The giant Knife Angel arrives in  Sandwell - video Dailymotion

Express & Star

The huge iconic Knife Angel has arrived in Oldbury. There were guest speakers at the event including the mother of a boy who was killed with a knife in the black country.

Transcript

00:00We must remember that the choices we make today shape our future.

00:05That's what this campaign is about. Encouraging everyone, but especially our young people, to make the right choices.

00:13I'm Pooja Khanda, Ronan's mum.

00:16My son's life was tragically taken on the streets of our country in a case of mistaken identity.

00:25Through no fault of Ronan or our family, we lost pure happiness.

00:32Ronan was a happy, funny, kind and above all caring child.

00:37After his brutal killing, I learnt even more about my son's wonderful character.

00:44People reached out to me to share the stories of Ronan's kindness and impact on their lives.

00:55These stories reinforced how privileged I am to have been Ronan's mother.

01:14The story behind The Angel was that it would just travel from where it was being made to London.

01:37Halfway through the build, we had a phone call from Boris Johnson's office to say we were to stop talking about it going to London.

01:47That it wasn't any good for London.

01:50That what would the Japanese tourists say in Trafalgar Square looking at The Angel?

01:57Anyway, we were too far ahead in the build for us to sort of reverse out of it.

02:03By the way, can I just tell you most importantly, we are from the black country.

02:09So although we've got the name the British Ironworks Centre, that business or that sort of enterprise was born over here in the black country.

02:18So I just want to give you a thumbs up for supporting it.

02:24This tour has been fairly straightforward. It hasn't.

02:27Of course, the first objective was London. Didn't want it.

02:31We're now 10 years on. Still don't want it.

02:35Boris's office originally stopped it. Now it's Sadiq Khan's office that are preventing it.

02:42By the way, nobody actually comes out openly and says we don't want it in Trafalgar Square or anywhere in London.

02:49This is all covertly done. It's done through influence and messages that are private and behind the scenes.

02:58But London always had the biggest problem.

03:01We never imagined for a second that in rejection of London, it would go on to travel the whole of the UK.

03:09When we said we were going to build this, of course, we'd never built anything like this before.

03:15We'd never handled weapons or knives.

03:18And when we said that we were going to get them from every force, a lot of forces didn't want to hand them over.

03:25They thought, well, we haven't got a problem.

03:28But the first arrival of blades actually came.

03:32Well, I think it was the second one that came from West Midlands Police.

03:35The first one was from Shropshire's police and they were arriving in skips.

03:41They weren't arriving in wheelie bins or containers.

03:45These were builders skips of blades.

03:50Now, we're metal workers. We're not used to handling this sort of thing.

03:55These blades were arriving in biohazard tubes with hazard warnings on the tubes, contamination warnings.

04:05Many of them, probably 20% of them, were already bloodied.

04:09So they all had to be sterilised. That was something we weren't even imagining was going to be needed.

04:17So that gives you some feeling of how the Angel started.

04:21It's very, I'd say, regrettable or shameful that the Angel is still touring the UK,

04:29inspiring these movements to resist violence and suppress violence.

04:34Ten years on, the circumstances don't feel that they've changed a great deal.

04:40There's such a lot of work to do.

04:42But without these community efforts, all of you coming together, I can only imagine the situation would get worse.

05:12The fake and drunk lies.

05:16Clouds across the sky.

05:24And new worlds dispersed in the shadows.

05:33Tied to time.

05:38Tied to time.

05:46Tied to time.

05:56Tied to time.

06:06You start to believe there's nothing to fear for one second.

06:13And just when you're on the verge of success, the sky starts to change.

06:19And the wind starts to blow.

06:24And oh, you're suddenly a stranger.

06:31In some completely different light.

06:37And of course you knew.

06:39But you didn't have a clue.

06:43Because you're just sometimes right.

The giant Knife Angel arrives in Sandwell

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