Work nearing completion on Wick war memorial

Victory is the centrepiece bronze figure within Wick’s war memorial which is undergoing restoration by local contractor John Hood & Son. The work is part of a nationwide programme to restore and clean remembrance monuments to commemorate the centennial year of the war’s end in November 1918.

Alf Leslie, the project co-ordinator for war memorials at Highland Council, said the council funded Hood to carry out restoration work at over 40 sites throughout Caithness and Sutherland.

“The council’s aim is to carry out restoration work to as many of the WW1 war memorials identified in the area before November 2018,” he said.

“This will be prioritised depending on available funds and the level of interest and support from their respective communities.”

He went on to say that costs can vary considerably from minor works to very large restorations, as in the case of the Helmsdale memorial which is being led by a local focus group.

The Wick memorial was erected in 1923 in remembrance of the casualties of WWI which ended five years before. Wick’s own war hero General Lord Horne of Stirkoke was invited to unveil the memorial dedicated to the “fallen sons of the Royal Burgh” on October 31, 1923.

The Groat at the time reported that the ceremony was “touching and impressive” with “thousands turning up from all over the county”.

The memorial consists of the statue of Victory and bronze plaques dedicated to the fallen of the two global conflicts – the World War Two casualties obviously added post-1945.

The robed male figure in bronze was a creation of Edinburgh-based sculptor Percy Portsmouth (1873-1953) and represents both Peace and Victory, with a sword in his right hand and left palm holding an olive branch. Portsmouth also created the Thurso war memorial which contains a similar figure and an additional one depicting a small boy.

John Hood & Son has completed the cleansing and restoration of the Thurso memorial and hopes to be finished with the Wick one next week. Willie Wydmuch, joint director of the company, said that the stone steps were being power-hosed and the statue itself would be cleaned with strong acid and specialist bronzing material.

“We need dry weather to do the job properly. If it rains we just have to start all over again,” Mr Wydmuch said. The statue is then coated with lacquer before being varnished to protect it.

“We have to repoint all the steps. A lorry knocked over stones from one of the pillars a while back and we’ll be fixing the steps that were broken,” Mr Wydmuch added.

“All the work throughout the UK has to be complete before Remembrance Day in November. We’ve done ones that are seen every day and ones that are hardly ever seen, like the memorial cairn up the hill on Stroma. Now that’s really out of the way.”

The 8’9” figure of Victory in Wick’s memorial was described in the Groat after the unveiling as being “strong and impressive” while lacking “the arrogance of militarism in the German sense”.

“Broken implements of war beneath the feet serve to express the fact that war is alien to higher instincts of humanity.”