Methil power station that inspired Jack Vettriano classic comes crashing down
It’s massive silhouette dominated the east Fife skyline for nearly 50 years, becoming a landmark immortalised in a painting by Jack Vettriano, who grew up in its shadow. But the iconic Methil power station, situated on the edge of the River Leven, is no more, after explosives demolished it in a spectacular scene which drew thousands to witness it’s final moments.
“The power station at Methil is almost as old as I am. I can only have been about ten years old when it was built and like others who grew up around it, I ended up thinking it was oddly beautiful, having first thought of it as an ugly intrusion on the horizon.
All life was played out in the shadow of that tower..first bike rides, first cigarettes, first kisses. I remember it was in spitting distance from Johnny’s Bingo, where I spent much of my adolescence and really came into my own in the arenas of smoking, stealing and sex. The fairground used to come to that stretch of the promenade, so all my childhood memories have the shadow from that tower cast over them. It just became part of our landcape and much loved for that reason.
It was when my girlfriend of the time told me, back in 2005 I think, that there were plans to pull down the power station, that I started to reminisce and that the idea for ‘Long Time Gone’ came to me. I wanted to paint something to keep that image forever and to make the painting deliberately autobiographical. That’s me in the painting with Maggie, my girlfriend of the time. The title refers to my absence from Scotland as well as the fate that awaited the tower itself. It will be oddly missed.”
Jack Vettriano – June 2011
Go to the Jack Vettriano Official Page on Facebook to view video footage of the demolition of the chimney tower.