I’m feeling gutted today.
This weekend just gone I was up in Oldham, visting friends and staying in the house I lived in from 2003-4. It was a great weekend, and I loved being on Fitton Hill again. I did a lot of walking, drinking in views I used to see everyday but are now vastly different to my London surroundings. I headed back on a coach on Monday evening, and didn’t really think very much about the estate I’d just left.
Then on Tuesday evening I got a text message from my old housemate saying that the mill at the end of the street was on fire and they had been evacuated. I was intrigued. Maple Mill was probably one of the first landmarks I saw when I visited Fitton Hill. It stood proudly on our street, I could see it from my bedroom window every morning and you had to walk past it to get anywhere. There was something about those old mills that really inspired me, something I could never put my finger on. Maple mill was quite decrepit, and there was some dodgy deals that everyone knew went on in there, giving it a somewhat sinister feel, but I still loved it.
On Monday I walked past and looked up at the mill. I saw the broken glass and the decades of rubbish and the graffiti and the mess. I saw the blackened windows and the discarded cardboard and the spray cans. I saw chaos and rubble but somewhere in it all I felt affection.
Today the story was on the BBC news website as well as the Oldham Chronicle site. Apparently there were 60 ft high flames, and the smoke could be seen this morning even ten miles away. Part way through the blaze, the 60 x 40 metres main front wall of the mill collapsed into Dowry Street, my old road, literally where I had been standing just 24 hours earlier.
I’m not sure why it’s made me feel so sad. It just feels really wrong that the mill won’t be there any more. Like next time I visit the landscape will be altered irrevocably. I think it’s like how I’d feel if my old school got bulldozed or something. I’m just glad I’d travelled home on the Monday and not the Tuesday evening!
So it’s goodbye to Maple Mill, and lots of prayers for those who worked there, and the residents of Fitton Hill as they get used to the new landscape. If you’re a praying type, please offer one up for the Eden youthwork team based on the estate too.
(photos from Oldham Evening Chronicle)
That’s very sad
I will pray. x