10 things we learned from watching Statue Wars

Over the course of one hour on BBC Two on Thursday night, Statue Wars painted a picture of a Bristol that is still deeply divided following the events of summer 2020.

The documentary team had unrivalled access to the mayor’s office – and the mayor’s own plant-filled home – in the aftermath of the toppling of Colston’s statue.

So what did we learn?

1. Marvin Rees has two particularly close colleagues

Kevin Slocombe and Saskia Konynenburg were two people you might not have heard of before this documentary. But their closeness to Marvin Rees was striking. As head of the mayor’s office, Slocombe earns more than Rees. He was previously Jeremy Corbyn’s head of media before arriving full-time at City Hall in 2016. Konynenberg – who is currently on maternity leave –  is head of external communications & consultation at Bristol City Council. A former journalist in Ghana and New Zealand, she has previously worked in PR for organisations including the National Trust and NHS.

2. Rees did call the toppling of Colston “the right thing”

“Colston may have owned one of my ancestors, so for the statue to have gone, in the grand arc of history this was the right thing,” Rees tells Mark Landler from the New York Times. ‘In an English City, an Early Benefactor Is Now ‘a Toxic Brand’ was the headline of Landler’s story from the time he spent in Bristol.

3. Slocombe says that Radio Bristol is the most important media outlet in the city

Following Rees’ interview with Landler, Slocombe says Al-Jazeera is important, the New York Times has global profile, “but to me the most important is Radio Bristol”. But was there an eye-roll from Rees after questions from the BBC’s John Darvall? “I actually found that quite demoralising,” says the mayor after being interviewed by the presenter who was once engaged to former Bristol North West MP Charlotte Leslie. Rees (a former journalist on Radio Bristol) calls Darvall’s style of questioning “smash and grab, simplistic, superficial”.

4. A former head girl of Colston’s Girls’ School says she was never taught about Colston’s slave trading

Jane Ghosh said that she was sad when the statue was toppled. As head girl at Colston’s Girls’ School in the 1960s, she laid flowers at the statue and at his grave. “I have every sympathy for everybody who has been trying to get that statue moved for years,” she said. “But I did find it a bit over the top and I was a bit sad to see him topple into the harbour… I cannot remember being told our founder made his money in slaves. He was seen as a philanthropist.”

5. Former Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson calls Rees ‘mate’

Rees has weekly calls with mayors of England’s ‘core cities’. In one call, former mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, calls him ‘mate’. Anderson will appear in court in July, having been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit bribery and witness intimidation in December 2020. He denies any wrongdoing.

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Read more: Rogue plaque installed to mark first anniversary of Colston toppling

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6. A tour of Hartcliffe

In what must be a first for a BBC documentary, we get a tour of Hartcliffe. Scaffolder Nigel Horlock takes the camera crew to Gatcombe Road. “Quite a few people have died on this road. A friend of mine was murdered by a couple of my other friends just literally up from that corner leaving the pub, they shot him dead.”

7. Slocombe’s view of Bristol’s ‘bohemian’ label

“When people describe Bristol, they always describe it with this bohemian, individual, independent mood,” says Slocombe. “I don’t see Bristol like that… The city centre has become increasingly gentrified. And so the people that come to live in the city centre and experience Hotwells and Clifton and Redland and Southville; that’s a very different Bristol to the one I grew up in. When I go home to Lockleaze and visit my sisters in, that hasn’t changed, it doesn’t look any different, if anything it might even be poorer. Marvin’s background is very similar. These are two different cities.”

8. Rees was particularly affected by the vandalism to the grave of Scipio Africanus in Henbury

“I didn’t realise he was just 18,” says Rees as he visits St Mary’s Church. “I’ve got children under the age of 18 and the thought of someone taking them away and turning them into a servant accessory is just horrifying actually.”

9. Kirsten Rees says she wishes her husband was not mayor

Asked if she ever thought, “I wish he didn’t do this?” she replied: “No. Well, probably, if I’m honest, yes. I like being away by the sea, I grew up by the sea, so I want to escape, run away, but also you’ve got to do something in life, not just swim every day in the sea.”

10. What Bristol football team does Rees support?

“Both of them,” he says with a smile as he visits the home of K-Dogg, the NHS worker seriously injured in a racist attack in Southmead.

Main photo: Uplands Television

Read more: Rees considered destruction of Jen Reid statue