Bridges and Bogeymen

Posted by noelbynature under Buildings and Monuments, Heritage Sites and Trails
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When you were a kid, did your parents invoke the bogeyman of construction workers who would steal children to use their blood to lay the foundations of buildings and structures? It was one of the stories my parents told (rather successfully) to keep us kids indoors at night, and it sounds like the case for Jerome too, as he talks about the Anderson and Cavenagh Bridges.

Not that the bridges really were built on the foundation of sacrificed children, mind you. Jerome writes:

There was of course other sinister stories that were then associated with bridges, albeit of a different kind. One that I remember very clearly was associated with the construction of road bridges or flyovers that were coming up in earnest in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as part of the efforts to improve the island’s road network. Then, many of us children lived in a constant fear fuelled by the constant rumours we heard of “head-hunters” seeking heads of young children to serve as a sacrifice to appease the spirits that may otherwise influence the success of a bridge construction project. I suppose these fears were probably unfounded – perhaps circulated by parents as a means to put the fear of kidnapping, which seemed to be quite a common occurrence then, in their children.

But all the talk of child sacrifice is just an aside to the real post, A secret that one of the bridges at the mouth of the river once hid… Hid what? you’ll have to find out by clicking the link!

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