Lighthouse Vandalized After Paint Job
By Sue Clark on Mar 18, 2009 in News, Opinion 
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Targeted Ten Eleven Times In Past Year
Picture this. You’ve just received funding to paint the lighthouse that houses your museum. Your group is so excited, the paint is bought. Your volunteers are busy painting until 7:30 in the evening. The next morning at opening time, you show up, and lo and behold, vandals have hit you again, before the paint had even fully dried, and your lighthouse is covered with graffiti. Well, that’s what happened to Low Lighthouse, which is home to the Harwich (England) Maritime Museum. No pun intended here, but just how low can these vandals go?
From the story in the Gazette News, the curator of the museum, Jacky Walton, said, “The graffiti and vandalism has been going on for years. In the last year we finally got the money to repaint the outside of the lighthouse and after we had spent hours painting it all, someone ruined it. We had been working until 7.30 pm that evening and when I came in the next morning, faces, initials and fingerprints had been drawn all over it. It is very frustrating.”
A Potential Solution To Vandalism?
The buried lede in this story, however bad the damage to the lighthouse, is what the town and Ms. Walton would like to do with these children. I quote:
Mrs Walton is now hoping a place will be provided to allow graffiti artists in the town a place to display their work without resorting to vandalising property. She said, “I would be happy to put a plaster board up where people can go and graffiti to their hearts content, some of it is good.”
The Harwich Crime Prevention Panel is in discussions over getting a “graffiti shelter,” where youngsters can meet and paint.
The Wrong Approach
While I in no way condone harsh punishment for kids, but these young thugs need to take responsibility for their actions. Andby that I mean they need to be caught, brought to a court of law, where they will be ordered to provide restitution. And if they can’t, then their parents need to be made to pay. And they must be made to repaint the lighthouse.
There is no way that coddling them and “providing a place for their artistic endeavors” will do anyone any good. All it does is teach them that they can get away with anything they want. This is why those of us of a certain age despair with what is happening in the world. No one takes responsibility for their actions.
Please, Harwich, you’re doing these kids no favors by allowing them to express themselves at their will. Do the right thing, and make them repair the damage.
P.S.
If you’re wondering what a lede is: It’s pronounced lead — as in “I am in the lead,” but when newspapers were printed back in the day people confused it with lead (the metal) which was in the ink. So to clear the confusion between production matters (how much lead is in the ink) and editorial matters they changed the spelling.
Photo credit: Lighthouse Museum by drgillybean. Some rights reserved.
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