It is with great sadness that we report that our beautiful Lemnos Gallipoli Memorial at Lemnos Square in Albert Park has again been vandalized with paint.
The vandalism occurred last week. It was brought to the attention of the President by local resident, urban historian and former Mayor & Councillor Janet Bolitho with the City of Port Philip. She supplied us with the above photograph revealing the damage.
It appears that the damage is similar - though more extensive - to the previous graffiti vandalism which the Memorial was subject to in 2020. At that time local residents intervened to minimize the damage and alerted the Committee.
The Secretary has alerted the authorities at the City of Port Philip who will be taking remedial action as soon as possible. The Secretary advised the Council that the sculptor - Peter Corlett OAM - is willing to assist in the remedial action as he has offered in the past. Sadly Peter stated that such vandalism is not uncommon with statues and memorials.
We have also suggested that the Council might consider enhancing security at Lemnos Square to deter any further attacks on the Memorial (such as the deployment of cameras).
The vandalism is particular disgusting given that the vandal has chosen to interfere with one of the few statues honouring women in Melbourne and this has taken place close to the celebration of Greek Independence Day (25 March).
We look forward to the restoration of our beautiful Memorial in coming days or weeks back to the condition we all love (photo below by Jim Claven, 2018).
On behalf of the Committee we thank Janet for alerting us to this damage.
Jim Claven, Secretary & Lee Tarlamis, OAM MP, President
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