Wick hoteliers get rid of traffic cone from war memorial
Two public-spirited Wick hoteliers teamed up to remove a traffic cone from the top of the town’s war memorial on the morning of Remembrance Sunday.
Mervyn Hill, of the Nethercliffe Hotel, noticed the orange-and-white cone when he was passing the statue overlooking Bridge Street on Saturday night.
Evidently put there as a prank by persons unknown, it would have caused offence to many townsfolk – especially on the weekend when the war memorial is a focal point for annual remembrance commemorations.
Mr Hill alerted Murray Lamont, of Mackays Hotel, who is president of the Wick, Canisbay and Latheron branch of Legion Scotland.
On Sunday morning, with the cone still in place, the pair brought a ladder and Mr Hill climbed up to knock it off using a long-handled brush – with a couple of hours to spare before crowds assembled to pay their respects at 11am.
“Murray got a ladder and we got it at the back of the memorial,” Mr Hill said. “I went up the ladder with a brush and flipped it off.”
A statue of the Duke of Wellington in Glasgow city centre is famous for being almost permanently adorned with a traffic cone.
“When you see the one in Glasgow, and it’s always there, it seems fine,” Mr Hill said. “But I wouldn’t like it on top of the Wick war memorial at any time, and especially this weekend.
“However, we got it off and that was it sorted.”
Mr Lamont said: “We got a ladder and a long brush. I held the ladder, Mervyn went up, and we got it down.
“It was the wrong weekend for it, but we’re not going to get overly excited about it. These things happen – no damage done.”
The 8ft 9in Wick war memorial, a representation of Victory and Peace, was unveiled in October 1923. The memorial was designed by Percy Herbert Portsmouth and was installed by the local firm of John Hood & Son.
In 2018 the statue underwent restoration – also by John Hood & Son – as part of a nationwide programme to refurbish and clean remembrance monuments to mark the centenary of the end of World War I.
