A bridge roll
A bridge roll!
It always draws a crowd.
Cody Dock, East London. A haven nobody knows – until they do. Here, a rolling bridge, designed on a square wheel principle (which makes me love it even more) to let boats into the restored coal dock.
Hand cranked, it turns on curvy rails.
Reeling in (in relay),
Reeling out.
Heft and haul.
Cheery shouts back and forth. Stewards watch for little fingers.
One… last… turn…
We’re there! Spontaneous applause. Happy humans. The band strikes up.
I sketch an unimpressed whippet, eyes only for the bakery stall.
A bridge roll!by Lydia Thornley
James Alex Western
James Alex Western
Deep sea diver, kisser of women.
He was putting together the Auckland Harbour Bridge. It would move a city over an ocean. Amongst sparks and steel he fused the lands together for the first time in 20,000 years.
His own wedding shimmered up ahead.
They’d been to the church where the Minister had said ‘marriage is a load bearing thing’
The foreman shouted Kick away the struts boys!
But the crane lashed back
Fate flicked him
his tool belt a cruel stone
down
into the depths of his first
and final love
the ocean
James Alex Western
by Claris Harvey(James Alex Western, the subject of my centena, was a steel erector. He accidentally fell to his death whilst building the bridge - a few months before opening day.)
Building a bridge over time
The River Lea is tidal. Part of the Cody Dock restoration project is to let boats back into the dock. That’s also why the bridge exists: boats free to move one way; people on foot and bike another. Cody Dock’s history and present are the hard work of industry and of turning the site to new uses. I wondered about the ebb and flow of people.
The name Waitemata translates to “sparkling waters” and it is in to this Auckland harbour that James Western, a young steel erector fell, plummeting to his death almost 70 years ago.
Dock workers
Brick restorers
Women working Prussian blue
Artists teaching cyanotypes
I walked via a bridge across time, to 1950’s Auckland into the life of James Alex Western. His new car, his stripey cat, his parents, his love of fencing, beautiful girls and his job , building The Auckland Harbour Bridge.
Shipbuilders
Boat builders
Housebuilders
Factory owners
James help build the bridge that made Auckland or Tāmaki Makaurau (the land with 100 lovers) a proper city.
Cody Dock is a bridge between urban and nature for people seeking sanctuary from the always-on.
What makes bridges?
The ebb and flow of people
He aha te mea nui? He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata.
What is the most important thing? It is people, it is people, it is people.
Lydia and Claris
Gorgeous images and I love this honouring of the people and lives behind and around these structures, so beautiful and so vivid.
Fascinating stories and wonderful evocative words. Learning so much from the twinning collaborations and places I've been to, but not seen what's described in the pieces.