Tanks, Big Guns and a Mystery Girl

I came across an interesting story a couple of days ago, although the story itself is quite old. In Bermondsey, an area of London just across the Thames from the City of London and Docklands, on a patch of waste ground, there is a decommissioned T-34 Soviet era tank used in the suppression of the Czechs in 1968.

What on earth would something like that be doing in Bermondsey? Well, this is how the story goes....How much is true, how much urban myth and how much outright lies is now difficult to disentangle, it is now a part of local 'folklore', but whatever the mix, it still makes a good story!

A property developer, Russel Gray, some 13 years ago, bought a small plot of derelict land on the corner of Mandela Way in Bermondsey, South East London. The land is, like as not, one of those 'holes' Hitler made in trying to bomb the docklands, see. Being a property developer, Mr Gray made a planning application to the local Council (Southwark) to build some flats/apartments. Unfortunately for Mr Gray, his speculative land acquisition led to naught. The Council turned down his application! Somewhat hacked off by this, so the story goes, Mr Gray found a dealer in Kent who had in his possession said Russian T-34 which had been used as a prop in Sir Ian McKellan's version of Shakespeare's Richard the Third and was willing to sell for £7,000. Mr Gray decided to buy it as a present for his seven year old son!

Mr Gray made an offer and at the same time made another planning application to site a 'tank' on said plot of now useless land. Mr Gray maintains that the Council thought he meant a septic tank or other storage type tank and they duly granted permission. The tank, suitably decommissioned, was duly installed and sits surrounded by weeds with its gun pointing in the general direction of the Council offices.............allegedly:)

This is all so deliciously subversive that one can't help but think there is a considerable amount of the 'shaggy dog' story in it but nonetheless this tank remains!



While we're on the subject of photographs, I came across an old photograph of someone who, in her day, was the cause of the most frenzied, frenetic, prolonged and widespread mass 'spanking the monkey' the world had ever seen. From San Fransisco in the west to Moscow in the east, countless adolescent males dove under the sheets, New Musical Express clasped in one hand, Kleenex in the other and dreamed of heaven in her arms, amongst other things. So, for today's competition, who is this? Answers on a postcard to the usual address.



If you don't know the photograph then a little lateral thinking is required to correctly home in on the subject!

I'll reveal all (well not quite all) tomorrow.