When I was a young lad (as is traditional to start these tales)
...there was an old, derelict plastics factory that we used to play in. Then, one day, the JCBs arrived and they started to tear it down. On evening we were pottering by, and noticed that a large chunk of masonry, although broken off, was still sitting on the top of the half-demolished wall that it came from. With that inspiration that only kids seem to have, we decided it would be fun to push it off and hear the crash.

So, we started to rock a lump of brick wall, about a metre wide by maybe 60cm high, back and forward. With hindsight, I can see that it could just as easily have fallen backwards, ending our innocent (cough) lives with a damp squishing noise. But it didn't, it teetered on the edge then toppled over, falling off the wall and out of sight.

We braced ourselves for the crash, hoping it would be a good one. Well, it was. Much louder than I expected, and more worryingly, it kept going -- an enormous roar that built to stunning intensity, before finally fading away with the occasional "plink" of a final, falling brick.

We nervously peered around the end of the wall. Unbeknown to us, the wall we were working at was one side of an old stairwell, so there was another wall about a metre behind it. Beyond that was a sheer drop of about 10 metres, into what was once the cellar of the factory but had now been cleared. The lump that we'd dislodged had caused the entire second wall - about 3m by 20m of thick, Victorian brickwork - to collapse into the cellar...

I always smile when I think of the workmen arriving the next day to find a good proportion of their work already done for them!
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Thu 7 Oct 2010, 14:01, Reply)