I can't find an online link to the article, so just in case anyone needs proof, then I supply these photos of the pages:
Anyway, now that it has been published, I am going to reproduce it here.=====
What started as a fun photography project with my young daughter has grown into an interest in my city and how kindly - or harshly (or otherwise) - time has treated it.
It is only when you stop to survey the damage done in the name of progress that a hobby like this becomes rather upsetting.
I am not old enough to have witnessed the demolition era of the 1960s, so my fascination is based on what Nottingham has lost due to civic vandalism.
Obviously, Nottingham is not the only place to have suffered as the tail end of the 1960s saw the past bulldozed to build the future.
What the town planners of the time didn't see coming, was that 40 years on these ugly, soulless square blocks would already look dated, while the timeless beauty of Victorian extravagance captivates us even today.
In its previous life as a train station, the clock outside Victoria Centre stood high and proud. Today it looks a bit silly dwarfed by a high-rise block of flats and an architectural nightmare of a shopping centre.
It will of course be able to offer sympathetic comfort to the clock outside the new look Victoria Leisure Centre. What good is a lonely but beautiful Victorian clock tower if its only function (apart from telling the time) is to remind us of the mistakes made by our leaders?
For readers who would like to see exactly what happened, access YouTube and search for Victoria Station Demolition Nottingham. The footage is heartbreaking.
NB- Search for 'Victoria Station Demolition Nottingham' on YouTube, someone has uploaded a cine film of the demolition work. One of the most heartbreaking bits of footage you will watch.
Aside from the cosmetic changes, these pictures* demonstrate the shift in our shopping habits over the years.
Supermarkets, coffee chains and fast food reign supreme these days, which means an end to quality produce and customer service. You could be in any town or city and the names are all the same. The 'before'* pictures depict an entirely different pace of life. However, when you stop to think about it, is it any better?
Probably the saddest of all these pictures is the Black Boy Hotel on Long Row.
Originally an inn, it was rebuilt in 1887 by the legendary Nottingham architect Watson Fothergill. The Black Boy was so luxurious that apparently, Queen Victoria insisted on staying there on an official visit instead of the offered rooms within the Council House.
It is impossible to say what might have become of the Black Boy, but a 90-roomed fancy hotel with a restaurant, banqueting hall and a hair salon would provide a welcome alternative to the identikit chain hotels that litter our cities today.
Even if the building had survived, the hotel might not have, so it could now be a bar, or flats, anything. No doubt, the name might also be a cause for concern these days.
What is hard to believe isn't that the planners and architects thought that Victorian grandeur was aesthetically pleasing in the era of the moon landings and Star Trek, but that they considered their alternative vision an improvement.
The biggest pity is that the philanthropy isn't there anymore to bankroll a much welcomed reversal project, and that the public in general are too apathetic to contribute to a charitable fund aimed at knocking down the horrible mistakes and rebuilding the beauty we took for granted.
*The pictures refer to the 'before and after' photographs in the link above.
Yellow type denotes my original wording
Green type represent words that were put in instead of my own.
