h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

People know how much I love Dartmouth, my home town. Well, last week I had the dubious fortune to have a 'front seat' view of a disastrous fire, probably the worst destruction to befall the town since a Luftwaffe raid in (I think) 1942. Several ancient buildings were destroyed or severely damaged (although the BBC describes them as Tudor, historians believe that the lower floors are rather earlier and were then extended upwards and outwards) and quite a number of people lost their homes or their livelihoods.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/10189310.stm

My workplace is the flat-roofed building with the bow window visible in the video on the above link - so you can see that were within about 30 feet of the affected buildings. Those shots were taken at nightfall, by the way, probably about 8 hours after the fire started and well past its height. We had to close but weren't asked to leave the building ourselves.

The following day we opened but had to trade from our rear fire exit - very strange! The only good news is that we have been able to offer jobs to several people who lost their workplace in the blaze.

I read about this a few days ago and I was going to post something about losing historical buildings, but the moment passed before I got around to it. It always saddens me when something like this happens and another link with the the past is erased.