History in the Un-Making!

Oh no!! Today the demolition squad was very active in the area around our old flat.

GK and I were taking a short cut through the car park to visit a municipality office and there, between the buildings, lurked the dreaded 'cruncher'!!

Shrouded by an orange awning from the gaze of passers by....the dust it was creating and the ominous noise it was making, left us in no doubt that the inevitable was happening and in essence, history was 'biting the dust'!

Whole communities had already been moved on and scattered across the city, or returned back to their homelands, to assimilate into new and already exisiting communities. All so entirely dependent on their financial ability to survive such devastating change.

Their memories being now being erased with the push of a button, the pull of a lever and the thunderous crash of bricks and mortar.

The generations of children who knew nothing but "this street" were having to start all over again, like that first day at school! Having to surrender friendships that were forged as they boarded buses, played cricket and football, formed neighbourhood gangs and challenged each other with friendly banter. Only the ghostly silence, the wall art and the expressive graffiti now record their one time noisy but happy prescence!

Change is a fact of life...and in this transient city of economic migrants...the way forward has always been an assurance of insecurity for the majority who don't have the privilege to 'right of abode' no matter how many faithful years of service have been spent in this land.

Whenever it does happens, as it invariably will for most, an unspoken empathy cements the friendships between these uprooted communities before they resiliently fold up their "tents" and quietly slip silently away to whatever corner of the city now becomes 'home.'

Those fortunate dwellers still accommodated in the housing blocks behind the present demolition site...know only too well...the 'Cruncher' is a very hungry and unstoppable machine!

Their own time for moving on will inevitably come, all too soon, and a lifetime of memories will need to be replaced by yet another new location.....location....location!

Happy Blipping Everyone!