Risky Games on a Famous London Landmark
The Past is a Foreign Country.
This post was inspired by Randy Pulley’s story about growing up in a small town in America.
If the past is a foreign country, then it must be a popular destination for many of us. Who doesn’t like to visit the past? I am going to take a trip back to the foreign country of East London in the 1950s.
I grew up in the east end of London. And, as in most foreign countries, summer days were always warm and sunny and school holidays seemed to last forever. Another feature of this foreign country was the lack of fear. Children could roam where ever their fancy took them, often staying away from home all day.
My friends and I often took advantage of this lack of parental concern and would often stray from our east end council estate. I imagine this came as a welcome relief to the adults who lived on the estate. Groups of boys, it was always boys, aged between nine and eleven years old, were often driven by boredom into mischief- making.
Although our adventures away from our home borough took us to varying places in all directions in London, our favourite destination nearly always took us east.
We meandered through Hoxton Street market and through the east end until we reached the river Thames, and our destination, Tower Bridge.
Why did we want Tower Bridge?
Tower Bridge spans the river Thames. It was opened for traffic in 1894.To allow large ships to pass beneath it; the road is raised in two parts, and it was where to two parts of the road met in the centre was wanted to be.
We knew when traffic passed over the small gap where the two roads met the road ‘jumped’.
We decided it would be interesting to see how it felt if someone stood astride the small gap in the road, one foot on the north side of the Thames and one foot on the south side.
So this was how we spent our time on the bridge. We discovered the larger the vehicle, the bigger the gap between the roads, and the higher we were lifted. I will admit I doubt if we were lifted over 2 inches, a heavier lorry could elevate us an inch or two higher.
It never occurred to any of us it could be risky. If one of the juggernaut crossing the bridge today crossed then we may have been in some danger of being tossed into the river,or having one or both of our feet being crushed. Fortunately, there were no HGV trucks back then. Even so, a slip of concentration could have resulted in serious injury.
Some years ago, I attended a meeting on the south side of the Thames and decided to walk across Tower Bridge from north to south; something I had never done. I noticed when I reached the centre of the bridge, there was no movement at all.
The bridge had been renovated. So, I could not relive my childhood memories.
Perhaps this was a good thing.
