Tilting at windmills, outside the Quarryman’s
Noel Harrison the actor, singer and former Olympic skier recently passed away. In my childhood, he accompanied April Dancer – ‘The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.’. But I will always remember him for singing that memorable Michel LeGrande/Alan & Marilyn Bergman song: ‘The Windmills Of Your Mind’. Used for the 1968 film: ‘The Thomas Crown Affair’.
It’s funny how some songs stick in your mind. This is especially so since the construction of a dozen massive wind turbines on the south-east side of Blackburn. These near 400 foot high monsters would be well-placed in one of my tall stories.
Not everybody is happy with them. Some local residents have had TV reception problems and others find them a blot on the landscape. But from my vantage point, outside my front door up Blackburn’s Revidge Hill, I find our new windmills a pleasure to behold and very therapeutic. It needs to be a reasonably clear day, without too much mist, and then I can see their sails going round when the wind blows. It’s even better on a sunny day. I can see flashes of sunshine as each sail turns. Considering they must be at least four miles away from my house, it is a brilliant sight.
Maybe wind farms are not the answer to our spiralling energy needs. But I’d sooner keep looking out my front door at a dozen working wind turbines, creating green renewable energy. No chance on Oswaldtwistle Moor of another potential Three Mile Island, Chernobyl or Fukushima waiting to send us into nuclear oblivion.
