Water Towers from Mars

"The chances of anything from Mars are a million to one, but still they come."


Water towers always remind me of H.G Wells The War of the Worlds. Large cumbersome buildings scattered randomly throughout towns and countryside alike. Some partially disguised as houses in the clouds, such as the one at Thorpness in Suffolk. One can imagine them landing quietly at night, and the Martians creeping out into the mist at dawn.

The book, written in 1898 was made into a radio theatre broadcast in 1938 by Orson Welles' and caused panic in the Eastern United States . In Newark, New Jersey, all the occupants of a block of flats left their homes with wet towels round their heads and in Harlem a congregation fell to its knees. Welles, who first considered the show silly, was shaken by the panic he had unleashed and promised that he would never do anything like it again.

I have fond memories of Jeff Wayne's musical version from 1978 which was played continuously, being the only cassette in a friends' Cortina, all the way to North Wales. By the time we got back we knew it all by heart and I can still quote large sections.
Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds