HOORAY, hooray. A bit late in the day – well, sadly very late in the day – but Southend councillor Anna Waite has told the Echo she wishes to see many of the town’s old buildings preserved.

Well, well, is there really a Father Christmas? Will the Tooth Fairy wave a magic wand to bring true the hopes, wishes and dreams of those of us who mourn the death and destruction inflicted on old Southend?

Can it really be true that a Conservative council will try, at last, to reverse the policy of earlier, successive Conservative councils that failed to conserve?

What did Mrs Waite think of her colleagues’ latest act of official vandalism, the closing and abandoning of York Road market? This was but one chapter in a long, sad story of wilful neglect and death of much of Southend’s heritage.

Those of us long in the tooth and short of respect, or patience, for uncaring councillors recall buildings galore allowed to disappear beneath bulldozers. Much of this Victorian town’s Victorian past has been wiped away by indifference.

So, Mrs Waite, while I note your reported statement that the best of what is left ought to be retained and appreciated, I have little faith that your colleagues in power understand, or even care about what remains of a lovelier, yesteryear Southend.

The continuing saga of the pier and the money wasted on futile plans and schemes is evidence enough to support my own jaundiced view of those elected, but rarely respected.

  • THE latest big, bad and ugly evidence of our new Southend is rising along London Road, a short distance from what we oldies long knew as Victoria Circus and is now Town Square. I refer to the high-rise accommodation for students, a block faced with multi-coloured slabs.

When, in the distant future, this monstrosity is given a death penalty, to make way for another architect’s vision, will its passing be mourned? I doubt it.

  • MY cousin Albert, a skilled mechanic who ran an old-fashioned garage and filling station in a rural stretch of Essex for many years, reckons man has become far too clever and technology will be the downfall of future generations.

I thought of him when I stood in a long line at the baskets-only checkout in the Southend Sainsbury’s supermarket the other day. I began to see reason in his arguments.

The baskets are those in which to carry goods, of course. Not for basket cases, or those like me sometimes referred to as old baskets.

Trolley pushers waited in very long lines. Queues for us basketeers were only a tad shorter.

I eventually decided to break a habit and go to one of the self-service machines, only to find this piece of new technology was out of action.

There was no staff member available to help or explain why. So we joined the basket carriers.

Nine of the ten people ahead of us in our line paid by credit card. What grand new technology.

The assistant taps some keys on a computer keyboard. The customer then enters the pin number, waits, receives confirmation, gets receipt and puts their goods in bags. And then the next customer follows the exactly same routine.

Eventually we get our turn. The cashier apologises for the delay and the fact the self-service machines were out of use.

We surprised the cashier by paying in cash. I suspect the day will come, not too far off, when there is no cash and stores will be largely run by robots.

Perhaps the vast armies of out-of-work can be used, then, to smash down any grand old buildings which no longer meet councillors’ approval.