I enjoyed Paul Masterman’s LinkledIn post the other week. Strolling through Paris, he came across a statue.
Who was the great man being celebrated? A poet? Artist? Footballer?
No, it was a Clerk of Works Adolphe Alphand who had helped build what the 19th century French capital would look like. In other words, a council worker.
Paul’s post – you can read it here – came in the same week that a politician threatened public servants with the sack for working in a field he didn’t approve. A cheaper stunt I struggle to recall.
It got me thinking of how public service has been constantly cheapened. The drip-drip of ‘non-jobs’, ‘gold plated pensions’ and ‘lazy council workers.’ Teachers are the enemy. Then doctors and nurses were the enemy. Then council workers again.
The celebration of a civil engineer with a statue made me recall a visit to Plymouth City Council. The entrance hall to the council building was a celebration of the post-war vision of rebuilding the city better.
I loved it because my Dad was a town planner. He became one because he was captured by the vision of building a better place for people to live. He was a dedicated man who took early retirement but never once regretted his career path.
The regeneratiuon of Plymouth was celebrated in the 1946 film ‘The Way We Live’ which was part documentary and part communications piece. You can watch it on the BFI website here.
In the film, a visitor tours the city and sees how a family in cramped housing will benefit from the rebui;ld masterminded by planners. It’s optimism is overpowering.
The public sector is full of people who make a difference. Let’s build a statue to all of them.