East Enders campaign for statue

The great debate over where a Queen Mother memorial should be sited in London intensified today.

Some architecture experts and East Enders have united to call for a permanent tribute to be constructed in the East End which she loved so much and where she was held in such affection. Locations they are suggesting include Mile End, Whitechapel and Poplar.

Meanwhile, others insist any statue of the Queen Mother belongs on the vacant fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square.

East End pressure group the Citizens Remembered Trust is dedicated to building a memorial garden to the 60,000 victims of the Blitz on the site of London's first bomb shelter at Hermitage Wharf, Wapping. Trust leader Jon Alderton said: "We could place a statue of her in the garden. It's not enough just to have a statue - you've got to have some interpretation too."

Other locations on the list for a Cockney memorial statue of the Queen Mother include: Mile End Park which is built on heavily bombdamaged land and is the site of the first German V2 rocket attack of the Second World War; Whitechapel Road, where a statue of King Edward V11 - erected by London's Jewish community - already stands. A location she visited during the Blitz - Brady Street in Whitechapel or Newby Place in Poplar - where she and King George VI sat out an air raid in a deep shelter sharing tea with the locals, have both been suggested.

Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesman Simon Hughes yesterday tabled a Parliamentary motion proposing a Queen Mother statue in Trafalgar Square, claiming it would solve the vexed problem of what to do with the empty plinth at a stroke.

Referring to Mayor Ken Livingstone's dislike of statues of military heroes in London - and especially in the Square - he said: "It seems to me that the Queen Mother and a statue of the Queen Mother fits many of the criteria people have argued for.

"They've said they didn't want another man, because all the other statues are men, and they didn't want somebody in military uniform, who's a member of the armed services. They did want somebody who was popular and would bring public affection and public attraction to one of the most public places in the country.

"I can't think of anybody at the moment who would better fit that model than the Queen Mother, and although I'm not somebody who believes that the only way to commemorate somebody when they've died is a statue, there is bound to be a statue somewhere, so why not Trafalgar Square?"

He was backed by Paul Hyett, president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, who said: "I'd like to see a beautiful statue of her. There will be memorials to her all over the country, but Trafalgar Square is special."

The debate was sparked off by the Standard's Architecture Correspondent Rowan Moore when he wrote last week that the Queen Mother had been "a pavement-level royal, famous for her mastery of the walkabout and not someone to be put on a plinth.

The daring option would be to place her away from the conventional area of royal deference, away from Trafalgar Square and The Mall where subjects of memorials are rapidly forgotten. A statue could be erected in the East End where she famously visited victims of the Blitz."

He added: "It would commemorate the prime of her life, a moment of personal bravery and national significance, when she refused to take her family away from the air raids on London."

Architect Sunand Prasad, a member of the committee who will decide on the fourth statue in the square, said: "It will be much better to use the opportunity of this empty plinth to have changing exhibits from aspiring young artists.

"What is brilliant about the rotating exhibits in recent years is that they have got people talking about art.

"I can understand that a statue of the Queren Mother seems appropriate, but it's not my view, and I don't think it will be the view of the committee."

Give her a place on the plinth?