Sarah gets closure as tower tumbles
CAMPBELL’S Tower is no more.
The iconic Lynn landmark was brought crashing down to earth at 8am on Sunday morning by Lynn News competition winner Sarah Griffiths, whose father, Mick Locke, died following a steam blast at the factory in 1995.
In an emotionally-charged atmosphere, the 41-year-old, mother-of-two pressed the red button. After seeing the 130ft structure fall in less than five seconds, she was embraced by her husband, Simon, 47, and children, Madeleine, 12, and Charlie, nine.
An estimated 3,000 people turned out to watch the last seconds of the tower, which had stood proud sentinel over the town for 52 years.
Mrs Griffiths, of Main Road, Clenchwarton, said: “As I was doing it, I was just thinking of my dad and got a flashback of the last time I saw him in hospital at Norwich.
“When I felt the thud as it hit the ground, everything felt complete. Now my family can move on and not live in the shadow of that building any longer.”
Mrs Griffiths was surprised by the speed at which the tower came down. “I feel that gives us closure,” she said.
Half-an-hour before the detonation, nose-to-tail traffic blocked Hardwick Road as spectators’ cars filled the Tesco, B&Q and Pierpoint Retail Park car parks nearest to the Campbell’s Meadow site.
Crowds stood in the road, as far back as the railway bridge, to watch the spectacle, as air horns sounded a five-minute warning and then the start of the 10-second countdown to the detonation.
Explosives engineer Robin Rushforth, of the Precision Demolition Company which carried out the procedure, said a nitroglycerine-based blasting explosive was used.
The brickwork walls up to first floor level had previously been demolished, leaving the tower standing on 10 steel legs, in two rows of five. Explosive charges knocked out one row, allowing the structure to hinge over on the remaining five legs, which then collapsed under it.
Mr Rushforth said: “It ran absolutely as planned. We built a cushion of hardcore in the debris area where it was going to land and that was thoroughly wetted to keep the dust down.
“The dust was also controlled by use of water sprays at the time of the explosion.”
Liz James, from Lynn Civic Society which tried in vain to get the tower listed to save it, said it had been a symbol of a very important period in the town’s economic history.
n More pictures p24-25 of today’s paper.
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Weather for King's Lynn
Sunday 27 May 2012
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Temperature: 9 C to 26 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: East
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Temperature: 10 C to 24 C
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