When my old primary school was demolished in 2014, I'd known it was due to happen quite a few years before it actually did. Not the precise date or year, but its fate had been determined and announced well in advance, in line with a policy of building new schools, then demolishing the old ones. The building was structur-ally sound, as were most (if not all) of the other schools, but this way, land could be freed up for new housing. It seems to me that the land used for building the new schools could've been utilised for housing, but what do I know? I'm not a politician in pursuit of an agenda (or career).
I can't help but think that the neighbourhood is poorer for the original school's absence. It added character and colour to the area, and was designed and built at the same time as the surrounding housing, back around 1963. Now (from some angles) the place looks crowded and claustrophobic, and lacks the aesthetic charm it possessed when first completed. I moved into the area in 1965, and I can still recall the early impressions it made on me as regards mood and atmosphere. That's now gone and hasn't existed for many a year, and I sometimes wonder how new residents perceive the place as far as 'character' goes. My old neighbours from next door have lived there since their house was first built - maybe I should ask them for their perceptions on how the area has changed?
The school had a low wall around three sides of it, with railings on top, and I remember sometimes on my way home, if I had a toy car in my pocket, I'd run it along the flat top of the wall with my hand, or, holding on to the railings, walk along the wall as if I were balancing on a tightrope. When the school was obliterated, I managed to rescue one of the bricks from the wall, near to where the main front gate was situated, and it now resides in my back porch until I decide exactly what I'm going to do with it. At the moment it serves as a reminder of younger and happier times, and one glance at it returns me to my schooldays, when I had no sense of the future, or any idea that the neighbourhood wouldn't always be the same as it then was.
So many memories, so many years - all contained in just another brick in the wall.
I like the idea that you retrieved a brick, Kid. Worthless to some, maybe... but packed with significance to others! They're foundation stones and perhaps symbolic silent witness' to our relationship with vanishing places.
ReplyDeleteExactly, TK. Add to that brick all the photos I took, both inside and outside the school, and the place still exists in some way - and not just in memory.
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