The Palmerston Residents Association fought many times to have cottages at 2-4 Station Road listed and restored for the people of east Belfast, and used as a tourist attraction to help regenerate the Sydenham and Holywood Road areas, to rub salt in the wounds Palmerston Residents Association has learnt a memorial to Jack Phillips chief telegraphist from Surrey and who worked on the Titanic is to be restored, a councillor for the area of Waverley said they are trying to restore the memorial in time for the centenary, he also said the memorial was in honour of the brave final act of Jack Phillips who remained at his post sending emergency messages to other ships as the Titanic sank.
Everyone in the Community of Sydenham have lost a big chunk of history that could never be replaced by anyone, the cottages have now lay in a pile of rubble for over a year, another waste land to add to the others within the Sydenham area, the developer could not wait to have the cottages demolished in the early hours of the morning to leave them as a pile of rubble, yet we see now by this story of how a memorial for Jack Phillips is to be restored and cared for, while we had cottages where the founder of Harland and Wolff had lived only to be wiped of the face of the earth.
The Palmerston Residents association feels that no stone should be left unturned until we get to the facts of just what went on with the the two cottages that are now rubble,questions have to be answered as to why this happened who was the person who decided to let them be demolished at the time? when ever they meant so much to the history of Northern Ireland, we need to know the facts to enable this to never happen again, we have also received information that the Titanic anchor procession is to be repeated.
It seems that other communities in England are showing more support for our industrial history that we do ourselves, Crowds of people are expected to turn out in Netherton where the original anchor was forged at the former Noah Hingley & Sons iron works, the report states twenty shire horses will tow a replica of the Titanic anchor into the Black Country where the original was made 99 years ago, it states the reproduction 15 and three quarter ton will feature in a five part television programme the anchor cost about £40,000 to produce
Northern Ireland has so much to be proud of and for a small region within the united kingdom is steeped in so much industrial history we should be shouting it from the roof tops, it was our fathers and mothers who worked in our industrial past, yet it is forgotten about just as if it never took place come on Northern Ireland wake up and see what other countries are doing with our industrial past, yet we sit back and do nothing
No comments:
Post a Comment