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Video: Halling chimney is
demolished

One moment the chimney at Halling cement works towered over the
countryside, the next it was gone in an explosion of bricks and
mortar.

The Medway skyline was changed for ever when the 375ft tower at
the former plant came crashing to the ground at 11am on Sunday.

Hundreds of people - many gathered on the hills around the plant
- turned out for the demolition, part of work to dismantle the site
by owners Cemex.

The top half of the chimney crashed down in a haze of dust. The
whole of the structure was meant to fall to the ground, but some is
still left and will be destroyed manually.

Former Cemex employee Dave Dark pushed the plunger that
triggered the explosives after winning a Medway Messenger
competition.

The 39-year-old, who was made redundant from the firm last year,
said: "After I pushed the plunger nothing happened for about a
second, although it felt longer, then the explosives went off with
a bang."

The father-of-two, of Langdale Close, Rainham, now works for
South East Water. He had worked for Cemex for 12 years, as a cement
packer and then a bagging plant manager on the river side of the
plant.

He was selected through a text competition held in aid of the
Medway Messenger's charity of the year, the Friends of the Wisdom
Hospice.

The chimney took nine months to build, but fell to the ground in
just seconds - watched up close by the oldest former local employee
of the site, 84-year-old Reg Wretham.

It took 10kg of explosives to bring down the chimney, which was
built as part of improvement works to the site in 1976, in an event
dubbed the Blowdown.