Where Nobodies are Somebody: Postman’s Park
A quaint
park is hidden on Saint Martin Le-Grand not far from the Museum of London. It
is not easy to find. I knew what I was looking for, and still had a difficult
time spotting the small gate leading into the park, which is sandwiched between
the tall buildings. Because the civil servants ate their lunch at this location
over a century ago, it is named for them. Postman’s Park is also home to the
Watts Gallery. Fifty-four tiles tell sad but heroic stories of common people
who lost their lives in the act of trying to save someone else. Men, women and
children who ran into fires, fell victim to drowning, or were hit by trains,
while saving or trying to save others are listed on these tiles.
George
Frederic Watts was the painter/sculptor/philanthropist who dreamed of this
Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, and after years of lobbying it finally
became a reality in 1900, when he was too sick to attend the opening.
120 spaces
were laid out against a wall at the park for the placement of memorial tiles
commemorating the sacrificial acts of common people attempting to save the
lives of others. By 1931, fifty-three of these spaces had been filled. Then the
wall stood silent and unchanged for seventy-eight years. The fifty-fourth name
was added in 2009. The latest memorial tile reads, “Leigh Pitt, Reprographic Operator,
Aged 30, saved a drowning boy from the canal at Thamesmead, but sadly was
unable to save himself. June • 7 • 2007.”
In the movie
“Closer,” Natalie Portman played a woman who took one of the names on the tiles
at Postman’s Park, and created a false identity for herself around the name of
Alice Ayres.
The real Alice
Ayres was a hard working young housemaid, who lived and worked for the
Chandler’s – her older sister’s family. They lived together above the oil and
paint store owned by the Chandlers. On the night of April 24, 1885 a fire broke
out in the shop, and trapped the family upstairs. Alice appeared at the window
while a crowd below formed, and they shouted for her to jump, but instead she
disappeared into the flames, and came back with a mattress, which she tossed
onto the ground. Then she dropped five-year-old Edith onto the mattress. Twice
more the crowd shouted for her to jump, as she disappeared and returned with
two other children. After finally saving three of the four children, and being
unable to reach the rest of the family, she attempted to jump, but was overcome
by smoke and fell, hit the store sign, crashed to the sidewalk, and died two
days later. Alice Ayres was twenty-five. Her death would gain national
attention in the UK, at a time of growing concern over conditions of the common
worker during the Industrial Revolution.
Her story
would help create the momentum for George Frederic Watts’ passion to develop the
Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice. In 1887, Watts wrote about Alice Ayres in a
plea to create the memorial space:
“The
roll would be a long one, but I would cite as an example the name of Alice
Ayres, the maid of all work at an oilmonger's in Gravel-lane, in April, 1885,
who lost her life in saving those of her master's children.
The
facts, in case your readers have forgotten them, were shortly these:—Roused by
the cries of "Fire" and the heat of the fiercely advancing flames the
girl is seen at the window of an upper story, and the crowd, holding up some
clothes to break her fall, entreat her to jump at once for her life. Instead
she goes back, and reappears dragging a feather bed after her, which, with
great difficulty, she pushes through the window. The bed caught and stretched,
the girl is again at the window, a child of three in her arms, which with great
care and skill she throws safely upon the mattress. Twice again with still
older children she repeats the heroic feat. When her turn comes to jump,
suffocated or too exhausted by her efforts, she cannot save herself. She jumps,
but too feebly, falls upon the pavement, and is carried insensibly to St.
Thomas's Hospital, where she dies.”[1]
Seventy-six
spots remain open on the memorial wall. It is not difficult to find the names
to fill those spaces. There are some people who are pretenders, trying to take
on the name of a self-sacrificing hero, but others are made of the simple stuff
from which real heroes are crafted. Famous people, rich people, unknown people,
and poor people from every tribe, religion and non-religion under the sky have
self-sacrificing heroes among their numbers, and there are not enough memorials
in the world to memorialize these micro-saints around us.
No
soldier nor sailor by land or sea
In the
bed of honour laid.
Was ever
more great of heart than she.
That simple serving
maid.[2]
I would be a
shame to wait for heaven in order for us to see the canonization of the common
man and woman to occur.
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