Farewell to the Didcot Sisters

Didcot A Power Station. Photo from https://twitter.com/OGBCollins

Early this morning, three of the most recognisable landmarks in the country were demolished. The three cooling towers of Didcot A Power Station were built in 1968, and the station was designed by Frederick Gibberd, he of Harlow New Town and Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral fame. They were blown down this morning while most people were asleep. And their demolition will leave a huge hole in the Oxfordshire landscape, where the power station had loomed on the horizon on millions of car and train journeys for almost forty years. The three sisters, those curvy grey fertility statues, have left three siblings behind: the cooling towers of Didcot B Power Station, also due to be decomissioned in the next year. The cooling towers should probably be symbols of our profligate exploitation of our natural resources, pollution and, latterly, corporate greed. These are all fair points, of course. Yet the structures themselves, with their tumbling plumes of white hair drifting across the landscape, have always been striking and beautiful, like primitive pottery scaled to massive size. There is no doubt that they will be missed by all who grew up in their shadows, and everyone who sped through the Oxfordshire countryside by car or train. Farewell, fair sisters.