Sculptor’s First Visit

There could have been no finer day for Ian Rank-Broadley to make his first visit to Lowestoft. The sky was a canvas of blue, the sun blazing and the beach teeming with sun-bathers. Ruth and I met him from the train and his first introduction to the town was the local cliché of the bridge being up, so Ruth drove the less scenic route through Oulton Broad to Pakefield. He was instantly struck by the view of Pakefield church and beach from the Jolly Sailors pub. We wandered along the cliff to the CEFAS laboratory where he had his next surprise, the South Beach, with its wide stretch of pristine sand. He wished he’d brought his swimming things.

The first potential site for the statue that we showed Ian was the promontory at the edge of the coastal-path, looking left to Lowestoft and right to Pakefield and discussed how the statue should also be visible from the beach below, which would involve elevating it on some kind of plinth. Here, Ian shared an idea of incorporating a boat into the design, to symbolise the young composer’s life journey. Ruth suggested the little model boat that Britten sailed in Lowestoft’s Kensington Gardens as a boy and kept throughout his life which is now in the collection at The Red House, Aldeburgh. Ian suggested Britten could be inside the boat, or merely holding it.

Our next stop was Kensington Gardens, which opened in 1922 when Britten was 9 years old. It must have been an exciting local attraction for his family. This was the first site the committee identified in our early discussions — however, on our visit today, we felt it was important that the statue be as close to the beach as possible and in a position where it would photograph well with the sea behind it.

We had coffee on the lower promenade and wondered if this would be a better position. Here, the sea would form a dramatic backdrop, so any social-media photographs of the statue would also sell the town’s greatest asset, the beach. In addition it would position the statue close to the site of the First Light Festival where it could become a focal/meeting point. I asked Ian if salt air corrosion would be an issue, so close to the sea. He assured us it would merely give the work an attractive greenish patina and, being bronze, it would last a thousand years.

At Claremont Pier we were met by former Chief Constable, Phil Aves, who gave Ian a history of the development of the harbour and seafront, pointing out the handsome terrace along Wellington Esplanade, originally devised in 1846 by John Louth Clemence for Sir Samuel Morton Peto for the development of Lowestoft as a fashionable holiday resort, made possible by the building of the railway by Peto.

From the harbour we doubled back to Britten’s childhood home and then returned to the Jolly Sailors for fish and chips, joined by fellow committee members Fergus Fitzgerald and Matt Grafton. We discussed how a soundscape could be added to the work, so that visitors could hear Britten’s sea music on their smartphones as they walked around the statue.

Ian commented it was hard to argue the case for foreign travel when there is so much of the UK he hadn’t visited and was enormously impressed with Lowestoft. He will now begin the process of sketching ideas and we should have a first image of what the statue could look like in the next few months.

Matt Grafton, Fergus Fitzgerald, Phil Aves, Zeb Soanes, Ruth Wharrier, Ian Rank-Broadley