My mother often reminded me that a rainbow is a promise from God, so imagine my delight on turning  the corner of Tankerville Terrace today to be greeted by a bright bow over old Church High.

And, yes, the bow really did end where I thought it did.  Everyone knows a lucky pot of gold lies at the end of every rainbow, but is it all the luckier if the end of the rainbow falls in a truly green place?

For, despite the autumnal feel in the air, the entrance to the former Junior School grounds flanked by evergreen tress was still leafy-green today.  The steelwork, which appeared to have advanced more in sturdiness than scale this week,  was perfectly framed by it.

On entering the gates, it became clear that it would not be too long before the steel supports extended across the full length of the site.

There was no activity on the north wing of the old Church High main building today now the demolition of the single-storey kitchen area had been completed.  However, from the front there was plenty of evidence of interior reconstruction work going on apace again and a new rubbish chute had been put in place alongside the south wing.

Windows were wide open all over the building today and the dormer window of the Deputy Head’s Office in the eaves was now empty; the removal of the window frame allowed noise of work echoing deep within the interior to filter out onto Tankerville Terrace.

Standing across the road facing the front door now,  it made one very curious to know exactly what changes were going on inside.

Before I left today, I took a moment to enjoy the beauty of nature all around me, on the connecting gate and particularly directly across the road in the garden of Tankerville House, in recent times the Church High Sixth Form block but once it housed the Junior School.

The old kitchen extension, which has never lost the look of a quaint country cottage, really was a perfect picture today with its carpet of gold autumn leaves.  The co-existence of green and yellow leaves on the overhanging tree branches brought to mind both a Cezanne painting which has always been close to my heart and the opening lines of Robert Frost’s beautiful, short lyric ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’:

‘Nature’s first green is gold, / Her hardest hue to hold’.  

Despite the dull mizzly weather, aware that the first lorry load of steel had already been delivered last week, it was with keen anticipation and some excitement that I made my usual Wednesday visit to Tankerville Terrace today.  And I was not disappointed.  Even from the road, through the yellowing, autumn leaves there were tantalising glimpses of silvery steel against the gloomy, grey sky.

My regular as clockwork Wednesday visits, camera in hand, were no longer unusual events for the industrious yet also very friendly workforce on site.  Particularly welcoming and helpful was Wates’ Site Gateman, Peter Wilson, who, with the permission of Project Manager Nick White, was now allowing me inside the gates at a safe-distance from all activity to enable me to get better shots.  This was a real bonus now as the steel structure would have remained partly obscured by the trees from behind the gate – the first time the leafiness of the Church High site would have proved a problem!

Although only a small section of the steel frame had been erected, enough was there for one to start to see the building’s shape already developing.  The sides of the building facing Tankerville Terrace and the Sports Hall will be three storeys high and the back section visible from St Mary’s Court (formerly the Princess Mary Maternity Unit) will be only two storeys.  This area is planned to be a roof garden.

There were big changes to be seen to my left today too.  In the intervening week, the single-storey kitchen area of the Church High old building must have been demolished and new foundations were in the process of being prepared.  A new three-storey, glass-fronted extension is planned for this space.  This circulation ‘shaft’ will provide access across to the new build in addition to housing the relocated main North staircase which Wates recently demolished.

It took a little while to acclimatise myself to what I was actually looking at as I peered with keen interest into the dark recesses of the much-loved main building for the first time in a very long time.  The window frames and doorways now gaping open to the elements, offering tantalising glimpses into rooms we all know like the back of our hands, will presumably either be blocked up soon or become internal openings of some sort or other.  However, for the moment, the imagination was free to wander once again into the Dining Hall and Kitchen areas left, centre and right on the Ground Floor; to the Social Staffroom and Staff Ladies’ Toilets (left), Room 9 (centre) and the Geography corridor (right) on the First Floor; and on the Second Floor, high up on the left, the Staff IT Room and Steven Farrell’s IT Manager’s Office (themselves formerly the Careers Room and the School Sickbay, complete with its bell connected to the Staffroom!)

The only constant in life is change, as we all know, but it is still hard to accept this sometimes.  The new always will be built on the foundations of past things and, as a consequence of this, life goes on.  But the past will always be there.  To paraphrase the novelist LP Hartley,  it is merely another country where people did things differently.