Scaffolding

On February 25th 1975, just a few weeks before my ninth birthday, my family moved to Hong Kong. (With me, I hasten to add.)

It was so different to where I'd grown up in south London, that it's hard to think of any one thing that made a particular impression on me. You might think that it would have been the city centre, packed with skyscrapers (the tallest of which, the Connaught Centre, is dwarfed by today's skyline). After all, the flat suburban sprawl in which I'd grown up was only punctuated by Tolworth Tower to the south and New Malden's twin towers next to the railway station.

One thing that has always stuck in my mind, however, is the fact that all the scaffolding, even on the tallest buildings was made of bamboo. I'm not sure what they used to fasten it together but I don't think it was anything much more technical! I guess that these days the scaffolding will be made of metal - just like this set up in Kirkby Lonsdale, today - but at the time, for whatever reason, that was one of the differences that struck me between London and my new home.