I am a fan. I live in the wall of the old Ayrton Saunders complex on Duke Street in Liverpool.
My rusty blades spin around and around in the wind and you can see right through me.
I used to have a motor to spin me around when I lived inside. I made the wind
I was an important fan too. I fanned the people that made the medicines in the building I was fitted in.
But then they moved away and switched me off and I fanned no more.
Till they knocked down the walls in front of me and I moved again, in the wind, though there’s nothing for me to fan anymore so it’s all a bit pointless.
I’m very old now. I was made in England you know. Most fans are foreign now so they would not understand me if I spoke to them.
But there isn’t any fans round here to talk to anyway, just the pipe. He used to be important too – part of the complicated machinery – but now he’s just a broken pipe.
He’s a bit of a knobhead too if the truth be told but he’s my only friend.
They left us alone for a long while when everyone moved away. And things just fell away around me and decayed. I began to rust away too and bits fell off me.
Some people came to look at my home with interest, but not many. Most people just walked through quickly if at all.
Then things began to change. They started to do-up some of the other buildings around my home.
Then they opened an art gallery next door and lots of arts and media people came around to talk bollocks to each other.
At least someone was there though.
But then they went away and some diggers came and dug all around my home and I feel that soon they will knock down the wall I live in like I did with the other one.
And then I’ll be gone, the pipe too, 60 years old and no one to mourn me. It’s been an interesting life though I suppose. I’ve seen a lot changes, but there is no place for me to spin around in the new Liverpool. Oh well.
Kenn Taylor 