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Showing posts with label fire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fire. Show all posts
Thursday, 7 October 2010
Hastings Pier Memories.
Yes, i know that i've been talking, Tweeting, blogging and uploading videos about the fire on Hastings Pier quite a lot over the past few days.
But, i make no apology for that.
This is one of those momentous local stories that comes around, thankfully, very infrequently. It is also the first major local story, on this scale, to have happened since the advent of the social media tools that have enabled myself and others to comment in this way.
Everybody in the town and far beyond as well,, have their own perosnal memories of Hastings Pier and now we have a new way of actually recording our thoughts. We are also now able to share those thoughts and memories with anyone who might care to read, or listen to them.
One thing that has struck me over the past few days, has been the amount of comments, messages etc that i have received from people across the UK and beyond. All those people have their own personal memories of Hastings Pier, from when they have visited it themselves. Often as a child on holiday with their family.
That is one thing that sets this story apart from most others. The sense of genuine grief is felt and shared by people who live far away from Hastings itself. That, i feel, is quite unusual.
I read a blog post by another local blogger yesterday. In it they mentioned the fact, for many locals, Hastings Pier was just.....there.
It was an ever present landmark in our lives. Every Hastonian alive today will not have known a time in their lives when the pier was not....there.
It gave us all a sense of comfort seeing it there day, after day. Even if we didn't actually realise that at the time.
Obviously, we still don't know the final outcome and future of what is left of the pier. It may have to be demolished. It may rise again from the ashes. It might just be left as it is.
Ironically, this final option might make it a tourist attraction in it's own right. A bit like the similarly burned down West Pier, in Brighton. In that scenario, Hastings Pier might attract more visitors than when it was actually open. Death can be a good career move after all.
In some ways, that has already started to happen over the past few days. There has been a constant stream of people, both local and out of towners, coming to have a look at what's left of the pier.
But, whatever the final outcome. For many, myself included, it will just not be the same structure that we all associated with. The building in which all of our personal memories were lived out, is no more.
The Hastings Pier ballroom that played host to just about every major rock band, in it's time, is a ruin.
No future building could ever bring back those days and those memories.
The stage that i stood on when i helped to host Beatles Day, has gone and can never be replaced.
The amusement arcades have now been reduced to ashes.
Those same arcades that i remember taking my, then, young son to. We would spend happy afternoons bashing crabs heads with big mallets and working our way through the, especially collected, bags of 2p pieces in the various slot machines.
Those days can never be re-created.
And, i'm sure that every person, both local and from elsewhere, has their own similar happy memories of the time they spent on Hastings Pier.
And that, i think, is why the sense of grief and loss is so great for so many people.
We have witnessed the end of an era.
A part of our lives has been destroyed. A part of our lives that can never be rebuilt, or replaced.
Hastings Pier as we knew and loved it, is now consigned to history.
But, whatever the final outcome. We will always have those fond memories.
They will always be just....there.
But, i make no apology for that.
This is one of those momentous local stories that comes around, thankfully, very infrequently. It is also the first major local story, on this scale, to have happened since the advent of the social media tools that have enabled myself and others to comment in this way.
Everybody in the town and far beyond as well,, have their own perosnal memories of Hastings Pier and now we have a new way of actually recording our thoughts. We are also now able to share those thoughts and memories with anyone who might care to read, or listen to them.
One thing that has struck me over the past few days, has been the amount of comments, messages etc that i have received from people across the UK and beyond. All those people have their own personal memories of Hastings Pier, from when they have visited it themselves. Often as a child on holiday with their family.
That is one thing that sets this story apart from most others. The sense of genuine grief is felt and shared by people who live far away from Hastings itself. That, i feel, is quite unusual.
I read a blog post by another local blogger yesterday. In it they mentioned the fact, for many locals, Hastings Pier was just.....there.
It was an ever present landmark in our lives. Every Hastonian alive today will not have known a time in their lives when the pier was not....there.
It gave us all a sense of comfort seeing it there day, after day. Even if we didn't actually realise that at the time.
Obviously, we still don't know the final outcome and future of what is left of the pier. It may have to be demolished. It may rise again from the ashes. It might just be left as it is.
Ironically, this final option might make it a tourist attraction in it's own right. A bit like the similarly burned down West Pier, in Brighton. In that scenario, Hastings Pier might attract more visitors than when it was actually open. Death can be a good career move after all.
In some ways, that has already started to happen over the past few days. There has been a constant stream of people, both local and out of towners, coming to have a look at what's left of the pier.
But, whatever the final outcome. For many, myself included, it will just not be the same structure that we all associated with. The building in which all of our personal memories were lived out, is no more.
The Hastings Pier ballroom that played host to just about every major rock band, in it's time, is a ruin.
No future building could ever bring back those days and those memories.
The stage that i stood on when i helped to host Beatles Day, has gone and can never be replaced.
The amusement arcades have now been reduced to ashes.
Those same arcades that i remember taking my, then, young son to. We would spend happy afternoons bashing crabs heads with big mallets and working our way through the, especially collected, bags of 2p pieces in the various slot machines.
Those days can never be re-created.
And, i'm sure that every person, both local and from elsewhere, has their own similar happy memories of the time they spent on Hastings Pier.
And that, i think, is why the sense of grief and loss is so great for so many people.
We have witnessed the end of an era.
A part of our lives has been destroyed. A part of our lives that can never be rebuilt, or replaced.
Hastings Pier as we knew and loved it, is now consigned to history.
But, whatever the final outcome. We will always have those fond memories.
They will always be just....there.
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
Well Done Everyone.
I posted a blog post, earlier today, on my Social Media Journeys blog. It was called "Citizen Journalists" and relayed my own experiences yesterday. The day that Hastings Pier burned.
In it i mentioned how i had used various social media sites to get my photos, video & audio podcasts onto the Internet and how they had been spread by others and then used by other sites.
But, i was by no means the only local person who did this and that is what i want to recognise in this blog post.
I want to say "Well done everyone", to all of those local people who helped to show the world what was happening in our town yesterday. Without us, the coverage would have been nowhere near as extensive, especially in those early hours of this major news story.
When i first got down to the seafront and the pier, at just before 6.30am yesterday. There were no media people to be seen anywhere. Not even from our local newspaper, the Hastings Observer.
One of their reporters did turn up a bit later, on his own and without a photographer. I think i even over heard him saying that he couldn't get hold of anyone on his phone!
This was a major news story, possibly the biggest the town of Hastings has had for many years and there were no local news reporters present to record it. Or, any other media outlets for that matter. Even though the pier had been burning for over 5 hours at that point.
So, what did the established local and national media have to do? They had to rely on you and me, the citizen reporters.
We were the people whose photos and videos appeared on numerous news websites and social media sites generally.
We were the people who were on the scene first and who captured the really defining images. Those powerful images of the pier burning in the darkness, or in the early morning light. Before the media cavalry arrived.
I have seen video and photo's from many local people used on various tv programmes, news websites and even national newspapers.
One local photographer, Andy Wilson, who i know via Twitter, had one of his photos used by The Guardian newspaper, as it's lead front page image
Well done Andy.
We were also ably assisted by all those other locals who passed on our images etc. Whether by Twitter, email or other means. You also helped to get this historic story "out there".
I only hope that the efforts of our local citizen reporters is appreciated when the Hastings Observer brings out it's special "Hastings Pier burns" edition this Friday.
I think it is only fitting that they are. After all, it was us who provided the world with those first dramatic images of that dreadful fire.
I could now go off into another rant and maybe i will, about how woeful the Hastings Observer were with their initial coverage of the story. About how they were comprehensively beaten to the story by the Brighton Argus, amongst others.
I was contacted, via Twitter, by the Brighton Argus asking for permission to use my material, at 09.00. My YouTube video was linked on their website by 09.20 that morning. They also had one of my photos on their site, by the same time.
By contrast, the first Tweet of the day from the Hastings Observer was at 10.30am.
It wasn't until around this time that any mention of this huge local story first appeared on the Hastings Observer website. I could go on, but.....
So, well done everyone.
You did your town proud yesterday.
You recorded a little piece of history. And it's just as well that you did. Because there was nobody else there to do it for us.
And for that, the whole town and the media world in general, should be eternally grateful.
PS: For a local poets version of events. Watch this. It's well worth it.
In it i mentioned how i had used various social media sites to get my photos, video & audio podcasts onto the Internet and how they had been spread by others and then used by other sites.
But, i was by no means the only local person who did this and that is what i want to recognise in this blog post.
I want to say "Well done everyone", to all of those local people who helped to show the world what was happening in our town yesterday. Without us, the coverage would have been nowhere near as extensive, especially in those early hours of this major news story.
When i first got down to the seafront and the pier, at just before 6.30am yesterday. There were no media people to be seen anywhere. Not even from our local newspaper, the Hastings Observer.
One of their reporters did turn up a bit later, on his own and without a photographer. I think i even over heard him saying that he couldn't get hold of anyone on his phone!
This was a major news story, possibly the biggest the town of Hastings has had for many years and there were no local news reporters present to record it. Or, any other media outlets for that matter. Even though the pier had been burning for over 5 hours at that point.
So, what did the established local and national media have to do? They had to rely on you and me, the citizen reporters.
We were the people whose photos and videos appeared on numerous news websites and social media sites generally.
We were the people who were on the scene first and who captured the really defining images. Those powerful images of the pier burning in the darkness, or in the early morning light. Before the media cavalry arrived.
I have seen video and photo's from many local people used on various tv programmes, news websites and even national newspapers.
One local photographer, Andy Wilson, who i know via Twitter, had one of his photos used by The Guardian newspaper, as it's lead front page image
Well done Andy.
We were also ably assisted by all those other locals who passed on our images etc. Whether by Twitter, email or other means. You also helped to get this historic story "out there".
I only hope that the efforts of our local citizen reporters is appreciated when the Hastings Observer brings out it's special "Hastings Pier burns" edition this Friday.
I think it is only fitting that they are. After all, it was us who provided the world with those first dramatic images of that dreadful fire.
I could now go off into another rant and maybe i will, about how woeful the Hastings Observer were with their initial coverage of the story. About how they were comprehensively beaten to the story by the Brighton Argus, amongst others.
I was contacted, via Twitter, by the Brighton Argus asking for permission to use my material, at 09.00. My YouTube video was linked on their website by 09.20 that morning. They also had one of my photos on their site, by the same time.
By contrast, the first Tweet of the day from the Hastings Observer was at 10.30am.
It wasn't until around this time that any mention of this huge local story first appeared on the Hastings Observer website. I could go on, but.....
So, well done everyone.
You did your town proud yesterday.
You recorded a little piece of history. And it's just as well that you did. Because there was nobody else there to do it for us.
And for that, the whole town and the media world in general, should be eternally grateful.
PS: For a local poets version of events. Watch this. It's well worth it.
Hastings Pier - Picture Memories
My own pictorial memories of Hastings Pier.
All photo's were taken by myself.
I'm not sure why so many were taken in the snow!
Hastings Pier: 1872 to 2010 RIP
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
AudioBoo - Hastings Pier Burns
Recorded whilst standing on the beach watching Hastings Pier burn. A sad day for everyone in the town.
The speech part of this AudioBoo only goes up to the 2 minute 10 second point. The rest is just background noise. I couldn't get the recording to stop!
Hastings Pier Burns: 5th October 2010
A very sad for Hastings. Hastings Pier played host to so many gigs, by the biggest names in music, in it's heyday.
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
AudioBoo - 7th September 1940 - Black Saturday
The start of The Blitz in London, 70 years ago today.
A personal recollection.
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