Friday 26 June 2015

Everything Goes!

It's a salutary thought when you realize you know more people who are  dead than those living and breathing. (Though FB friends may skew the figures a little). But what also marks the passage of time are familiar buildings demolished almost as quick as you pass them. Time is totalitarian, erasing history in dust. 

Below is Father Hill Junior boys. (I'm the extra from Woodstock) I was there a year, and then Pow, it was gone!

 An earlier blog post marked the demolition of my next school, St. Josephs. No sooner had I left it, then pow it was gone. I like to think it was some superhuman quality on my part, but I fear not.

Now another landmark has gone. St.Bonaventure's Secondary Modern School. Fair enough, it had undergone a name change some years after I'd gone, but knocking it down…I'm sorry, but that was a step too far. The pictures below show some of my old school friends when I was there.
They are holding my project on Greece and Rome. My first book, you might say. I enjoyed drawing the bronzed and heroic figures - everything I wasn't. 
Above is the school uniform. Below is the reality

 Everything else, in melancholy colour, gives a blow by blow account of its demise. I shall raise a glass to St. Bonnies, tonight: the school that made me the man I am today….hmm, maybe first I'll assess the man I am today...and toast that too :)
Nothing if not thorough - the Demolition Plan.

The school awaiting its fate.


Munching away

Corridors we once ran along when teachers weren't watching.




If you look carefully below you can just see the remaining flight of stairs. A snack for the 'Muncher'


Almost Gone


Gone!


Just goes to show, you should never take things too seriously

2 comments:

Maria Zannini said...

I don't know what the general philosophy is now, but shortly after we left Chicago, we started seeing many of our favorite haunts and landmarks demolished. Strangely though, both of Greg's grammar schools became expensive condominiums.

It became very posh to live in that part of the city and these old schools gave it a unique twist. However they justified it, at least the schools weren't destroyed, just cosmetically updated.

Builders rarely see beyond the immediate monetary return. How much more would real estate mean to future generations if we kept some reminders of what once stood there?

Mike Keyton said...

In fairness, Maria, two of the schools knocked down were glass and concrete things - not exactly condo material. Still, they held memories. When all's said and done, we're talking about shells that hold memories. The shells in themselves are less important than the people and memories they held. At the same time it's sad to see a landmark demolished.