In the Lord Line Building

There's a feeling of sadness Mixed with a wistful awe As we pick our careful way Across a rubble strewn floor. An eerie sort of half light, As though hiding from the day, Hiding our history until It's finally thrown away. This building still stands Though gutted inside: I suppose now it represents A city's lost pride. Graffitied walls Fittings smashed Not much left Of its proud past. I can see the lock gates. Now sealed against the tide, Imagine an old sidewinder Waiting patiently inside: Waiting to land wet fish That valuable tasty haul Brought safely on board From its bulging trawl. Imagine steel segged clogs clacking clicking up the road, Bobbers walking the tunnel To handball this load. Seen from a window the old dock Just a sea of reeds, silted and gone Hiding a chequered past As time has moved on. I sit to reflect for a while On a broken office chair: I can feel the past Flowing through me there. Such a sense of sadness Now filling my head Time to get up and leave, This building is now dead. One last walk around outside See huge cracks in the wall. How long before the dozers Finally make the bricks fall. On the White Fish Authority roof Children have set a fire Maybe a symbolic recognition Of its coming funeral pyre. The flames gutter and die As the children run away And the once proud building Survives yet another sad day. This piece of history can be saved If we don't wait too long Like so much of our past Once it's gone it's gone, Who’ll remember the sidewinders And their Bell Bottomed Boys In this place of eerie silence Once so full of life and noise. A sparrow hawk stoops As we walk away A sort of hopeful end To a sad and weary day. I was asked to do a voiceover for an independent Documentary Film Maker, and so had the privelege of entry into prohibited places. After hours of filming over many weeks the project was sadly put on hold with the arrival of Covid 19.