I was a child at the time (not sure what age). I came home from school one afternoon and as I usually did I walked down the narrow alley between my parents' house and the house beside it and went in through the back door.
A few minutes later there was an almighty crash and I discovered that the chimney had collapsed and fallen into the alley. If I had got home a few minutes later I would have been badly injured or even dead.
An experience like that tends to linger in the back of your mind. When we moved into this house it had a slightly leaning chimney and I was always a bit nervous that it would collapse, despite several roof specialists saying it was structurally sound. We finally had the chimney removed to cure a persistent roof leak and I was relieved that it had gone.
But things like the falling chimney remind me of how we assume safety and security and pretend disasters will never happen. Or we're sure they'll happen to other people and not us. Or we say they're statistically unlikely.
Well, you have to think like that, don't you? If I constantly conjured up all the disasters that might befall me (burglaries, car crashes, internet fraud, muggings) life would become impossible, I'd be a nervous wreck.
In fact the nearest I've ever come to a serious disaster is some hair-raising near misses when I was driving a bit carelessly. If it hadn't been for some quick evasive action by other drivers it could have been nasty.
But hey, I lived to tell the tale.
There but for the grace of God etc....
ReplyDeleteSx
Ms Scarlet: The God of good timing?
DeletePhew!
ReplyDeleteRamana: I must have been extremely shocked, though I don't remember that.
DeleteI can’t say I’ve ever heard of a fallen chimney. Do you know how old the house was? Glad you got home early.
ReplyDeleteBijoux: I don't know exactly. I think the houses in that area were built early in the 20th century.
DeleteThings like that do bring it home to you that safety isn't a given.Sometimes you can control events, more often, not.
ReplyDeleteFly: As Ms Scarlet said, there but for the grace of God....
DeleteScary!
ReplyDeleteI guess my closest call was in the early 1960s in Yellowstone National Park when, hearing a bunch of yelling, I stepped around my grandparent's rented camper to find a female black bear running towards me. She had at least one cub in the woods behind me.
Mike: Thankfully there are no bears to contend with in the UK. I gather they can be quite aggressive if they feel threatened.
DeleteAt that time, in Yellowstone, bears were a big problem. There was no active policy to limit their presence in areas where people were. Trash containers were not "bear-proof" and tourists were actually feeding the "cute" bears. At one point we actually saw a car pulled over with the occupants giving food to a grizzly and her cub through the car windows. Grizzlies are really dangerous.
DeleteBetween that visit in the early 60s and the next time I was there in 1973, the park had instituted policies to get bears back into the wilderness and limit the human food available to them. It is rare now to even see a bear there, though in 2014, we saw 6 grizzlies in Yellowstone and 6 black bears in Glacier National Park.
Mike: Yes, I'd heard about bears raiding trash containers. And giving food to grizzlies is not to be recommended! I gather mothers defending cubs are the most prone to attacking humans.
DeleteThere are bears in this area, though we've never seen one. After something got into our trash container years ago, I make sure the lid is trapped down. I don't know if it was a bear or a racoon. There is actually a position in the state Fish & Game department called "Bear Biologist."
DeleteMike: I see bear biologist is a well-established job category, a variety of wildlife biologist. It seems to mainly involve research into bear behaviour.
DeleteInterestingly, I only knew about him because of genealogical research. His name was David Goad and was a very, very distant cousin. We only talked once. Two years ago, I met his daughter when I was being prepped for cataract surgery. She is an operating room assistant at the surgery clinic where I had by cataracts taken care of. (Virtually all Goads in the US descend from one 17th century British indentured servant immigrant ancestor in Virginia.)
DeleteMike: You've lost me. "I only knew about him because" Who is him?
DeleteThe bear biologist, David Goad.
DeleteMike: Ah yes, I didn't read your comment properly!
DeleteYikes!
ReplyDeleteColette: Yikes indeed. Treble yikes even.
DeleteWe had a bear walk into our campsite as we were finishing supper when we were camped a mile from the car. We packed out when it left and learned later it came back that night and stole three packs from other people. I can't imagine trying to pack out without a pack.
ReplyDeleteLinda Sand
Linda: That was slightly puzzling as the term "pack out" isn't used in the UK. But it should be as people commonly dump stuff when they leave a campsite - and along come the animals to scavenge.
DeleteIt could have been close.
ReplyDeleteWow, what a close shave indeed. And a chimney collapsing, I imagine disintegrating mortar from age and heat. That would haunt you.
ReplyDeleteXO
WWW
www: It doesn't haunt me, but I'm very aware that I could have had a very short life span!
DeleteGlad to read that you escaped that calamity, Nick, and when i read the post for some reason my mind wandered to the nursery rhyme of Humpty Dumpty falling off a wall which really does not fit your situation at all. Glad you perhaps walked a bit fast that day.
ReplyDeleteBeatrice: Humpty Dumpty had a much worse experience than me - all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again.
DeleteWe never really know what is around the corner , metaphorically speaking, but that day you got a hint that it might not be pleasant
ReplyDeleteKylie: I'm sure it made me more aware of how much good or bad luck determines our lives.
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