Knife Angel

[ColytonJohn]

The Knife Angel is a 27 foot high statue constructed from 100,000 of the quarter of a million knives either handed in during an amnesty or seized by the police (some of those from the police were in evidence tubes "still with bodily fluids on their surface"!).

Quoting the Knife Angel website: "The sculpture was created in order to highlight knife crime in the United Kingdom and educate young people on the harmful effect violent behaviour can have on their communities".

The statue is currently touring the country and I travelled to Taunton to see it. More pics on Flickr < here >

5D3_1434-Edit_LuminarNeo-edit by John Leah, on Flickr

[El Sid]

Well photographed and a worthy cause. Let's hope it has the desired effect.

[Trev B]

Great shot John together with the others on Flickr. Something well worth highlighting when we hear so much about knife crime in this day and age.

[colin C]

A amazing sculpture, well photographed.

Is it the knives or the attitudes? As a youngster we always had a penknife, wherever we went and if we went down to the woods, we would also take a sheath knife, a saw and an axe. Never anything untoward happened. Probably the worse that happened was a splinter ............. ,deadly things those splinters!

[Bill53]

Good shot John, agree with Colin - we always had a knife as youngsters but never any malice.

[ColytonJohn]

Thanks folks.

When I was ten I was in the cubs (but left when we moved town and there wasn't a pack nearby for me to join so never progressed to the scouts) but even at such a tender age we all carried sheath knives as part of our uniform and usually a nice penknife, too. The thought of sticking it in someone who annoyed us would, never, ever cross our minds so, as Colin suggests, it is the attitude rather than the knife and, sadly, bad attitudes are learned.

Cheers,
John

[Glezga]

Excellent images and project.
This is a bit dark. Ive debated with myself wither or not to share my knife experience – but were all friends here…

80’s Glasgow. We all caried knifes. I wasn’t trying to be a hard man and realised the seriousness but it really was for protection. It was a very violent time in my life. “getting chibbed” slashed in the face was common. “Glasgow grin” cut in both sides of the mouth – one guys nickname was Joker as he would then beat his victim to make him yelp – adding a Joker type smile to the injury. Some people used a stanley knife. 2 blades in same slot separated by a match stick – so the injury wouldn’t heal properly.

I only stopped carrying a knife when I was 17. My brother came home form working away and tried on my jacket. He made such a fuss that I stopped, then I carried a Kettle lead wrapped in tape – I kid you not!

In the street and even in school I witnessed knife crime. Thankfully I never had to use my knife but did have to brandish it or I would have been seriously injured.

I was also a cub etc then Army cadet. The cadets - in response to police knife crime projects, taught us self-defence and how to properly use a knife! They even showed us how to use a pen, keys and to seek out objects in our surroundings as a weapon.

I left Glasgow for Ireland when I was 21. I can honestly say I would be dead or in jail if I didn’t. 5 of my 7 main friends growing up are dead and 1 is missing assumed dead. They are all drug related including overdose, suicide and murder – they all carried knifes and some used them.

Here, in Ireland knife crime is not tolerated by anyone. Even the paramilitaries in my area banished people for knife crimes.

To this day I have a knife collection – some I shouldn’t own and carry a small legal Gerber lock knife on my keyring. This IS for cutting seatbelts as ive been there.

Sorry, this is pretty dark but seeing the knife angel reminded me and of the need for such projects.

[Trev B]

I can relate to that. I was taught how to use a knife. Thank God I never had too together with a bayonet.