This piece by Andy Howlett was originally written in April 2021 and appeared in Back to the Future, "a forward looking journal about past-futures, modernism, architecture, and town-planning in Birmingham." Upon learning of the death of the pop-artist sculptor Nicholas Monro it seemed fitting to repost it here in tribute. Every word of it is true and like all great stories it started with a walk…
Anyone who’s seen the film King Rocker will know that for a brief time in the early ‘70s, a giant fibreglass gorilla lorded it over the grounds of the Bull Ring shopping centre in central Birmingham. The previous two decades had seen the city rebuilt from the rubble of World War Two in the image of what was then considered the future: soaring flyovers, concrete monoliths, traffic island beauty spots, heroic multi-storey car parks.
"What Birmingham does today, the world does tomorrow"
King Kong watched over this futurescape from the shadow of the Rotunda, encircled by the rumbling flow of the gyratory new road system.
Guardian Spirit
City (dis)oriented
Eighth Wonder of the World
The mighty Kong’s reign however was short-lived. After six months Birmingham City Council sold him off to a second-hand car dealer down the road at Camp Hill. The “City of the Future” swiftly degenerated into a concrete wilderness: the once radiant surfaces became sullied by petrol fumes, pedestrians came to resent their second-class status, and the much vaunted inner ring-road earned itself the nickname “The Concrete Collar”.
After his stint in second-hand car dealership, King Kong found his way to Scotland, was painted bright pink and displayed in a market, only to be later left abandoned and vandalised in a car park in Penrith.
Fast-forward half a century. It’s a sunny May afternoon in suburban Birmingham, the country is in the grips of a deadly pandemic, and I receive a text from my mum:
“You’ll never believe this but I think I met the sculptor of King Kong on a walk in the Dorset countryside this afternoon!!! Tony and I were out walking and we came across this remote cottage and we couldn’t tell if it was inhabited or derelict. Then we walked round and saw this elderly man working on a strange object in a half covered shed. He said his name was Nicholas and talked a while with Tony about his invention. Then we came across the local farm shop and they said he had been a sculptor. We looked him up when we got back and are pretty sure he is Nicholas Monro and that one of his creations was King Kong!! How amazing is that.”
I look up from my phone and regard the King Rocker poster on my wardrobe door. The great ape returns my gaze through a pair of fiery red orbs.
Fast-forward four months. We are walking along a dusty track through the lush Dorset countryside, the site of a lost medieval village. We don’t know if he’ll be home but I have a printed picture of the Kong statue and a sharpie pen, just in case. Anticipation grows as we descend the gentle valley and proceed through a corridor of foliage. Various farm buildings loom up either side of the path, the immense steel and wooden structures swallowed by ivy.
Then we reach the shed; a sturdy structure of stone and wood with a wavy red-tiled roof. One side is open to the world and the contents spill out onto the weed-ridden yard. The vibe is somewhere between a junkyard and a workshop: upturned wheelbarrows, assemblages of rusted machinery, tripod-mounted sculptures including a spindly figure of wire and bone. Other than a lolling tabby, there’s no one here.
“Hello?”
“Is anyone there?”
“Nicholas?”
We wait with bated breath, the cottage just visible beyond a sprawling garden. We consider knocking but then he emerges from a track beside the shed in a striking purple jumper and matching long sleeve shirt. We’ve interrupted his afternoon glass of wine but we’re a welcome interruption. He remembers Tony and my mum and is delighted to see that this time they’ve brought company: a ragtag audience. He’s even more delighted and not a little astonished to learn that we know who he is. He sees my King Rocker T-shirt and his eyes light up in recognition of his famous simian creation.
The makers of the film had looked into contacting Monro for an interview but couldn’t get an address and were told he lived off-grid, reachable only by payphone. He tells us about the Kong statue’s critical reappraisal in recent years, how it was rescued from the car park, restored to its original condition and displayed in the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, star attraction of the City Sculpture Projects 1972 exhibition. He says he wishes he’d known that we were interested because then he could’ve told us about the show.
I take the printout from my pocket and ask if he could sign it for me. This clearly isn’t a situation he’s familiar with – how should he address it? “Dear” sounds too personal.
“To Andy,
Nicholas Monro”
He takes us into the studio-shed and shows us some of his latest ink drawings: a series of comic-book style scenes based on puns of his own invention: “Here’s looking at Euclid”, “Vermeer to Eternity”. He’s considered approaching the art shop in the nearby market town but hasn’t mustered the courage yet.
He leads us away from the work-desk towards the grand centrepiece: a work-in-progress he refers to as “The Contraption”. A curious apparatus of scaffolding, breezeblocks and bicycle parts, assembled in a radial configuration with a motor at the centre. It’s immediately clear that this is his true passion project, as he excitedly offers to give us a demonstration.
The generator is located in a small outhouse adjacent to the workshop. He disappears behind the door, starts it up and re-emerges with a makeshift control pad. He turns a dial and The Contraption jumps into life, the bicycle wheels rotating around a central axle in a centrifugal motion, gradually picking up speed. We all take a step back.
He’s at pains to stress that this isn’t the finished thing but more like a prototype. He points to a pile of physics textbooks and explains how when he’s got it just right, the component parts will rotate in such a way and at such a velocity that the known laws of physics will break down and The Contraption will defy gravity. Yes, Nicholas Monro is building a flying machine. Once the basic principle has been demonstrated he’s confident that it will revolutionise the aviation industry, put an end to our fossil fuel dependence, and make flying cars a reality.
He says that while he’s done his best with the skills he has, what he really needs is an engineer and some decent kit. He’s contacted the physics departments of different universities to tell of his innovation but none have been willing to take him seriously. “They think I’m a charlatan,” he tells me, “I don’t mind really but given the choice I’d rather be thought of as a fool than a charlatan.”
By now The Contraption has picked up quite a bit of speed and the youngest member of our group asks excitedly, “is it going to fly?” to which Nicholas replies with a chuckle, “no it won’t now but it will someday… because I say it will.” Following the demonstration he bids us farewell and tells us we can come and visit any time we like. We promise we will and continue our walk in the scorching late summer sun.
It’s 2021 now; King Rocker has premiered on Sky Arts to great acclaim and Birmingham tentatively looks ahead to a post-pandemic reality. In a time of such uncertainty, when so much has been lost and so much may never return, it’s comforting to know that somewhere in deepest rural Dorset, a kindly elder is keeping the future alive.
Many thanks to Joseph Lilley at The Holodeck for permission to republish