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Getting ahead: De Gaulle - A London statue man

Posted by Michael Skorulski (Cigel, Slovakia) on 7 March 2008 in People & Portraits and Portfolio.

At Chicheley Street, our tour on the amphibious London Duck terminates. Our guide, Tony Merrick drops the metal steps and passengers disembark. He stands at the bottom of the stairs with his hat extended encouraging passenger's to donate to his and Sam's "tea fund."

I drop a pound into his cap, thank him and stride quickly across Jubilee Gardens towards the Thames embankment. I'm off to see the wizard. I never imagined one day I'd utter those words and expect to be taken seriously. I don't quite burst into my frog-like version of Judy Garland's famous tune from the Wizard of Oz and begin to skip down the yellow brick road—but almost.

Nearly there, I notice the Wizard's spot is empty. Another statue man on a park bench is busily putting the finishing touches on his latex mask.

"Who are you supposed to be?" I ask.

He holds up his mask and smiles: "I'm De Gaulle. You know, the Frenchman." General Charles De Gaulle, the leader of the Free French government-in-exile during World War II, was the president of France between 1958 and 1969. His human statue, with vivid blue eyes, will soon take his place on a wooden box along the Thames embankment for the pounds proffered by tourists.

"Oh, by the way, have you seen the wizard?" I enquire in a serious tone. "He was here earlier this morning standing on a box just over there."

"He's disappeared," the statue man chirps, a big grin on his face.

"Disappeared?" I ask suspiciously, perturbed that he is pulling my leg.

"Yeh, wizards do that kind of thing," a deep belly-laugh rumbles out of De Gaulle's being. I chuckle too. His mirth is contagious. "He's gone to lunch. Wizards have to eat too."
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