Thursday 18 August 2011

The Henry Pooley Gates Return-Can We Have The Sailors Home Back Too?

I stumbled across the unveiling ceremony this morning for the Henry Pooley Gates which was part of the old Sailors Home that was demolished in a savage act of civic vandalism when the building was, in not too bad a state of repair.

They were just about to pull the curtain and it was fair turnout.

Now I am getting sick of people harking on about the past, yes I hear you thinking, what are you saying, but it is true that once the past has gone, what can you do about it?
Me and my valued colleagues at the LPT have fought for the future not the past.
But, I am sick of looking at old sepia tints and listening to people with a sad lamentation of what we once had...........while doing nothing about it.
http://www.liverpoolmonuments.co.uk/gates/pooley12.html
The Dockers Umbrella crowd don't seem relevant to me anymore, harking on about how we lost a little treasure, that in reality was an eyesore and was falling down and needed demolishing anyhow.
If you cherish your past you will have a good future, of that I am sure.
We fought for the future, and preserving what we had was to have been our goal, look at the World Heritage site destroyed and weep.
Those Heritage Wallers waffling on about our history while too lazy to do anything about it are of no use to themselves, they will, of course, be out in droves when the last surviving carriage of the Dockers overhead railway is put in the new museum.
We tried to save the Manchester Dock Gates from a act of vandalism by of all, the Liverpool Museums, who are supposed to protect our heritage. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/03/manchester-docks-obliterated.html
They are now promised, by the Museums Director to be restored and placed in the new Museum of Liverpool. Lets see, shall we, after the very museums, JCB, smashed them to bits.

So, on a personal note is it a good thing or a bad thing that the Pooley Gates now seem to look out of place next to John Lewis and appear as a monument to a past tragedy that should never have happened?
Should I be thinking is this a good thing that we have spent a fortune reinstating them while care homes close and those inner city's re-ignite?
This picture was taken 1oo yards from the newly reconstituted Pooley Gates last night, as there were more riot police turning out to protect our streets from those vandals who have no respect for property.
While their city council trashes their own areas such as the Welsh Streets, creating Warrens "War Zones".

Is this a new use for the term "Gated Community" where we become a heritage theme park while a hundred yards south the Heaps Rice Mill a listed building lays rotting, and the Police protect Grosvenor-pool and the Dukes Fiefdom.

50 yards the other way, past the awful looking Liver Street Car Park, that the last Unesco mission of 2006 described as truly bad, where the memory of the Mole of Edgehill, is insulted with a awful bit of Jerry building, by a drunken bricklayer, if that's what you could call him, as it is, an insult to drunken bricklayers.
But its alright the local press say so.

While over in Duke Street the rot continues, while Malcolm Kennedy, Liverpools cabinet member for Regeneration (code for Peel Holdings) and Joe Anderson will be today taking the plaudits for the Pooley gates while doing nothing for the Wellington Rooms or St Andrews Church.

I cant make my mind up really, it seems on balance they are better being there, just, even if they serve as a monument to a horrendous past mistake and provoke thoughts of how Liverpool, as a city, is continuing in the same heritage tradition of showing disrespect for its past. 

2 comments:

  1. These Gates are better here than in landlocked Smethwick, hidden away from all except the explorers amongst us.

    I attended the opening ceremony yesterday, and without getting too deep into the historical significance of Liverpool's irreverence to its past, this event was simply a pleasure, and the operation of getting this grade 2 listed 10 tonne masterpiece back to where it once belonged must have been as intricate as the original casting process, it probably lasted longer.

    I'll hazard a guess that the paper work generated in completing this feat weighed almost as much as the Gates themselves.

    May I suggest you go view these artefacts dating from a time we can only imagine, no cars, world wars, tv, football teams etc.

    19 August 2011 16:13

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  2. I took the picture of the unvieling on the above post, I think I said its better to have them, even if they are a sad reminder.....but can we have the sailors home back too.

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