The West Pier

Ever since I was a kid, I've had an odd sort of a fascination with piers. It is a bit of a love-hate relationship - I don't feel comfortable, given my vertigo, standing on a plank of wood hundreds of metres above the sea and also don't really enjoy what passes for entertainment on some piers. But I also find them fascinating. With all the uninhabited land in this country, we still feel a need to build on one of the most inhospitable environments possible - the turbulent tide of the sea and the everchanging surface of the seabed. Also, I liked going to the seaside when I was kid, and piers remind me of that.

One of my favourite piers is in Brighton. No, not the Palace Pier (despite having an appearance in Doctor Who) but rather the now near destroyed West Pier. Take a look:

This picture represents the peak of the West Pier - when it was a major attraction of Brighton, rather than a unique yet unaccessible sight on the shores of Brighton that it is today. For those not in the know, things changed. By the time I first went to Brighton (just before the 1992 General Election, natch) on a family holiday, the pier was cut off from land:

And it captured my imagination - still, standing proud, but struggling to survive as people saw increasingly as abandoned and falling down. There was still hope for the pier, even then. It could have been rebuilt. But events intervened - both fire and the elements.

Each new calamity made it less and less likely that the public would ever set foot on the West Pier again. And now, with just a skeleton jutting out of the sea on the South Coast, it is now impossible that the Pier will ever rise again, regardless of the pie in the sky schemes dreamed up by some.

And you know what, let it fall into the sea. There are enough piers in this country to enjoy - one just a quick walk away from the West Pier. You can't save the West Pier now. It looks beautiful in the sunset, but it is the skeleton of a structure facing decay and total devastation. Let it fade into the sea, and disappear into the memories of those that saw it. It is a curiously modern desire to save human constructions that have had their day. With the West Pier, you have no real choice other than to let it disappear beneath the waves. Let it happen.

Just as it did to another Brighton pier, long ago...*

*Normal service of silly ranting about politics will be resumed as soon as possible.