The 'Lady in the Park' is a life-sized sculpture created in steel, designed by Andy Edwards and made by PM Training and Realise.
The sculpture depicts a woman sitting on a bench reading a letter informing her that a family member has been killed in action.
"The inspiration for the woman was Vera Brittain (1893–1970), who was born in Newcastle-under-Lyme and worked as a Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse for much of the First World War. Brittain’s best-selling memoir Testament of Youth (1933), described her experiences during and after the First World War, which saw the loss of her brother, fiancé and some of her closest friends.
The Lady in the Park was installed and unveiled in November 2014 to commemorate the centenary of the start of the First World War. Commissioned by Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council and made by PM Training and the Realise charity, the sculpture was fabricated from 200 sheets of steel formed into lifelike features and drapery, then treated to resemble bronze. The statue was designed by local sculptor Andy Edwards." SOURCE: (
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The quote from Vera Brittain’s book Testament of Youth is engraved on paving stones adjacent to the sculpture. It reads as follows;
‘I sat in a tree-shadowed walk
called The Brampton
and meditated on the War.
It was one of those
shimmering autumn days
when every leaf and flower
seemed to scintillate with
light, and I found it "very
hard to believe that not far
away men were being slain ruthlessly...
It is impossible, I concluded,
to find any satisfaction in
the thought of...
the destruction of men...
whether they be English,
French, German or
anything else, seems a
crime to the whole march
of civilisation."
Vera Brittain
1914
from Testament of Youth 1933'
Vera Brittain was an English writer, feminist and pacifist, who wrote the best selling “Testament of Youth” which is an account of her traumatic experiences during the First World War. (
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"Testament of Youth is the first instalment, covering 1900–1925, in the memoir of Vera Brittain (1893–1970). It was published 28th August 1933. Brittain's memoir continues with Testament of Experience, published in 1957, and encompassing the years 1925–1950. Between these two books comes Testament of Friendship (published in 1940), which is essentially a memoir of Brittain's close colleague and friend Winifred Holtby. A final segment of memoir, to be called Testament of Faith or Testament of Time, was planned by Brittain but remained unfinished at her death.
Testament of Youth has been acclaimed as a classic for its description of the impact of World War I on the lives of women and the middle-class civilian population of Great Britain. The book shows how the impact extended into the postwar years. It is also considered a classic in feminist literature for its depiction of a woman's pioneer struggle to forge an independent career in a society only grudgingly tolerant of educated women.
In the foreword, Brittain describes how she originally intended to write of her experiences as a novel but was unable to achieve the necessary objective distance from her subject. She then tried to publish her original diary from the war years but with all names fictionalised. This too proved unworkable. Only then did she decide to write her own personal story, putting her experiences in the wider historic and social context. Several critics have noted the cathartic process by which she deals with her grief at the loss of young men close to her – her brother Edward Brittain, her fiancé Roland Leighton, and her friends Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow – in the writing.
The narrative begins with Vera's plans to enter Somerville College, Oxford and her romance with Roland Leighton, a friend of her brother Edward. Both were commissioned as officers early in World War I, and both were subsequently killed, as were several other members of their social circle.
The book's main subject is Vera's work as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse, nursing wounded soldiers in London, Malta and at Etaples in France. It also describes how she returned, disillusioned, to Somerville College after the war and completed her BA degree. It covers the beginning of her career in journalism, writing for Time and Tide and lecturing for the League of Nations. She visits the graves of her brother Edward in Italy and her fiancé Roland in France. Together with Winifred Holtby she toured the defeated and occupied regions of Germany and Austria in 1923.
It concludes with her meeting her husband George Catlin and their eventual marriage in 1925." SOURCE: (
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