The Aardvark Blog

Musings from the Between Time 1 Coda
12/07/2020

Just after I had finished the last blog I came across a wonderful article on the statue of Arthur Ashe in Richmond, Virginia which I need to share. For decades Ashe's has apparently been the only non-Civil War, non-Confederate statue on Richmond's main impressive avenue. Now all but the equestrian statue of Robert E Lee have been taken down and it looks as if that too will go leaving Arthur Ashe alone.

The 1975 Wimbledon Final was the one that I remember most clearly from my childhood. No-one gave the gentlemanly Ashe a chance against the mighty Connors who was the defending champion and seemed at the time unbeatable. Ashe blew Connors away in the first two sets - helped by the weak Connors serve which was the only thing that prevented him from total dominance of his era. In the third set Connors fought back and it looked as if the game had moved his way, but Ashe saw the match out in the fourth and that was his last great singles triumph. His life ended prematurely due to the scandal of infected blood plasma (he contracted HIV after a heart operation), and we will never know what this talented man would have done with the second half of his life.

I like the idea of such a unifying figure being the last statue left in Virginia. At a time when the BBC was still running 'The Black and White Minstrels' and ITV 'Love Thy Neighbour', it seems to me extraordinary that Britain should have taken him to the nation's heart, but life is complicated, and as a country we were probably a little less racist then than we now believe, and a little more racist now than we are prepared to admit. The past is another country, but if our memories of Arthur Ashe are still alive there, it can't be all bad.