Postman’s Park
In the City of London, tucked away just to the north of St Paul’s cathedral, is a tiny park. It’s not a bad place to relax and eat a sandwich, if you’ve been visiting St Paul’s; City office workers often come here for their lunch.
But look beneath the lean-to shelter on one wall, and you’ll find there’s more to the park than meets the eye. Hand-lettered tiles commemorate ordinary people who lost their lives saving others. Mary Rogers, Stewardess of the Stella, who gave up her lifebelt and went down with the ship. A schoolboy who died trying to save two drowning friends. A seventeen-year-old girl who died trying to save a child from a runaway horse, and a little boy who saved his baby sister from a fire, but at the risk of his own life.
These humble memorials to ordinary heroes always make me feel proud and sad. London is so full of pompous statues to moneymen, military men and kings – but here are people who never expected to be heroes. And surely they never expected that a more than a hundred years after they died, people would be reading their names and remembering them.
As for the postmen who give the park its name – the huge building that overshadows the park used to be the General Post Office, before it became converted to the headquarters of a big investment bank.
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POSTED IN: Great Places to Unwind, Just a Little Bit Weird - Fun & Quirky Places, Parks
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