When the new Queensferry Bridge was in its infancy, I took my twins on a 4th birthday treat to Inchcolm Island. We sailed right up to the new bridge, before the towers had been connected, and the middle tower looked exactly like the Angel of the North. It’s been a thrilling experience seeing the new bridge grow up with my girls. We’re part of history now, and it’s exciting to think that when my children’s children see it, they will know that the twins were there at its very birth.
We often talk about bridges as a metaphor, and joke that it takes a full three of them, to try to bring the people of Edinburgh and Fife a little closer together. And bridges are about connections and crossings, but this is also a beautiful bridge. On flying into Edinburgh airport, I see the sun catching its feathers as through a huge bird is sailing into land; when driving in the car, I glimpse it winking at me in the gaps; and on the train, instead of feeling cross that I can’t see the lovely red bridge I’m actually on, I hang out of the window so I don’t miss the new one for a second.
I think it’s spectacular. Even though we can watch the webcams, to see it going up day-by-day, it still seems an amazing achievement. Of course it had to meet exacting technical standards, but it has done so with great style. And I think all really good public building projects do this – they build our future around us, knowing that they need to stand the test of time. That’s why as a nation we love our historic buildings. And the world’s bridges are particularly awe-inspiring, because they’re such feats of engineering. They represent a particularly poignant combination of a triumph over nature, whilst yet being in partnership with it.
Will we take this bridge for granted in the future, when we get used to driving over it every day? I hope not. I hope that this bridge will always give us that sort of reflective joy we get, when we see man-made marvels amidst beautiful scenery.
It was William Morris who said: “have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” In this bridge we have both. Wouldn’t it be great, if we could make more of the useful things in our lives, beautiful too.
Other Thoughts
I have been delivering “Thought For The Day” pieces on BBC Radio Scotland since November 2016. By kind permission these pieces are reproduced in blog posts here on my website. To find my other pieces click here go to my Thought For The Day index page.
