The creation of the ‘Forgotten Army’ statue by Ray Lonsdale

Sunderland Echo

Designed and created by the famous artist Ray Lonsdale, the man behind the ‘Tommy’ statue located in Seaham. The Forgotten Army statue remembers all Far East Prisoners of War that suffered brutal torture and who largely went uncelebrated in Britain. Courtesy of Daft as a Brush.

Transcript

00:00My name is Ray Lonsdale and I'm the sculptor behind the Lens Gibson

00:29statue. The importance of this particular statue is for the Forgotten Army, it's for the people who

00:38were captured, who were tortured basically, worked to death in a lot of cases and it's just

00:45the beauty about my job is you get the chance to commemorate things that people aren't necessarily

00:52done, so in the people's psyche all the time you know so the stories that should be told and often

00:57aren't and I know that people are aware of this but it's nice to have it sort of commemorated with

01:03you see all the first world war statues you see all the different aspects that are commemorated

01:08on a regular basis so it's nice to bring this story to the fore.

01:27I've got the head complete for the child it's been a challenge with the oriental features

01:45the hair's been a challenge, hair always is when you try to make it in steel but it's come together

01:51quite nicely I'm quite happy with it so it's a case of there now it's coming down from that head

01:57down the body I want to try and make the the body and clothing a sort of relatively neat

02:03job to contrast with the the ragged appearance of the adult figure.

02:08I think the detail on it is absolutely fabulous the tournails the guitar itself and it just it's the

02:16whole essence of play. I think it's fantastic and the fact that it does represent the condition of the

02:24men that came back. I served with the North Holland Fusiliers and 9th battalion was actually taken in

02:32Singapore and they all ended up in the camps and the Burma Railway and things like that you should never forget.

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