ian-hawkeye

[ian-hawkeye]

Concrete

Two builders, Alf and Joe, were attending a tank which was raised on low brick piers. Light and heat from coke obliged extreme caution from the two as they stirred long timber paddles into the bubbling liquid in the tank. The process was to continue for a day and a half, attended by their shift and then another.  Not only was it hot but splashes of stinging lime could sear flesh on contact. For mutual attention, there was always another on duty. “Ere Alf”, shouted Joe, “the ground ‘ere’s gone soft. The road’s on fire!”  It was true. Roads of course, were of tarmac, designed by Mr. Tarmacadam, with a base of large stones, overlaid with small stones with a camber, held by coal tar. “I think”, said Alf, “we’d best stay on guard while this lot cools down”.

               It was 1930. The builders were slaking lime in the well- tried tradition of a thousand years to produce mortar to bed and join bricks. As we know, bricks or stone were used to build a solid structure. The houses they were building were beautiful. They had to be, for takers in the depression. Neo Georgian and mock Tudor were popular. Now, all that Alf and Joe had to do was to keep watch, except that Joe did slip away for a newspaper.

               “Ere Alf, look at this!” exclaimed Joe, with a newspaper. On the front page was a photo. of the brand- new Empire State building in New York. It could have been from Mars, viewed from their near London venue. “’Ow do they do that? A brick column can only be thirty times greater than its width”. “It’s made of steel”, offered Alf. “Look closer”, from Joe, “at  those joists, that floor is CONCRETE. “

               While waiting for their tank and base to cool, the two men read the newspaper, which had an article on the Empire State construction. First, it was fast. Second, height had no limits due to its concrete manufacture. They read that the Romans had used concrete but, when they lost power, the process was forgotten. Then, in 1824, a guy from Leeds patented cement.  Later, Prince Albert used cement to cover the roof of Osborne House.

               For the next 100 years, nobody told Alf and Joe, or me, about cement, so for solid walls, they continued to use bricks, which should look nice, bedded in lime mortar, as since antiquity, they also neglected to update on road making. By “they”, I mean the English. So, Joseph Aspdin, patentee, from up the road, in association with his family and others, were the fathers of tall structures and roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, docks and the post medieval built environment throughout the world. Alf and Joe then got cement, bags of it.

                                                                           T H E   E N D .