Campaign
A STATUE FOR ELSIE AND MAIRI
I think that Elsie and Mairi deserve a statue to commemorate their heroic work and selflessness. They were from a golden age when people, famous or otherwise, did what they did for altruistic and noble reasons. With the exception of aid workers I do not know of anyone now who does what they did. Elsie and Mairi would be shocked at what motivates many celebrities today, and how their shallow lives are splattered over the pages of magazines and on the television.
Elsie and Mairi were not paid for the work they did in Belgium. They spent their savings and sold their beloved motorbikes to keep their first aid post open to patch up Belgian soldiers. They lived close to death and in extreme danger for nearly 4 years and would have still been at the post until the end of the war if they had not been almost killed by arsenic gas in the spring of 1918.
If you would like to add your name to the campaign to commission a bronze statue of them, ideally by a woman sculptor, situated in Whitehall or on the Embankment, please sign up and try and get them in the right place in time for the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War in 2014. Contact me and let us see if we can stop Elsie and Mairi on their motorbike and sidecar and cast them in bronze.
Diane Atkinson
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