It's history in the making

Misguided? Let me explain.

You have, apparently, subscribed to the popular, blinkered view that all the current and planned changes to our town centre are things to be feared.

While I am old enough to be considered a “dinosaur”, I’m not frightened by new architecture replacing “our” old buildings, no matter what they were or what they meant to “us” simply because I’ve taken an open-minded, a philosophical view of it which allows me to poke tongue-in-cheek criticism at it and the “artists’ impressions”, which precede the constructions.

It’s all local history in the making.

Although you consider these changes to be unnecessary, they are quite inevitable – there’s nothing you or our generation can do to influence their progression.

Shields has always been a town which has changed with the times, that’s why it has so much history.

Fortunately, as much now as then, it’s evolution not revolution, so it’s nothing to be scared of or resented.

The market place canopy – not ideal, probably a case of wait and see, it might turn out to be an asset eventually.

Derek Moulding,

Local historian

and photographer