LADY GODIVA CLOCK

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27072, 22 June 1953, Page 13

LADY GODIVA CLOCK

Coventry To Ignore Protests

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, June 18. In spite of protests about the “vulgarity’ 1 of the figure of Lady Godiva and the “lewdness” of the figure of Peeping Tom in Coventry’s new Godiva clock, the City Council has decided to keep the clock. The figures, carved in wood, will appear hourly on the balcony beneath it. The clock is built into the Broadgate Bridge, overlooking the new cit’ centre and Sir~ William Reid Dick’s statue of Godiva.

The figures show Godiva riding naked on horseback and Peeping Tom loking from a window and then covering his eyes. The figures have not worked since May 2, when their one appearance before the shopping crowds that day started a flood of protests. The city planning and redevelopment committee, in spite of hundreds of protests led by the Lord Mayor himself said, however, that it felt the weight of criticism should not influence them.

“We welcome criticism, particularly from the younger generation, who will have to live m the new city'” said the' chairman, Aiderman Hodgkinson. “But we are aware that almost everything that is new, and perhaps revolutionary, has a devastating effect on the minds of some.”