Sticky Tape Figures From History -- Town Trail

Children's
Special

Below are some of the celebrities from Letchworth and around who filled the town centre on Saturday November 20 -- all made from sticky tape in this display by a range of local community groups and schools, in association with the Arts Centre.

Sticky tape sculpture may sound weird, but  the outcome can amaze.  In this project the Arts Centre linked with the Heritage Lottery Fund to work with local schools, community groups and individuals to create the life-size sticky tape figures of people with local connections and national significance.

 
sticky_george_orwell_better.jpgsticky_nigel_hawthorne_2.jpgsticky_annie_kenney.jpgsticky_james_mayhew.jpgsticky_arcade_welcome.jpgFigures included James Mayhew, the children's author and illustrator; horror writer Shaun Hutson; Garden City designers and architects Barry Parker and Raymond sticky_shaun_hutson.jpgUnwin; author George Orwell; Annie Kenney, sufragette; diarist Samuel Pepys;  Hugh de Payens;  the first grand master of the Knights Templar; King James I; Nigel Hawthorne, the actor and patron of Garden House Hospice, Letchworth; and James Lovelock, the scientist and originator of the Gaia theory.
 
The artists included groups from the Arts Centre, Garden House Hospice, the Highfield School, Letchworth, Hartsfield Primary School, Baldock, the Knights Templar School, Baldock. Fearnhill School, Letchworth, Churches Together in Royston and District, plus a number of unaffiliated groups and individuals.
 
The figures will be  exhibited in April at the Arts Centre.   
 
Top row from left to right, are suffragette Annie Kenney in Leys Square, actor Sir Nigel Hawthorne (appropriately in the foyer of the Broadway Cinema), writer George Orwell, in Letchworth Library. Below them are, welcoming people to the Arcade, a figure more usually seen at the entrance to the Arts Centre cafe,  children's author and ilustrator James Mayhew in Leys Avenue, and finally horror writer Shaun Hutson in David's Bookshop  (and that's his head at the very top of this item -- though he doesn't really look like that; it's more like the head of one of his fictional creations).