It’s over, it’s gone.
They cut the streetlight down.
I’m gutted, yet delighted at the same time…
Firstly, “They’ve” finally removed the only working SOX lamp which was visible from my house. It’s been on the chopping block for months.
A couple of days ago, I noticed they’d placed some cones on the central reservation on which the SOX lamp resided, but there didn’t seem to be a lot going on. New posts were erected in February, painted black in March, abandoned since then.
Anyway, I finished work at 8AM, and am thankfully off for the next X days, so I decided to stay up, and do some stuff on the computer. I had some MP3s I wanted backing up, along with my ~10Gb Photos directory, therefore I’d be up for a bit. To while away the time, I played online scrabble.
After getting trounced (20, double word score), I looked out of the window, to notice something odd. The SOX lamp had just been switched on, still glowing red.
The view of the post itself was slightly obscured by bushes, but I could see high-vis jackets busily doing stuff at the base of the post. Surely they weren’t going to take it down?
I watched, as the post wobbled. The lamp turned from red, to orange, and then off. Dark, and black, like the very pit of my soul. Its life terminated, like so many of its fallen bretheren who once lit the depressing streets of Hartlepool.
The post shaking began to get stronger, and eventually, the lantern clips gave way, allowing the polycarbonate bowl to swing softly in the autumn air.
A mechanical grabber begins to rise from the street below, carrying some primitive machinery designed to keep the post in place, as it is severed from the base by a circular saw. The cutting disc eventually begins to make contact with the post. Sparks fly, as shards of white-hot metal spew out from the blade, emitting a display reminiscent of a Catherine Wheel on November 5th.
Within minutes, the post is in two. A final shudder finds one half still buried deep into the ground, the other half now hanging in mid air. The grabber gracefully performs an act which sees the fallen streetlight being delicately lowered to the ground, before being sliced into smaller pieces, and placed into the back of a low-loader.
Hmmm. Maybe I can get on with my life now.

