Better and Twisted

My favourite and rather casual driving position involves one hand on the steering wheel and the other available for the many activities currently endorseable under the Road Traffic Acts. I know, I know.......
I was, for once, grateful of unwittingly adopting the recommended 10 to 2 position on the A61 through Chesterfield  under the following circumstances. The featureless trunk road passes a very ugly corporate building and then a very high concrete retaining wall fringing the city centre. Nothing much to see or cause distraction from negotiating an unknown road network and maintaining lane discipline looking for the Bakewell turning. Then into full and glorious view appears the grossly but fascinatingly twisted spire of the Parish Church. I had seen it some 30 years ago on a school trip but I had forgotten the glory of its improbability . I hope the cumbersome link gives some impression of the magnificence of this landmark.

http://www.yourlocalweb.co.uk/images/pictures/22/42/chesterfield-the-church-of-st-mary-all-saints-221353.jpg

I had some extreme difficulty keeping my vehicle and myself under control at the sight of it but my grip on the steering wheel prevented the fit of laughter and associated spasms  from causing a dramatic traffic news announcement on Planet Rock. I would recommend that anyone feeling a bit depressed or downtrodden should get a look at the Spire. There is a certain humour in it which should lift anyones spirit.  I can accept the Spire for what it is, a wonderful freakish thing, but there is quite a controversy and has been for many years over the catalyst for the deformity. The Spire has a 45 degree twist and is nearly 10 feet out of the perpendicluar. Erected in the 14th Century the blame fell on the shortage of skilled craftsmen after the decimation of population from the Black Death plaque. If there was a chance to make a killing in the ecclesiatical construction game and with guaranteed employment and money for fresh vegetables  for many subsequent generations of your family I would, in their position, be suitably economical with the truth on my CV. Oh yes, third hod carrier at Chartres Cathedral, principal gargoyle polisher at Cologne, Impish model at Lincoln, food concessionary at the Diet of Worms.( Please do not attempt to actually put dates on these events as the impact will suffer). So, limited skill sets, lack of quality control and a lot of unseasoned wood and oak shingles were the main Heads of Terms for the contract, not much different from Barratt Homes today then. The modern theory for the then Civic embarassment arose in the 17th Century when a lead sheet cover replaced the shingles. The expansion and contraction of the material was seen as the cause of the twisting. There must surely have been a stage in time when the Spire was considered for demolition. I can imagine the wording on the Insurance Claim form " We had a perfectly good vertical spire and then last time we looked it had gone a bit out of shape". I do not want to get involved in technical discussions about how and why it happened, get over it, the damage is done. Chesterfield must be, however, laughing all the way to the bank with the subsequent tourist income from, evidently, its best attraction. I am not sure if Chesterfield is twinned with Pisa but that would be apt. There will have been many prominent architects, technicians and engineers just itching to have a go at straightening the Spire and I can appreciate their frustration on being told to 'get lost and do something else'. It is quite ironic therefore that Chesterfield's most famous son was George Stephenson, father of the railways and one of the greatest engineering minds of his generation. We certainly have to thank the City Brethren for discouraging  George Stephenson from wasting his life and talents on untwisting the Spire which could have been a possibility for an image conscious urban centre seeking inward investment for the industrial revolution and to shake off deep rooted prejudice that the town supports shoddy workmanship and practices. If that had been the outcome of history we may still have been travelling around in ox carts, troubled by leafs on the mud tracks of the country, by late running stagecoaches and forever complaining that travelling in First Class should be a guarantee of arriving at your destination not covered in shit.