IN just two days, an iconic feature of Westbury’s skyline will be erased forever.

To some, the 122-metre chimney is nothing more than a tall piece of concrete, but to many others it represents something far more poignant and significant, with its removal marking the end of an era.

The latter applies to perhaps nobody more so than Gill Orcheston, 75, of Elm Grove in Westbury, who would not have met her late husband, Wilf Bailey, if it were not for the chimney.

She said: “Wilf was working as a steeplejack when he came down from Sunderland to work on the Westbury chimney in 1964 and he lodged in the town.

“I was coming out of the social club in Trowbridge one night when I bumped into him - if it weren't for the chimney, I wouldn't have met him."

“He asked me when the last train back to Westbury was and I told him that it had already departed, so we ended up walking all the way back to Westbury together.

“We talked the whole way and the rest, as they say, is history – we married in Luton in 1965.

“Watching him climb those structures so high up was terrifying, it was a very dangerous job. My niece and nephew used to call him and his workmates ants because they looked so small up there.

“I really don’t want the chimney to come down and I would love to have a piece of it which I can keep in my garden to remember it forever."

Mr Bailey died of cancer on August 14, 1989. The couple had one child and the family has since grown to include three grandchildren and three great grandchildren, with a fourth on the way.

He worked for Mitchell Construction, whose major projects included the Chapelcross Power Station in 1959, The Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor at Sellafield 1962 and Fawley Power Station at Southampton in 1962, before integrating into Tarmac Construction in 1973 following financial difficulties.