So farewell, Cockenzie Power Station. Its twin towers, East Lothian’s answer to Churchill’s victory salute, will be much missed, if not mourned. To my disappointment I wasn’t there to witness their demise, but I have watched the footage. As the explosives detonated, the chimneys swayed towards each other like drunken lovers, were clasped in a final embrace, and then were dust. No sooner had they crumbled than a plume of smoke rose into the sky, a powdery impression of the concrete cigarettes that for almost half a century dominated this gentle crescent of coastline.
When the boiler house is also demolished, later this year, things will return to the way they have looked pretty much since the days when mammoths grazed by the Firth of Forth. Already, North Berwick Law and the Bass Rock are returned to their natural size, no longer dwarfed by an industrial behemoth whose belching clouds were as much a part of my childhood as the sight of gannets nose-diving out at sea.
Those interested in property prices in the vicinity, or for whom the power station held no personal connection, are no doubt delighted to see them gone. They were – inarguably – a blot on the landscape. But for some their disappearance is poignant, signalling the end of an era. It might have been a grimy, dangerous and polluting age, but not to feel a scintilla of sympathy with those who are sorry to see them go is to fail to understand the way that landmarks, even the ugliest, have a way of getting under our skin. Whether it’s mere familiarity, or some deeper association, buildings become personal. They are like relatives or friends: not always lovely to look at, but embedded in our lives, warts, beer bellies, and all. Not surprisingly, comments from a few of those who worked at Cockenzie power station were emotional. Some were genuinely upset to see them fall, one local suggesting they ought not only to be retained forever, but painted in multi-coloured stripes, with a Saltire flying from the top.
While Cockenzie’s smokestacks were being blasted to oblivion, I was in Paris, one of the few metropolises where you need never get lost. The Eiffel Tower is not only the most elegant compass in the world, but a shorthand image for the city, as beloved of Parisians as by visitors. In comparison its modern twin, Tour Montparnasse, is a monstrous blight, unredeemed by any aesthetic grace. I doubt there’d be a whimper if it were demolished while the city slept.
But you might have said the same for New York’s twin towers, before they were destroyed. Until 9/11 they were a symbol of overweening confidence, reflecting light as if they and not the sun were the source of it. They were not exactly beautiful, but they fitted in perfectly with their surroundings, their grandeur a very public statement of industry and intent that the city was proud of. Now, whenever the New York skyline appears on film or TV, the ghost of the twin towers can be felt, a palpable absence that remains painful for all who remember them, and what they and their loss represent.
When you think of it, apart from industrial structures where height is essential for practical purposes, many of the world’s best loved or most famous landmarks are built, like the World Trade Center, on the principle of hubris, whether in terms of height, scale or cost. Be it the Taj Mahal or the Shard, the Kremlin or Edinburgh Castle, great buildings are usually about power, and the flaunting of it. Since we crept out of caves, humankind has done its best to compete with the natural world, with its giant redwoods and waterfalls, volcanoes and mountains. There is something elemental about creating edifices that stand apart and proclaim their presence brashly, as if we are keen to be raised above eye-level and show ourselves bigger, more important and enduring, than our surroundings. To an extent, the most distinctive and authoritative buildings are existential statements as well as physical or functional. And that is perhaps why they hold a place in our hearts.
On his first bus trip after the Cockenzie towers came down, my husband sounded unexpectedly bereft when he called from the No. 26. Every new stretch of the road affirmed their disappearance, from another angle. They’d been there for much of his lifetime, the backdrop to every day. Whenever we drove past, he would mutter, looking forward to a time when they would be history. Well, that day has arrived. I am told that nobody in Prestonpans or Port Seton is bemoaning their loss, but I doubt any of us who live nearby will really know how we feel until they have become part of our collective memory.
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