End of the pier show
QUESTION Why have so many Victorian seaside piers been destroyed by fire since World War II? What can be done to protect them?
VICTORIAN pleasure piers are a unique part of the British coastline. By the late 19th century, nearly 100 graced the coastline, but half have now gone. The National Piers Society estimates that one in five of those that remain are under threat.
Seaside piers are risky structures. It is not only fire that can destroy them, they are also at the mercy of the tides, storms, ship collisions and salt-water corrosion.
Built during the seaside holiday boom, piers were a chance for Victorian engineers to demonstrate their ability to master the forces of the sea.
Aldeburgh Pier in Suffolk lasted less than a decade before it was swept away by a drifting vessel. At the other end of the scale, aged 204, the Isle of Wight’s Ryde pleasure pier is the oldest in the world.
Brighton West Pier best illustrates the plight of these seaside attractions. It has suffered from the effects of multiple storms and fires since it was closed in 1975, leaving an isolated skeleton as a haunting reminder.
Southend Pier has been damaged by fire four times: in 1959, 1976, 1995 and 2005.
There are a range of reasons why piers are so vulnerable to fire. Their ad hoc construction was poorly regulated; they were usually protected from the elements by creosote, which is highly combustible; and their long, narrow structure makes them inaccessible to firefighters.
There is growing recognition that seaside piers are vital to coastal communities in terms of identity, heritage, employment, local pride and tourism. Money for their maintenance would help, but this is in short supply: the Government’s Coastal Revival Fund amounts only to £3 million.
Peter Gerrard, Liverpool.
QUESTION Was the founder of the first shelter for battered women an anti-feminist?
WRITER and campaigner Erin Pizzey was born in 1939 in Qingdao, China, the daughter of a diplomat. While a child, she witnessed the brutality of the Japanese invasion of China and the later horrors of the Maoist Revolution, which made her feel empathy for all victims of violence. She and her siblings were often savagely beaten by their mother. This convinced her that women could be just as violent and sadistic as men, and as likely to abuse their spouses and children.
During the Sixties, Pizzey enthusiastically embraced the women’s movement in Britain and set up day centres where women could meet each other free from the restrictions of the home.
One day, a woman came into a centre covered in bruises after a beating by her husband. This inspired Pizzey to open Chiswick Women’s Aid, the world’s first refuge for battered women, in 1971. Other shelters followed, offering help to women and their children.
From the beginning, Pizzey allowed men to help run the shelters, saying it was necessary children saw that they could be kindly and helpful. She was praised by such diverse people as Jack Ashley, the Labour MP, and Lord Hailsham, a Conservative. She spread her message in the 1974 book Scream Quietly Or The Neighbours Will Hear.
Pizzey realised that men could also be victims of domestic violence and wanted to open shelters for them, only to be met by widespread disbelief. ‘I will never forget one woman staying in my refuge telling me, in chilling tones: “Knives are a great leveller.” That is the reality of domestic violence,’ she said.
‘ It is far less clear- cut than the ideologues like to pretend, with their neat division between female victims and male oppressors.’
Pizzey was threatened with violence and eventually forced out of the movement she had founded. ‘I resigned from my refuge in Chiswick after a power struggle with the feminist movement, which didn’t approve of my therapeutic approach to domestic violence,’ she said.
‘Then I began receiving death threats from extremists opposed to my belief that a woman could be responsible for her own behaviour. My post had to be diverted to the bomb squad and I had to have a police escort on my 1982 tour around England for my book, Prone To Violence.’
Pizzey set up another refuge movement, and continues to write and speak about her work, denouncing the demonisation of men and the traditional family.
Ross Stafford, Hayes, Middx.
QUESTION Were the Finns Vikings?
THE Vikings were people from modernday Norway, Sweden and Denmark, known for one of history’s most remarkable periods of expansion, between AD750 and 1100.
They sailed around the North Atlantic, Baltic and even North America, raiding, trading and spreading their influence. Though fearsome warriors, their reputation as bloodthirsty and wild men of the North is probably exaggerated.
Though what is now Finland was once part of Scandinavia and under Swedish rule, this was towards the end of the Viking Age. Despite evidence of bringing trading to the country — silver from Germany and Britain, swords from France and coins from the Middle East have been found in Finland — Swedish Vikings did not have a heavy influence on Finnish people.
The Finns kept their distinct culture, language and religion before Christian crusades started in 1150, long after the Swedish had been converted by the Roman Catholic Church.
A small population that did not travel and relied on agriculture and hunting, the Finns were never the traders and pirates their Norwegian, Swedish and Danish neighbours once were.
Emilie Lamplough, Trowbridge, Wilts.
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