As ever, across the
world the end of 2018 and beginning of 2019 was marked with a
cornucopia of visual splendor as fireworks provided a multi-coloured
backdrop for celebration.
Here in London the
midnight chime of Big Ben was for the first time struck
electronically, the hammer of the bell uncoupled from its clockwork
and mated to an electrical motor.
Under monumental
renovation and encased in a steel super-structure, the Elizabeth
Tower presently appears a hi-tech, post-modern de-construct more akin to the
Pompidou Centre than the edifice of Gothik Revivalism. Yet that
metallic sheath, as abject counter-point, has an innate exo-skeleton
beauty of its own, born from true functionality. All whilst the
Tower's own components are refurbished and replaced.
At an estimated cost of
£61m it does not come cheap, but provided a substantive idea regards
the philosophical re-building of Britain at such a crucial juncture
in time. Moreover, the project acts in the archetypical Keynesian
manner of deploying tax-payers funds upon significant public works;
and whilst it may not have the economic impact of say the Hoover Dam
of desperate 1930s America, it has a major effect for hundreds in
civil engineering and the now highly specialised artisan fields
At a time when the
construction trade is still under pressure from variously delayed
major commercial projects - as the old business models of brownfield
site re-use is being fundamentally questioned with decline of
retail-space values and rise of 'deskless' freelancers – such
'Establishment' projects are welcomed by the trade.
Likewise, this and
similar projects provides an enormous boost to the craft specialists who
operate in what is otherwise near invisible spheres often located far
from city-hussle in the quieter provinces, Halifax and far beyond so
as to recast clock-face hands, manufacture and cut traditional glass,
repair ornate iron-work, re-gild stonework and repaint to the
hi-lustre of original specification.
Ultimately, the
starkness of the scaffolding and light-tubes provides an inevitable
contrast for what will eventually appear from within, so making the
final result even more engaging. For adults it may represent a clean
start for politics after so many years of muddle. Young children may
view it as a Disney-esque magical castle. And future tourists will
inevitably eventually consider it as a physical manifestation of both the Victorian and Second Elizabethan Ages.
Beside the hopes and
economic revitalisation of HS2 and the rail connections for a desired
new 'Northern Powerhouse', amidst the present malaise in construction,
one of the brighter sectors within UK civil engineering is the
rarified discipline of Oil-Well De-Commissioning.
As Britain looks ever
more to reliance on gas and continued rise of renewable energy
(ostensibly wind-power), the major oil companies that since the 1970s
have excavated and evacuated deep-sea Brent crude oil, now face the
challenge of both effectively capping the end-of-life oil-fields and
looking to fracking-type methods to extract the hard-to-reach pockets
of oil and gas.
Such challenges in
Research, Development and Application make for good new potential
earning streams for a specialist crop of operators. Small and growing
firms that will either see organic growth from proven performance as
likewise is required around the world from competant companies, or
through acquisition by the oil majors as they seek to gain
capabilities in 'closing the loop' of a necessarily more responsible
global oil economy.
That then is good news
for a sub-sector
Yet whilst Britain
abounds in architectural splendor as representation of past, present
and future national strength, and illustrates itself as at the
forefront of fossil fuel ecological responsibility, it is the British
people that reflect the country's true internal being.
So it is here that
investment-auto-motives must make mention of one event of early 2018.
It was the passing of
Ms Hannah Hauxwell.
This lady became
momentarily and periodically famous from 1970 onward, when press
coverage illustrated her circumstances as a lone cattle farmer in the
Yorkshire Pennines. By the age of 31 she had become effectively
isolated from people and the outside world, and faced tremendous
hardship year in and year out on very little income available from
her cows.
The public initially
rallied around, sent good wishes and fund, but
inevitably as her human interest story fell by the wayside and she
was soon forgotten.
That interest was
rekindled in 1989 when a second documentary was made about her,
effectively thereafter planting her as a curio in unfamiliar
surroundings; out of context (in London and abroad) and so relayed as
the oddity in a highly sociological, fast-paced, mechanised world.
But the fact remains
that she from 1961 to the mid 1990s (when as an aged lady sought
phsyical relief), she for34 years did everything by herself for
herself through the bitterest winters with only realistically her
dogs and cattle to keep her company, as she broke ice over the stream
to fetch water when the old well had ceased to operate.
But her wholesome spirit and
innocent wide-eyedness of a very confined life never failed,
and her innate being was clearly that of absolute goodness; very
likely because her suffering made her modest, recognising the fine
line between living, mere existence and the real possibility of death in
mid-winter.
Yet her wonderment of
nature kept her heart and mind pure.
Passing at the age of
91, Hannah Hauxwell embodied and demonstrated to Britain what a Tower
of Strength and Deep Well of Fortitude actually looks like in human,
and possibly angelic, form.
Happy New Year to a
lady who presumably now sits far higher than the highest reaches of
those New Year's Eve fireworks.
