she probably did not have her own 'riddle' but by showing her with a 'riddle' it explains what her job entailed, it is called using 'artistic licence'

And as regards the money they cost to sculpt, I think you will find that the money will have come from grants available for art projects, not from council funds.

I like those statues, but I don't like the Billy Boston statue, I think that could have been done better, and I also like the statue of Dave Whelan at the DW