Many a seaside pier has been engulfed by fire over the years. The pier at Hastings is the latest of that mysterious paradox of the tinderbox floating metres above its possible redemption, the sea. Mysterious too for the machinations of local criminal life to be found amongst the glimmers and ashes. In both their resplendent and semi-ruined forms, British seaside piers symbolise over 100 years of cultural and social history. Walking the pier, we consciously enter into the past, reminding ourselves that we are making contact with a relic of another age. We are always elsewhere, in time and space. The pier is indomitable - but only up to a point, the sulphurous tip of a match or two. Nostalgic, then, in the authentic sense of the word: a place that is the locus of all our yearnings for the past. It seems inevitable, then, that it all goes up in flames.
I have in mind an image of my sister surrounded by my Dad and her brother. They stand for a group picture against the railings of Llandudno Pier. The sun is shining tremendously. My sister's blonde hair has a sheen that matches the smile on her face. Have you ever seen a photograph of your family looking miserable on a pier? The seaside pier: an essential experience of all family holidays. The odd way we have of walking straight out to the sea that already crashes beneath us or ebbs slowly against those monolithic pillars, testaments to Victorian engineering, is alluring as it stages the literal feeling of suspense - the pier being a Victorian interactive special effect. Or is it the suspense of excitement (you don't what it is until the end) which the pier structures through its very form? The pier experience as the allegory of mindless desire.
When another pier goes up in flames we experience a pang of sadness as we are reminded of the erosion of time and the lack of anything to show for it. There are other places and other monuments to pleasure, but nothing presents the image of our dreams and memories so much as the pier's illusion of fragility. As the conflagration rages and the local roving reporters sniff out the least little nugget of intrigue, we are sent back to another time and space altogether, our lives whispering amongst the embers.
It had to happen at some point since it happened in us some time ago.
