Hijacking, with apologies, an elderly post for no better reason than the fact that it brings back a number of special memories all at the same time ...
As a young boy of 7/8/9 in the mid-50s, one of many highlights for a while was a regular Friday evening trip by bus with my Father to go to the then-called Tatler Cinema behind New Street Station to watch their revolving 1-hour programme of cartoons and B/W comedy classics like Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Keaton and those wonderful others.
Dad would arrive home from work around 6:00, we'd eat and then set off for the bus with a hug from Mum. It was a special treat and a special time. It felt kinda grown-up to be going out in the evening, in the actual dark sometimes, and not infrequently in to evening fog peppered with hazy streetlamps trying hard to glow through it.
We hopped off the bus in New Street where the sounds of the pigeons cooing and fluttering and flapping were unmissable as I stepped down to the pavement, and where the pairs of overhead street lights strung from cables across the street high on the buildings either side, and that were more like elegant lanterns to my eyes, created a ceiling that stretched right along New Street as we went along then turned to walk clear through the Station - a *proper* train station in those days! - and past the ranks of steps on either side that led down to the platforms ... and then on to the end where more steps led down to the street directly across from The Tatler.
Heading home afterward, having undoubtedly lingered to watch a cartoon or two one more time when the programme's loop began to go around again, we had a choice of bus stops depending on whether I wanted to ride the New St/Corporation St/Bull St/Colmore Row loop around Town before setting off, or just head straight home if maybe it was cold or rainy.
Either way we would be riding the bus out of Town along Broad Street, and another highlight - I have skipped many! - was to do with the fountain by the Hall Of Memory ... we would have to bet each other whether it would it would be in just its white light when we went past, or if it would be in its rotating colours stage ... and for some further excitement (!) we might also have to choose a first-seen colour for if it was in that part of its sequence ...
... the prize? Just whatever sweets were left over from watching the cartoons, though we inevitably shared those on the bus anyway til the paper bag was empty
So what has this got to do with the Boulton, Murdoch, Watt statue?
Well, we would also sometimes just walk to the start of Broad Street and catch our bus from there, because I enjoyed watching the fountain so could do that for longer while waiting.
And one time when we got there there had already been something happening that by the next week had become the completed installation of that statue. But it hadn't been formally unveiled yet, so the figures were covered by a huge tarpaulin lashed to/around the plinth, though it was pretty easy to make out that it was a statue of three people with something between them.
So because Dads know absolutely everything I asked what it was a statue of, and he said it was three women hanging their washing out.
Which I didn't question. Well you don't, do you?
And that is exactly what it has been ever since!