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In 1989, house builders Persimmon Homes commissioned the statue of Stan Laurel from Bob. This is the story of  how his weighty creation was moved form his studio in South Shields to it's North Shields destination.

Work on the statue had began late 1989 and was half completed when the economy went into deep recession, the company that had commissioned the work Persimmon Homes requested me to stop the project until the economic climate improved as the building trade had been hit particularly hard. I complied and decided to go to Australia for three months. I celebrated my 50^th birthday on the flight.

After eighteen months the statue was ready to be transported across the river Tyne. The PR company employed by Persimmon had been trying to find out what my plans were for the unveiling of the 12ft high, half ton statue for some weeks but I was not prepared to let them hijack and put their spin on the project after all the organising with the help of my friends and contacts on the river was now in place and besides the Managing Director had given me cart blanche.

Click photo to enlarge

The plan was to manhandle the statue out of my workshop and onto the quay where a mobile crane would lift it onto a barge. A small tug would transport it across the river to North Shields where another crane would lift it off the barge and onto a flat back lorry which would then take it up the steep hill to Dockwray Square on its final leg of the journey. My Friend Big Alex, a rough tough foy-boatman was the Mr Fixit of the river and had organised the whole operation, the cranes, barge, tug, lorry and even the Harbour Master to escort us across. In the run up to the big day I asked him from time to time if everything was ok and each time he scowled and grunted a very, very short reply.
On the morning of the 16th (chosen because the tide was at its highest) a posse of reporters gathered on the quay to await the arrival of the barge at 11.00am. The young girl from the PR.company was extremely nervous as it was her first assignment and needed constant reassurance that all was going according to plan, or so I thought.

Stan Fact

The first cracks began to appear when the TV people were late. The PR girl was pacing up and down because the reporters were becoming restless and the barge was still up river. I wasn't to know that the day I had chosen was the same day that Keegan signed up as manager for Newcastle and the man that had shot and killed the local government officer in a planning dispute was making his first appearance at Crown Court, so the TV crew's were covering these two more newsworthy events. Big Alex strutted towards me puffing a fag and calmly stated that the barge had been sent up river on another job but not to worry; he had organised a tug that could do the job if it could get close enough to the quay before the tide began to drop. The PR girl went ashen as I tried to play down the crisis. By now the tide was on the turn and mutterings were coming from the impatient reporters and photographers, then as I placated them with coffee a cheer went up as the tug came steaming around the bend of the river.

When I saw the size of it, I knew it was going to be a close thing. I looked at Alex who confidently shrugged his shoulders and said "don't worry,"

I am not a person who is easily rattled but I think I was rapidly losing grip of my bottle.

As the vessel manoeuvred alongside the quay I asked Alex how long it would be before the crane arrived. He gave me a puzzled look, "what crane?" The PR girl let out muffled cry and visibly wobbled. I suddenly became very focused on the situation and whispered to Alex "GET ME A CRANE!" ………………..MORE