Following Barbara Castle’s bronze statue recently being erected in Blackburn town centre, speculation has been rife over whether something similar may be put up in memory of her successor.
Barbara Castle served as Labour MP for Blackburn from 1945 until 1979. During her high profile career as a minister, she was involved in various important campaigns. These included the Equal Pay Act, bringing in the breathalyser, seatbelts in in all new cars and rejuvenating Britain’s canals through greater leisure usage.
Jack Straw actually served longer as Blackburn’s MP than Barbara Castle. He also held higher ministerial office than his predecessor, having been both Home and Foreign Secretary under Tony Blair. But in comparison to ‘Battling Barbara’, it is often remarked how Jack Straw left his role as Blackburn MP without the same amount of affection as his predecessor.
Barbara Castle’s statue seems to have gone down well with a lot of people in Blackburn. Along with WH Hornby representing Conservatives in the town and WE Gladstone for the Liberals, it could be said all three major parties are now equally represented by statues. No doubt other political figures also have their admirers who would like to see statues put up in their honour. But so far there have been no calls for a statue to be erected in honour of Jack Straw.
One of the problems here may be difficulties trying to find anybody prepared to put their hand in their pocket to raise the cost of a statue to Jack Straw. Many of his former constituents probably feel he was well paid and could easily afford to pay for a memorial from his own finances.
Fortunately, a local farmer believes he might just have an answer to this problem. He claims to have produced a scarecrow, appropriately called the Man of Straw, which bears an uncanny resemblance to Blackburn’s former MP. He is prepared to let it go on show in Blackburn town centre once the harvest season is over and it’s done its job, scaring greedy birds away.
A suggestion has been made over where to place this farmer’s Man of Straw scarecrow. Its temporary home would be on Church Street, outside Blackburn Market’s revolving door. Here, members of the public and shoppers can be shown how easy it is to gain access to our market, giving them the benefit of spending a bit of cash – no questions asked!