Spring Along The Greenway 'Shirkers Shirking' - Cleckheaton, UK - Unusual Signs on Waymarking.com

The Spen Valley Greenway is a rails to trails cycle route designed to be used not only by cyclists, but also walkers, horse riders and wheel chair users.

It links the towns of Oakenshaw and Dewsbury and was opened in 2001. In order to promote its use a series of art works was commissioned. This included a long distance poem trail, with parts of the poem being illustrated with 'joke' traffic hazard warning signs.

Spring Along The Greenway Poem
Pauline Monkcom was interested in the way the written word impacts on the landscape, acting to inform, to interpret, to warn and sometimes to create ambiguity. 'Spring Along The Greenway' is a collaboration between the artist and poet Judith Stone. The poem was written as part of the Spen Valley Community Programme. Travelling up and down the Greenway, observing small changes of season and landscape, Judith has mapped a journey through time, through landmarks and through people.

It is a stream of consciousness, observing, naming and moving on. Their intention was to contribute to this sense of movement and urgency, presenting the poem as a series of captions on signs, which become titles for the changing landscape. At certain points along the way hazard warning signs draw attention to specific events or features. These may be permanent structures such as bridges or chance happenings dependant on weather and seasons - the song of a bird or the first blossom of spring.

The Spen Valley Greenway Artworks were funded by The Arts Council of England, Kirklees Metropolitan Council, Sustrans & The Henry Moore Foundation. The Project was co-ordinated by Public Arts Wakefield & Sustrans. link.

This particular warning sign is at a junction where a footpath leads to an access point on the route at a supermarket car park. It warns against 'shirkers shirking'.

Based on the design of UK traffic hazard warning signs it is in the form of a triangle with a white background, red border and a picture illustrating the hazard - a pair of hiking boots with their laces undone

The definition of a shirker is 'a person who evades work, duty, responsibility etc.'. In this context the Spen Valley Greenwy is for walkers as well as cyclists. The path is there to be walked, if someone has taken their boots off then obviously they are shirking their duty to walk along athe route.

Type of sign or poster: Other Name the misspelled word: Not listed

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