'Why calls to relocate or rebuild Crooked House sound futile - but we must stop a repeat event'
Some time about the late 1970s, I vaguely recall a teacher at school telling us about the fire which destroyed London's Crystal Palace in 1936.
I have no recollection of what the lesson was about, less still what it had to do with a glass exhibition centre in London. But I do remember feeling an intense sense of sadness, even as a small child, that nobody would ever get the chance to see this glittering spectacle again, something which has remained with me to this day.
This week the Black Country had its own Crystal Palace moment. The video of The Crooked House's last moments is hard to watch, as 258 years' history is destroyed in a matter of minutes.
For those of us who cherish the Black Country's heritage, the past couple of weeks have seemed like a never-ending nightmare, with the bad news coming thick and fast on an almost daily basis.
At any normal time, the demolition of the Dudley Hippodrome – tactlessly described by the council leader as 'an exciting day for Dudley' – would be more than enough reason to feel depressed. But what has happened with The Crooked House has taken that on to an entirely different level.
On Monday, it seemed there might be a glimmer of hope. As the dust settled following the fire, pictures suggested that the building could be saved. And then came the woeful news that it had been destroyed forever.
People of the Black Country are inevitably heartbroken and enraged at the incredible chain of events that have taken place over the past couple of weeks. No brick must be left unturned in getting to the bottom of how this has happened.
It would be wrong, and indeed counter-productive, to point the finger until due process has been completed, but equally the public is entitled to answers, and it wants them quickly.
Even before the demolition, there were calls to relocate the pub to the Black Country Living Museum, but in reality this was always a non-starter. Aside from the fact that such a scheme would likely run into millions of pounds, with no funding stream in place, it would also be pointless. The whole raison d'etre of The Crooked House as a tourist spectacle was that its unusual appearance was the result of mining subsidence. Trying to artificially replicate that on a site four miles away would really be missing the point.
Likewise Mayor Andy Street's call for it to be rebuilt brick by brick sounds equally futile. It might be possible, at great expense, to recreate a new approximation of The Crooked House, but it would never be anything more than a pale imitation. It would be as much an historic pub as a 1980s mock-Tudor Barratt home would be an example of fine 15th century architecture.
As the Black Country enters a period of mourning, all we can do is hope that the full facts emerge quickly, and that appropriate steps are taken to ensure nothing like this can ever happen again.
And trying to find the smallest silver lining in the dark cloud hanging over the Black Country at the moment, we should at least be grateful that, unlike future generations, we at least had the opportunity of seeing The Crooked House in all its higgledy-piggledy glory.
There is a saying that nostalgia ain't what it used to be. That never felt more true than it does today.
