What price modesty?
October 9 2012
Pictures: BG
My post below about Gainsborough's grave reminds me of a thought I recently had about the new RAF Bomber Command memorial in Green Park (London); to what extent should a benefactor's name be put on a memorial?
In the case of poor old Gainsborough, the artist himself asked specifically for a very simple inscription. But in 1865 Edward Matthew Ward, a history painter, restored the grave, installing in the process a much more verbose plaque (as seen above). And bizarrely, Ward put his own name on it, which is written in even larger letters than Gainsborough's.
We are not faced with anything quite so absurd with the new Bomber Command memorial, which I like very much. But I still find it a little de trop that the most prominent names carved on the side and front of the memorial - in fact, pretty much the only names on the whole site - are those not of the leading airmen of the war or the most decorated, or those who were killed, but those who helped pay for it (below). We must of course applaud Lord Ashcroft and John Caudwell (founder of Phones4U) for their generosity in supporting the memorial. But surely it would have been better, in both the case of Gainsborough's grave and the Bomber Command memorial, if modesty had triumped over vanity?
Update - a reader writes:
I'm glad you like the Bomber Command memorial. My Grandfather missed seeing it by a couple of years and I think he would have been secretly very moved.
You're quite right about carving names. Recently I was at a school reunion and I noticed there were a lot of empty panels in the dining hall. I knew the school would be millennium fundraising soon and I had a brilliant idea. Why not donate by sponsoring panels and having our names carved in them? My friends were all very keen but while we were negotiating the price of immortality there was another appeal for the new war memorial, designed with empty spaces for the future. This put everything in its proper perspective.
And another:
Re. Bomber Command Memorial. I quite agree, to me it’s an insult. I once read there are two considerations when giving to charity. One give that which you cannot really afford to give. Two don’t tell the world about it.
