Woodcutters

A garage in our street was demolished yesterday, by builders who arrived in a glossy black SUV like a party limo.

The garage was one of the old wooden ones, with a pitched roof. Disused, it had had a mouldering boat in front of it once, but this had disappeared. Now, it had greened down the front and the set of antlers above the door had gone green, too. Another of these garages survives round the corner, mounted with a good luck horseshoe, instead of the antlers, above the door.

With this gone it got me thinking that, while garages have not, for a long time, actually stored cars, only now are they being dismantled wholesale, and going the way of other fixtures of the suburb: the tv aerials, car ports, front gardens and, soon, satellite dishes.

The suburban roofline in fact would be back to the 1930s or 50s if it wasn't for the chimneys are going too, replaced, if they are replaced at all, by silvery tubes.