At first they bring out a wire screen as if the old house were to be put down, a fallen racehorse that cannot be seen to die; and then there are mechanical beaks that peck at the walls and window-frames and unpick memories of happy weeks or years someone once lived beneath the broken roof. Then trucks like a funeral procession carry away the rubble and tiles, waterproof no more. Another mechanical jaw comes to gouge at the earth, digging down through layers of fossil and ore as in an open-cut mine, before the gaping holes are filled again by…