Your Stories

Safety netting around the plinth

A Gloucester teenager has taken part in a piece of living history in London.

Meredith Byrne was picked by random from 23,000 applicants to join a group of 2,400 taking part in Anthony Gormley's One & Other project.

Each participant has the opportunity, over 100 days, to spend an hour standing on the empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, wearing and doing whatever they like.

"I thought it was going to be quite nerve-wracking to start with" says Meredith.

"I was a bit worried about the height of the plinth, but once you're up there it wasn't that bad and didn't seem that high."

"You could see the whole of the square from there and there were so many people, crowds, everywhere.

"Lots of people were waving to me and crowds were pointing and taking pictures of me - there were lots of cameras."

Part of the view from the plinth

Experience

Meredith, who's studying photography, wanted to use her 60 minutes on the plinth towards her studies.

"Once I was up there it didn't seem like an hour. I didn't realise how quickly the time was going because I was so wrapped up with taking pictures - I took over 300 just standing on the spot.

"Although my project was to take photographs from the plinth", says Meredith, "I still found the experience hard as the netting, microphones and cameras were in the way of some potentially great shots.

"I loved showing my camera skills off to the public and hope to inspire a few people out there with my photographs."