It is not that I want it to happen, I said yes to try to help save it

The controversy over the Holy Trinity Church seems to be never ending at the moment, so I’d like to just pause the arguments here for a second and just take a look at this photograph.

It is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most beautiful sight ever to be photographed in Twydall’s history – and I’m not just saying that because I took the photograph! As Alan Watkins said, the church is the soul of Twydall.

If you take down the church building and replace it with (let’s be honest for a minute) the ugliest design imaginable for a replacement church/community building and 23 houses without enough parking for half that number, then you may as well flatten the whole of Twydall and replace it with a perfect criss-cross of blocks of flats and place a church akin to the old St Peter’s Methodist Church in Trafalgar Street (which, incidentally, was demolished a couple of years after I moved away from Trafalgar Street) somewhere in the middle.

My comments on the church demolition have caused quite some disquiet amongst many people, so please allow me to clarify my position on the matter – and please be patient because this is rather complex!

Please also bear in mind at this juncture that any comments made above, below or anywhere else on this website are those of their respective author(s) and no-one else’s. Apparently, some people may be about to think that comments posted by Alan W Collins on a website called AlanWCollins with a photograph of Alan W Collins in the banner and a domain name of AlanWCollins.co.uk, may be the opinions of someone other than Alan W Collins!

I’m sorry if I offended anyone who was genuinely confused, but, try as I might, I could not make this website distance itself further from any other person or organisation if I tried (except perhaps blogging platform wordpress, theme designer Gabfire Themes and, for obvious reasons (my “fetish”, as one recent email oddly described it), Google).

Anyway, rant aside, where was I? Oh yes. I am not some kind of architectural Hitler, looking to destroy anything which does not conform to my idea of perfect. Indeed the Holy Trinity Church probably fits my idea of perfect (which, in fairness, is quite warped!) better than any other building in Twydall.

In all honesty, and speaking from the deepest, darkest depths of my heart, I would most likely join the hundreds of people who would be shedding tears the moment the first brick from the church hits the ground. It’s iconic. It’s interesting. It’s oh so different from the outside. And it’s oh so beautiful inside.

And, honestly, it is the only place I want my wedding to take place in a few years down the line. I don’t want to have to fix my wedding date to fit the timetable for demolition, now, do I?

Joking aside, when I wrote to the council in support of the application, it was in support of the church, not opposition of the building. It was aimed at helping the church to try to struggle through a difficult time and to demonstrate that they had support in whatever course of action they needed to take.

When I published the letter here, and copied it to the local papers, it was an attempt to start a practical debate, an attempt to start to look at all the possibilities and persuade the opposition to the application that saving the church meant more than opposing the application.

Needless to say, it was a tactic that backfired. It was a tactic that failed.

For that, I am sorry.

In response to this failure, I am regrouping, if that’s at all possible for one person to do, and changing tactics.

I had promised 50% of my advertising revenue to charity this month. Well, I’ve changed my mind. Instead, in light of my cock-up, 100% of advertising revenues and donations for January – and 75% for February – will be going to the Holy Trinity Church.

That means, when you donate using the link provided, until midnight on 31st January, this website won’t see a penny of it. Instead all of it will be going straight to the church. If you care about the church, then please do donate what you can and help save it.

I know that it’s not much. But let’s face it…

It’s the least I could do!