April 28, 2008

Once upon a time, in a land of black and white, Liverpool - or more specifically, its bastard cousin across the river, Birkenhead - was, along with Glasgow and Newcastle (hence the often bizarre camaraderie between the cities - well, that and the fact that Thatcher's Tories tore the throats out of all three, too) were the home of all things shipbuilding.

That's gone now, of course, apart from a few straggling, yet remarkable survivors.

After all, who needs a manufacturing society, eh? Especially when, just for instance, you now live in a largely service industry society which is the very first thing to be hit - and hard - during a credit crunch, for example?

But I digress.

In Wirral, our now largely deserted docklands are the site of what Peel Holdings - the people who built the Trafford Centre, among many, many other things - plans to be a £4 billion, 30-year project of redevelopment.

This will mean shiny skyscrapers, fancy dockside flats, hotels and conference centres and all that.

Well, we'll see.

Yesterday, though, saw the end of an era locally. Two 360 tonne cranes - incredible, iconic, beautiful-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder landmarks that have graced our skyline for 44 years - had their legs blown off to bring them quite literally down to earth, and to eventually pave the way for the realisation of the blueprint described above.

I admit: I'm impressed by demolition men. The precision of use of such vast and dangerous power, so meticulous and mathematical, is beyond me.

Still, it seems like a sad day for me. And I'm sure it was for many grandfathers of this locale, too.

Anyhoo: Here's what happened in sequence:

crane1

crane2

crane3

crane4

crane5

Imagine the noise?

You probably need to have seen them in the raw to understand how huge these incredible pieces of engineering actually were.

To me, though, it's like watching the king of the jungle being sent to bed by his precocious nephew; majestic, stoic giraffes felled by bounty hunters; friendly, ancient dinosaurs asked to just move along now; a crude sweeping brush of history; a quick airbrush out of something I've always known.

'Tis true: I will miss them.