Dream

Dream, «the head» as my fiancée calls it, may look like a phallic symbol from afar, but it’s so much more.
The sculpture is situated on the site of the Sutton Colliery in St Helens, which is an old mining town close to Liverpool. Twenty metres high, it is a sculpture of a dreaming girl, who, presumably, is looking to the future. Well, it’s just her head.
Dream is visible from miles away, even in Woolton. Get right close to it on the M62 mind, as around 35 million vehicles a year do, and you can’t even see it for trees!
At its peak Sutton Colliery employed around 1,500 men and produced over 600,000 tonnes of coal per year. It closed in 1991 thanks to Margaret Thatcher and her hatchet man Ian MacGregor. Allegedly because it was economically unviable, like the rest of the UK coal industry. Ironically, people are now looking at reopening disused mines — perhaps this has something to do with the UK’s looming energy crisis, but still.
I’ve visited the site twice and both times found myself awestruck. «The head» sits on such history, the hub of this honest town, that on the walk up to it you can’t help but imagine the hoards of men that supported their families and this local economy.