March 6th was World Book Day and to prove the point the anti-hero of Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Treasure Island’ returned to Bristol to persuade the City’s children to increase their reading abilities. Long John Silver, the loveable villain of the book, was the fictional landlord of the ‘Spyglass Inn’, where landlubbers mixed with sea-farers and all  attempted to avoid the attentions of the ‘Press Gang’. The Inn, reputedly based on Bristol’s ‘Hole in the Wall’ pub, was equipped with a spyglass window where revellers could keep a lookout, and escape through one of two doors into the maze of harbourside streets. The ‘Hole in the Wall’s name derives from the fact that it still possesses such a window.

    The Long John Silver Statue Trust has been set up to promote Bristol’s literary and cultural heritage by creating a ‘Treasure Island Trail’ of sculptures or plaques to commemorate various scenes from the book. The trail would culminate in a sculpture of Long John himself, preferably stationed outside the ‘Hole in the Wall’.

    To publicise the project the Trust commissioned a painting by Frank Shipsides, Bristol’s own maritime painter, showing how Long John would look on his plinth, and are selling prints to raise funds. As an interim measure a one-and-a-half times life-size wicker sculpture was commissioned from Devon sculptor Stephen Froome, and Long John’s   inaugural appearance was at Waterstones Bookshop in Broadmead’s Galleries.  He was unveiled by Bristol’s Lord Mayor Councillor Royston Griffey and to accompany him, members of the Trust played out a shortened version of ‘Treasure Island’ to parties of schoolchildren.

Long John has further excursions planned and will be publicizing the Bath Theatre Royal’s production of ‘Pirates of Penzance’. He also hopes to front  Bristol Hippodrome’s summer production of  ‘Treasure Island’ in July  and to make other appearances throughout the year.
Watch out – there’ a pirate about!