What Lies Beneath Rattlechain Lagoon?

Or (at least some of them do).  🙁 

As stated a couple of blog posts ago, I set out to raise certain issues with those standing at the local elections standing in the Great Bridge, and Oldbury wards in Sandwell. The Rattlechain lagoon and Temple Way Estate are located in the latter, with Sheepwash Nature Reserve lying in the former. I have low optimism in politicians generally based on past experience, or would be ones, and I am afraid that this pessimism has not really lifted as a result of this little experiment.  👿

I WOULD ALSO STATE THAT I HAVE NO PARTY POLITICAL ALLEGIANCES, HAVE NEVER BEEN A MEMBER OF ANY POLITICAL PARTY, AND HAVE NO DESIRE TO EVER JOIN ONE EITHER. 

Issues surrounding site allocations for new housing I have discussed several times, and the opposition to the so called “garden City” was noted in a petition handed in to SMBC in 2017 against the allocation of houses in the Dudley Port Supplementary planning document. This opposition is still very much in force, and we want it removed!

The declarations as to who are standing in these wards for the May 6th vote is now out, which consists of 1 Conservative Party candidate in both wards, 1 Labour Party candidate in Great Bridge/Labour/Co-Op in Oldbury,  1 Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition candidate in Oldbury, and an Independent candidate in Great Bridge.

Following publication , I reached out to the six candidates standing, three in each ward, whom are listed below.

I contacted three of them via social media email addresses (see below), but the other three, including the serving councillor seeking re-election for Great Bridge proved more elusive, so I wrote to her via the contact address in Tipton listed on the SMBC CMIS website.

The other two candidates I wrote to via their election agents, as listed on the SMBC notice of election agents.

Will Gill, Nathan Poole (Conservatives), and Rizwan Jalil (Labour) were sent the following PDF which contains some questions at the end of it. This PDF is a small history of rattlechain lagoon and also the adjoining land which has a separate history of its own, and one notes the “misery” that was spoken of by residents of Temple Way when protracted “reclamation” works endured for over ten years on that site.

Letter to candidates. Stop the garden City ruining sheepwash

It also looks at the “need” for housing evidence in the area, or lack of it, and makes the connection that any attempts to build on despoiled land would have an unbearable affect on the residents of Temple Way, as well as on the nature corridor of Brades Hall/Birmingham Canal and Sheepwash itself.

I wrote to Ann Jarvis as stated, and to the election agents listed of Sandeep Singh and Richard Gingell, and invited them to make contact with me so that I could give them the same opportunity as the other three in answering what their position was on this topic by sending them the same PDF electronically. I gave them all a time limit for publication of 30/4/21.

I would stress that I offered ALL fair billing, without editing or censure or bias, in response to the questions, and I hope that in publishing the responses which I have received , as well as screenshots of the replies that one can see that I have been true to my word. 

Unfortunately, grass roots local issues such as this get lost in the  party political campaign dogma of the National position, but this commentator and campaigner does not agree with such use of LOCAL elections for these purposes. I would also add that in the past I have seen many a party political campaign leaflet that are identical to the next ward, save for a short candidate bio. It would be refreshing for a change to see a leaflet produced entirely by the candidate, with their own ideas for the area they want to represent, and not one imposed upon them by higher command or some puppet master running for higher position. This is just a personal view, but perhaps constructive criticism for the future.

Here is a list of the questions posed in the PDF, with relevant links.

1 A petition of over 400 names was handed in to Sandwell council opposing the designation of building houses in this area, by local residents of the Temple Way estate and users of Sheepwash local nature reserve. Do you support the building of houses on the piece of land next to a still classified hazardous waste site and built on top of another historic landfill site, or do you back the local residents and campaigners against such a proposal and will speak up on their behalf to remove it from Sandwell’s site allocations in the Black Country Core strategy review?

2. Please read again the following post about events which occurred in the 1990’s , and in particular the letters of local residents to Sandwell Council planners concerning this site and how regulators failed them and the environment by allowing the blight to continue for years. As a local councillor, what would you have said to council officers in respect of this situation at that time, and do you think it acceptable that such a scheme could occur again?

“Misery” at Temple Way | What Lies Beneath Rattlechain Lagoon?

3 These land titles were registered in Jersey in 2003 for a mere £5,000, yet reportedly sold in 2018 to a company based in Hampton In Arden for £1.5 million. There are a number of such sites in our area registered in tax havens such as this which lie dormant for many years only to appear to magically reregister in the UK with the advent of tax payer funded cash schemes such as those operated by the WMCA to “clean up” abandoned sites where the polluter did not pay to clean them up. What are your thoughts on this? Should the polluter pay, or the tax payer?

(more on this to come in an upcoming blogpost ED)

4 Please read again the following post concerning the loss of data concerning the right to know “What’s in your backyard”.

Do you think it right that local residents are being denied the right to
such information, and as councillor will you campaign to make such data more accessible to the public via the council website? See for example Dudley’s planning website which lists historic landfill sites and maps them out.

Why is it so hard to unearth what’s in your backyard? – Eyes of the
World (dannyhalpin.com)

5 I would invite you to give a short statement about your credentials in respect of environmental and wildlife issues. Are these matters important to you and what would you do to protect sites like Sheepwash and surrounding wildlife corridor areas?

RESPONSES GREAT BRIDGE CANDIDATES

WILL GILL (CONSERVATIVE) emailed on 11/4/2021

A response (of sorts) received on 28/4/21. 

“Hi, Ian, 

Many thanks for your email. It has been received.  It has been read and appreciated by myself and the candidate for Oldbury Nathan. We truly appreciate your time formulating this document and recognise your care for the reserve. May I ask who has responded to this so far? If you could inform me of this at your earliest convenience.

Regards

Will Gill

Conservative Candidate for Great Bridge. “

I received nothing further, despite emailing that two other candidates for Oldbury had responded up to that point.

ANN JARVIS (LABOUR) Wrote to home address 13/4/21 inviting opportunity to send PDF on obtaining direct email correspondence address. 

NO RESPONSE WHATSOEVER RECEIVED. 

SANDEEP SINGH (INDEPENDENT) Wrote to listed election agent on 13/4/21 inviting opportunity to send PDF on obtaining direct email correspondence address

NO RESPONSE WHATSOEVER RECEIVED

RESPONSES OLDBURY CANDIDATES

RIZWAN JALIL (LABOUR AND CO-OPERATIVE ) , emailed on 11/4/2021. Email response received 13/4/2021

NATAHN POOLE (CONSERVATIVE) emailed on 11/4/2021

NO RESPONSE WHATSOEVER RECEIVED

So there you have it, and please feel free to quiz said candidates further on the matter if you should see them. I think that this was a worthwhile and productive exercise and there needs to be more of this type of forum at local level to flesh out issues of concern.

I will not tell people who they should vote for, (and people can judge the quality of responses from the candidates as they see fit), except to say, that if someone cannot even be bothered to engage with their electorate in this way, when asked specific questions on a specific local issue, and that all responses received, (as seen), have been published in full as promised, then why the hell should they expect anyone to vote for them on May 6th? 

I myself will be voting against the position of Mayor of the West midlands, as it is an undemocratic role , as is that of the Police and Crime Commissioner, where I will be voting for the only non party political candidate Julie Hambleton. 

The obscurity of the location of Rattlechain lagoon was always part of the problem. Set in a post war era as part of a “tipping area” with very few houses around, it may well have made it a “suitable” location at that time. But then some planning berks decided to create an estate off The Dudley Road, and so this has continued to expand on former agricultural land.

Panoramic view from 1950 showing Rose Lane marked in red. To the left The Rattlechain brickworks and Rattlechain lagoon, the Tividale sewage works, and bottom left, The Vono Lagoon.

The most noticeable feature of the site for many years was the long discharge pipe jutting out into the centre of the lake. When i first laid eyes on it many years ago, the first thing that i thought of was the fabled “Iraqui super gun”. 

I just wonder of the same Sheffield manufacturers made both?

Tanker discharging waste into lagoon in 2001

The method of disposal and “site procedures” , as stated by the site operators can be read HERE, and note the commentary on this as most of their tale was a deception then, as it remains now with regards to what they were actually doing. (And see photograph from 1994 at the bottom of this post which demonstrates this point).

Before the demise of this turquoise metal structure, which ironically attracted birds to the site, I took this video as an archive  reminder of its existence for posterity. It can be viewed on the facebook page for this website below.

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Despite attempting to remove their apparatus from the site in 2013 as part of the cover up works which I looked at HERE , Rhodia/Solvay have never removed the toxic legacy of what lies beneath and what was discharged from it.

A second video from Christmas 2009 shows the effects of this said operation and what happens when wildfowl are poisoned by waste such as that being disposed of in this site. As stated before, it was never “safe”, and it was never a “small amount” that was dumped there.

Facebook

I have recently stumbled across a rather important picture in the public domain dated from 1994. It shows the position of what was occurring at the site at this time, with a tanker set up in the so called “beach area”. The large pipe in the centre of the shot is there, but not apparently being used.

In the background we see evidence of the abysmal foundry sand so called “reclamation” going on which caused “misery” for many years to local residents of the Temple Way Estate. Of course this would also illicit the removal of the former Tividale Sewage works for housing, which was granted on appeal in 2004.

This tale of two tips is important to knowing their entirely separate histories, and their total incompatibility with filling a large watery hole with a great mound of sand.

I would also add that whatever the tanker driver was doing in this picture, and you can clearly see that liquid waste is being discharged from a hosepipe, AND NOT CONNECTED TO ANY PIPE, it does not match what is described in the rattlechain site procedures, and I cannot offer any explanation or defence as to what was going on here.

We know historically that one driver had “used their initiative” and unloaded barrels which caught fire when this method was still being applied in 1989– in this very same area. Perhaps this was another example , but what effect would this have had on leaving said waste above the water level, and likely to dry out, let alone be ingested by dabbling wildfowl? 

Toxic Lagoon And Tip. Photograph by Robert Brook/science Photo Library (fineartamerica.com)

The camera does not lie. Only some site operators views of history do. 

Toxic Lagoon And Tip. Photograph by Robert Brook/science Photo Library (fineartamerica.com)

I am no fan of politicians of any variety. They appear out of hibernation in December before a May election and preach how things will be better if they are elected.

This year locally in the English West Midlands, we get both council elections delayed from last year, plus the pointless Mayor and Police and Crime Commissioner polls thrown in. The latter two positions have no mandate for their creation by the public, and there does not appear to be any mechanism for removing this shackle of tax payer burden either. If the candidates had the b 😛 llocks to allow a “scrap this position” on the ballot paper then I would bother to vote.

Unfortunately, there really is no difference between any of the Mayoral candidates when it comes to brownfield building. I have called out current mayor Andy Street before for his “brownfield first” agenda , which offers nothing for those who live around such sites, particularly historic landfill sites, except disruption, exposure to long buried hazardous dusts and chemicals , and the eventual prospect of lack of services, increased density of population and loss of green space. His “brownfield” are our green spaces, or those which have the potential to become the nature reserves of tomorrow with sensitive and limited management. Unfortunately, what you will probably get from a development in such areas are plenty of houses with  a “tree lined boulevard” or hedgerow thrown in as some form of “mitigation”. Effectively, litter traps where the new neighbourhood dogs can have a piss.

I looked at the Government’s abysmal planning reform white paper, and how this “developer’s charter” if approved makes the prospect of having no green space left in our area even easier if you are deemed to be in a “growth” area. Growth that is by developers and the construction industry laying their cuckoo eggs on our soiled soil.

The West Midlands County is tiny compared to the surrounding counties, yet the population is greatly in excess. The rich keep it that way  with their “greenbelt” agenda.

Locally, the unelected West Midlands Combined Authority, a poor man’s reinvention of the West Midlands County Council and “The Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership”, a new name for the The Black Country Development Corporation is being handed obscene amounts of tax payers money for the house building “clean up” of toxic sites. There is even a £17.5m new building being built in Wolverhampton called the “National Brownfield Institute.” Again we pay for this, when the polluters of the said land never did. 

According to this gushing article, this building will  “be home to a state-of-the-art research and innovation centre and will feature commercial testing facilities and lab space.

It will also house a national policy institute which will inform and guide future strategy development around brownfield regeneration, give specialist advice on dealing with contaminated land and repurposing buildings and sites and look at new and innovative construction methods such as modular housing.”

“Specialist advice” from whom? This is a private sector body created using public money, and also funded by public money to pay for land that was abandoned, or from which serial polluters like Severn Trent Water PLC can flog off for their shareholder profit. WHY THE HELL SHOULD WE PAY FOR THIS, AND, DID I MISS THAT DEBATE? 

Around Rattlechain lagoon there is an evil air stirring on “Mount Doom” that has been buried for some years, a “sleepless malice” with the renewed prospect of more built development. Nothing escapes my eye, and I have been monitoring it for some time, as have local residents, and I will be reporting soon on this.

In this regard, I will be asking questions of those standing in Sandwell in the wards of Oldbury– which contains the lagoon and surrounding area, but also Great Bridge which locates Sheepwash local Nature Reserve– which is under increasing threat of such developments on its border. Every candidate standing in these wards will be contacted and asked the same questions and invited to make comment without editing.

It is important at these elections that people voice their opposition to housing being targeted on open space and the very worst historic landfill sites adjoining their homes and the direct threats that “remediation” of these pose. Once the greenspace is gone, it will never be replaced. You should not be left with no open space because green belt votes are considered more important. Use your vote wisely. 

#STOP THE GARDEN CITY

The artist formally known as “the tramp phosphorus” has recently been inspired to take up painting of his surroundings using the wet on wet tip technique. What else can he do after being locked down by the flocculant?

The mountainous foundry sand greened landscapes to the horizon, the flurry of critters scampering through the bushes and the swish of birds wings through the murky lagoon waters- what inspiration.

On a recent wet tip tutorial, he demonstrated to a gang of cormorants his recollections of the waste pipe that used to jut out into the depths of the hazardous waste site discharging liquid laced with milky white happy little phosphorus particles. Of course, there was much to recall layered and smeared on the marl canvas already.

One diorama showed the symmetry of the two lagoons and dividing causeway path, well one lagoon needed a friend.  😆

Said tramp to his captive audience

“Take some titanium white and blend it with a little cad yellow phosphorus, and blend it back. There we go, right over there, here and everywhere. Mix it up, scrub it in,  tiniest little circles, tiniest little circles , grab it and pull, grab it and pull…..”

A stunning result

“And now the fun part of it…. wash the old brush using odourless paint thinner…..shake off the excess…. and beat the devil’s element out of it.”

And for his pièce de résistance, Tramp painted a birds eye view of the lagoon…

“You could add a happy little palm tree going right off the canvas. Mix some Prussian blue and Vandyke brown….have a foundry sand mountain that lives here….there we go…A few distant evergreen trees and some happy little clouds of phosphorus pentoxide… and I think that’s ready for a signature…..

One is reminded of the mantra of Albright and Wilson. “We don’t make mistakes, we just have happy little accidents.”

“Until next time… happy tainting, and God bless.”

No critters were harmed during the making of this blog post, unlike the dozens poisoned in this former brick work clay pit filled with a banned rat poison in suspension. 

The notorious Rattlechain lagoon , a local hazardous waste dump with a very murky secret has at last gone national!

Why-is-it-so-hard-to-unearth-whats-in-your-backyard_

The ENDS report is a brilliant publication and can be subscribed to HERE. 

I must thank Danny Halpin, a keen young investigative journalist for his time and effort in uncovering a large body of information that many authorities would like to remain buried- particularly the construction industry and those crowing for the “brownfield first” building agenda.

The article references some of the struggles that I had, particularly early on in attempting to find out why many birds were dying on this lake, which would go on to be accurately described as “a lake of death”.  

I bore direct witness to the suffering of birds who were unfortunate enough to land on this backwater dump, surrounded by canals and adjacent to a nature reserve, and nothing but obstacles were put in my way by multiple Governmental agencies in attempting to find out the real cause of death.

This was of course , white phosphorus, (P4), a banned rat poison, which perversely, was still allowed to be dumped at sites like this in considerable amounts. This had happened for years, despite even in the 1950’s local authorities knowing that it was “a peril to children”, but still it continued, and then became even worse sanctioned by a paperweight waste disposal licence that was not worth the paper it was printed on.

The idea that this highly toxic and poisonous waste could be dumped in the open air was flawed to start with, and those who considered it “safe” to do so, as the waste management application suggested should have been made to ingest it, along with the fools who believed the “science” of these reckless fraudulent liars operating out of Oldbury.

When applying for a waste disposal licence to The West Midlands county council in 1978, Albright and Wilson had the audacity to make false claims about the “safe” disposal of “small quantities” of this dangerous banned rat poison by claiming that “natural oxidation” would deal with it.

In the ENDS article, Rhodia/Solvay still cling to the deception of percentages of the total waste, but this was dismissed when I asked the EA for the records of how much waste had been deposited since licensing, which can be read here. These quantities do not include the many tonnes of waste dumped for the 30 preceding years before this, when this company were also a Ministry of Supply phosphorus munitions producer in WW2 making the stuff that unleashed a firestorm on Dresden and Hamburg. The wastes of war had to go somewhere, and a satellite waste dump down the road was the answer.

Rhodia also made statements to another national newspaper journalist some time ago, admitting that there were “tens of tonnes” of white phosphorus buried within the waste- when you look at it like that, the 0.1% they claim is perhaps put into a better context and not the disingenuous bunkum that they are trying to peddle.

Milligram quantities are enough to poison people, as well as the unfortunate birds that I myself pulled from the water on several occasions.

It is quite apparent however from Danny’s investigation via ENDS that Rattlechain lagoon is one of many sites that have been forgotten like this around the UK, or perhaps deliberately buried for corporate benefit, and secured by industrial friendly politicians who even in the past have been known to be paid “policy advisors” for such.

The case of young Zane Gbangbola and his Dad’s efforts to uncover the wall of silence and denials is one that I too recognise, and I am sure that there are many other environmental campaigners across the country, and throughout the world who have also been side lined by corporate denial and Governmental ignorance in the same way.  Read about the family’s story HERE on their website, I firmly believe after looking into this that a perverse injustice has been served here, and I wish them well in uncovering a truth that I believe will one day be admitted.

You have to wonder with all of the joined up denials and attempts to silence by those in local Government and national agencies to whom these civil “servants” serve ?

The What’s in your backyard EA website, and the manner in which it was removed from public view, I have looked at in This FoI request. What it was replaced with, and the amount of info that has now been obscured with is really not worth bothering with, as the ENDS article suggests.

The quote from Professor Andrew Watterson   is again something which I recognise fully. This applies to the sites around rattlechain lagoon where housing has been progressively developed over the years, leaving the watery toxic waste hole in situ without dealing with it first, and by that I don’t mean filling it in.

I will be going into painstaking detail about this no doubt in the coming months to years, and have already prepared multiple pages and posts after unearthing vast quantities of desk buried information from various sources. Developers may be increasingly finding it easy to build on such sites through manipulation of the planning process, but I promise them the mother of all battles with them attempting to pull the wool over people’s eyes as to the historic legacy buried at these “shovel ready” sites. 

This is another very weird tale of how to treat a longstanding white phosphorus burn from the early 20th century. The same story appears to have been syndicated in a variety of titles that I have come across, though I take this one from the 16th December 1904 Ashbourne News Telegraph. 

At this point in time, P4 was being phased out of matchmaking due to the dangerous nature of the substance and its poisoning of very young women in particular in the matchmaking industry.

This story from America involves another youngster, but we are not told as to how he came by the injury. I am not sure if “Cornelius Post” was his name, or if the comma in the article refers to the story coming from a newspaper by this name in the New York area?  

The grotesque and cruel method used to treat the burn on his leg was to place a live rabbit on the burn in some bizarre skin graft operation. They could have course have just used some stuff off his own arse, instead of inflicting such an ordeal on the poor thumper. I cannot see how the life of the rabbit would possibly have been saved, or even the boy himself. Thank goodness this type of “surgery”  never caught on.

I feel a song coming on……….

“How could the leg that burned so brightly, suddenly burn so pale- Bright Eyes.”

Published just a day after the laughable comments of works manager Ian Woodhouse’s statement that there would be an “extremely unlikely event” of a major incident being declared at this Top Tier COMAH site, this Sandwell Evening Mail piece from 16th January 1992 shows that there was just that.

Once again, The Trinity Street terrorists toxic assault chemical of choice was white phosphorus. P4 being delivered into the works by rail had caught fire. The amount being carried was 50 tonnes, an extraordinary volume of such a dangerous substance being delivered into an urban area. The “irritant white chemical” was of course oxidising phosphorus- phosphorus pentoxide.  This chemical is also toxic. 

The early morning drama saw both the A&W part timers joining forces with the professionals.

Once again, Woodhouse tries to play down the incident and again directly lies that phosphorus pentoxide is not toxic.

Phosphorus pentoxide is “toxic”. It is a COSSH substance hazardous to health.

The Public Health England Guidance on white phosphorus incident management 2016 makes it specifically clear in its key points, that the oxides arising from uncontrolled releases of white phosphorus are “toxic”.

And this was certainly known to these producers of white phosphorus in 1992.

He also makes the  ludicrous guess that he “thinks” the fumes had dispersed before they reached the site boundaries- so therefore he attempts to connive that there was no off site release. Of course, this was as the Environment agency report from 1997 states, directly linked to his personal bonus scheme as works manager.

What were local residents supposed to make of such senior officials at this chemical factory when they made such verbose statements of untruthful information about their daily activities? What confidence could they have in living next to a site which handled such large amounts of dangerous flammable chemicals which gave off toxic gases when exposed to air? Would their “safety cards” that had been delivered by the company in a PR exercise protect them? It had however been The Albright and Wilson way for many decades, as this blog has repeatedly demonstrated through direct evidence. 

Albright and Wilson were a company that revelled in its manufacture of  dangerous chemicals that they attempted to turn into “everyday” household items used by Joe Public. Some early examples of this I have looked at HERE. This laughable exercise unfortunately didn’t apply to these gas lighters and their hazardous waste sites, like Rattlechain lagoon.

Thus an example here was given in the 15th January 1992 Sandwell Evening Mail with the very ominous, and also highly prophetic “Chemical Plant Danger Alert.” 

A public relations exercise involved them distributing an information pack within the then 2km safety zone, when chlorine and phosphorus were still being delivered by rail into the works. I have looked in the previous post as to why this was a very bad idea!

“The safety card warned of the possible hazards from the accidental release of toxic chlorine, phosphine or phosphorus, which can cause breathing difficulties. “

In this article, we see that the incompetent liar Peter Bloore had obviously got the chop as works manager after a series of incidents involving the very thing that his successor appears oblivious to in this piece.

Ian Woodhouse states “It is simply a question of fulfilling our obligations to our neighbours , ensuring that they are fully informed about the action they should take in the extremely unlikely event of a major emergency at our plant”

I would have to state that the man appears to be on a different planet here, as the “extremely unlikely event” he talks of had happened repeatedly- and here is a little reminder through the following evidential blog posts of past incidents at Trinity Street, and their decennium horribilis, some involving the very chemicals mentioned in this story.

Albright’s toxic archives #14 -Chlorine gassed | What Lies Beneath Rattlechain Lagoon?

Albright’s toxic archives #25 – Oldbury’s Firemen Shams- not Albright on the night. | What Lies Beneath Rattlechain Lagoon?

Albright’s toxic archives #26 Phosphine under pressure | What Lies Beneath Rattlechain Lagoon?

Albright’s toxic archives #27- Bloore’s bad gas | What Lies Beneath Rattlechain Lagoon?

Albright’s toxic archives #28 A cloud over Oldbury #1 | What Lies Beneath Rattlechain Lagoon?

Albright’s toxic archives #29 A cloud over Oldbury #2 | What Lies Beneath Rattlechain Lagoon?

Albright’s toxic archives #30 Bloore’s sesquisulphide mismatch | What Lies Beneath Rattlechain Lagoon?

I rest my case, except to state that other incidents at Portishead, Avonmouth, and fatally abroad at their Charleston plant in the US, show this company for what they really were in the 1990’s and towards demise.  

The timing of this warning from Ian Woodhouse was quite unbelievable , as the very next day, there would indeed be an incident involving the release of toxic phosphorus, which I will examine in the next post. He must have been having a laugh when he said “extremely unlikely event”.

Nice one Woody.

Perhaps this tune hooked up to the air raid siren speakers would have been a better reflection of their “general alarm” warning system to their residential neighbours.  😆

 

Blimey, I thought the pompous self serving councillors at Oldbury had been a one off in their self promotion using a National event , but I was wrong, as it appears that their near neighbours at Rowley Regis were at it too in June 1953!

I have to state that I know less about this short lived dominion than that of Oldbury, but it is important given that at this point in time it encompassed The Rattlechain Brickworks area, and of course by now, the Albright and Wilson toxic waste dump of Rattlechain lagoon. Indeed, we see how rotten a borough it was by virtue of the crooked brickworks Barnett family involvement earlier in the Century as an “urban district”, notably Samuel and then his son William as “local councillors”.

I have acquired another “souvenir brochure” artefact concerning the Coronation of Elizabeth 2nd , this time covering Rowley Regis and it is a Maj macguffin that has been fairly well fingered at nearly 70 years old. This A5 pamphlet weighs in at 40 pages.

We get straight into the Rowley “royalty” before the actual monarch to whom the event relates.  😆

“The opportunity has also been taken to record something about the present-day administration of the borough and its civic regalia.” Yes I bet it was. 

😮

This prologue states that this Municipal borough was formed in 1933.

We then get just 8 pages about the principle characters and the ceremony itself at Westminster Abbey. I don’t intend commenting on this, as it is of little interest to myself or this blog, but feel free to click if you are a fan of the Windsors.

And then to the interesting part, and as with Oldbury, the attempted link to the monarchy with the list of the councillors who made up the council. All male except for one Polly Pritchard. Some of these names I have come across in looking at issues in Rattlechain later in the decade, which I will talk about further on in this post.

I’ve scanned the side wards picture right way up.

And enter the bureaucrats, again all men except for the tea lady by a souped-up name.

A picture of the council house is shown. This building was demolished in 2012.

Image from wikipedia.

More expensive phallic regalia is shown on pages 18 and 19. The gavels connection to “masonic orders” is another red flag as to how these boroughs were run.

The centre pages reveal that “loyal and industrious” is the motto of the borough, but I’m not sure where the loyalty is directed to. Perhaps “loyal” to the industrialists who ran the borough for their own ends? There is also a potted history of the area with as usual the only notable statements being about rich families and industrialists.

It is revealed that there was a coronation committee headed by some old bloke Alderman with a resemblance to Albert Tatlock. Bizarrely they think it a good idea to site a children’s play area on top of contaminated land to mark the occasion! On further pages we are told that even this has some connection to a former councillor, such is the symbiotic relationship between those who bought their way into power.

There is the involvement in the affair of The Vono works, as well as others. A masonic lodge also appears to be in on the act, I just wonder how many of the councillors were active members?

The very British idea of street parties and jelly and custard and fun and games appear to be very prominent here.

The event occurred at a time when the monarchy commanded more respect than it does today, but I’m not really sure why. Events would last a whole week, and even an event in Haden Hill Park in July.

This runs neatly into an appreciation of this park building, again named after another singular wealthy family. There’s more info on this if you’re interested HERE.

A history board of the house and park is also on display in the park today.

The booklet is then given over to several advertisements for local trades. No doubt the councillor Shakespeare on the council had some direct connection to the Joseph Shakespeare company.

And to round it off pair of weapons.

Some of the councillors at this time have cropped up in articles and planning matters that I have seen when looking for information about Rattlechain and the wider local area. The civil servant S.G. Wood appears at a meeting in 1961 about The Vono works and their tipping area.

Rattlechain lagoon and its white phosphorus contents itself arrived on the Rowley radar in 1957 in a very interesting article “peril to children”.

Councillor Noah Edward Thorne, speaks out here about the fact that children could cause themselves great harm with a pool filled with white phosphorus waste.

Councillors Edward Wakeman, and Dennis Gilbert (subsequently Alderman), were critical of the smell that rattlechain was causing and which was detrimental to public health in this article from 1958.

But that said, obviously something happened in Rowley Regis to turn a blind eye to this and allow the “quakers” to keep on dumping their poison waste in their borough. Money no doubt changed hands here to buy silence, I have little doubt, or a trouser leg roll up and funny handshake were employed to good effect.

In 1966, the borough of Rowley Regis merged with the boroughs of Oldbury and Smethwick  to form the “Warley County Borough”, and became part of Worcestershire.

Eight years later, in 1974, on the formation of the West Midlands Metropolitan county, Warley merged with West Bromwich to form the Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council. Rowley Regis is now one of its so called “six towns”, and is perhaps best known virally for a single Street in keeping with a tone promoting pomp and circumstance, and also the berks in its charge.

In the course of investigating the Rattlechain lagoon story and its many historical facets, I have come across a collection of material as a collector of antiquities. Much of this has been about the vile polluters of Albright and Wilson, but the story of their facilitators in local Governance and their “society of friends” is also worthy of note . It reveals a great deal in how these circles of corruption operated and how certain businesses prospered in this web. Unfortunately, it is still ongoing today amongst the political class, with family dynasties operating out of civic society.

There is nothing more than these actors enjoy than an event, and there is also no doubt that one of the most prominent in Britain in the 20th Century was the Coronation of the Queen in 1953. In a post war Britain, this unfortunately served as some form of major “celebration.”  🙄

I will say from the offset that I despise the Royal family as a Republican, their monetary wealth and favour and their “sporting” activities which involve the mass slaughter of wildlife, both home and abroad. The coercive control that this aristocracy has, and its interwoven links with academia and the civil service make me puke.

I had no interest in buying the macGuffin item in this post for commemorative value or souvenir of the maj’s big day, but because I thought it would wield more interesting info on the political players in the former now defunct Rotten borough of Oldbury. For a tenner, I was not disappointed.

This brochure was supposedly put out to commemorate the Coronation, but as I have already alluded, the political players just love to jump on a bandwagon, and by their very nature, association with the ruling class. It was not a surprise therefore to discover that most of the booklet IS ABOUT THEM AND THEIR ROTTEN POLITICAL BOROUGH, and not the Queen herself!  Of course, Oldbury and the West Midlands have fuck all to do with the London centric Windsors, but why should that stop a bunch of trumpet blowing arsehole amateur politicians? There are several familiar names which stand out from the most interesting time of when “The Oldbury smell” took place, which now give faces to those behind the story. 

I will take you through this pamphlet page at a time. Click on the pictures for enlargements.

Right from the get go we get the pompous prick Samuel Melsom set out his credentials. Melsom is strongly associated with appeasing Albright and Wilson and even speaking for them in their defence in connection with the health issues and problems that they inflicted on the people of Oldbury. He was no doubt a shill of theirs, but one of several on this rotten borough.

I bet Lizzy was truly thankful that Oldbury was on hand to help out with the post war issues and “perplexing problems”- I mean this specimen was unable to fix the smell of cat piss in his own neighbourhood, so how he or others like him would be able to offer any hope or help in tackling the pressing issues of the day in the wider country, God only knows. 🙄

We are given a history lesson of this clan and its peerage.

Followed by a two page biography of the lady in question

Then another biography  on Nick The Greek and his inflated military career- promotion by his missis.

And that is that about the actual event, with the next 12 pages all about the rotten borough of Oldbury. Of course, what they attempt here is an example of linkage of history, to which there is none whatsoever. It does this by the use of repetition of words- for example by suggesting that the name itself is of Anglo Saxon origin. Mind you, I never knew that about Quinton, though it does remind me of my Chaucer and The Miller’s Tale where he caught her  “by the queynte”. I’m not sure if the Greek Prince may have offered a similar suit to George the stutterers eldest.  😀

“Manors” , and “Lords” , are intertwined with the desperate narrative that the borough was switched counties in the reigns of William IV and Queen Victoria by Acts of Parliament. They also throughout the booklet put the logo of Oldbury at the top of the page, with the Queen’s initials anchoring the page, and bordered by a purple regal glow. These are all political brainwashing techniques, with a white central hue of text filling the space where the Queen’s portrait appears on pages two and four. A subtle, but clever visual illusion trick to make you believe that there is some form of royal link with the tarnished town.

Of course , it isn’t long before we get the inevitable bigging up of the chemical industry in this area.

“…and in the middle of the century saw the start of the phosphorus works which have achieved international reputation……”  😕 

The only reputation that this stinking polluter had locally was that of its abysmal pollution, but this airbrushing out of reality is what the scum like Melsom were all about. The birth of his rotten borough in 1935 is also linked directly with the weasel faced Wilson family of the chemical factory.

What then follows is two pages of absolute shite pr about how great the borough is run and what it has to offer. There is the subtle mention of “well known families” who have donated pieces of land for parks.

“In 1928, the corporation purchased the Brandhall Golf course which is now run municipally. it is an interesting 18- hole golf course of 6,054 yards and extends over 105 acres”– well not any more under Sandwell council  😆

The other character that I have a problem with is Andrew Carnegie and his library’s. As I have pointed out before, this do-gooder gave books that he wanted the poor to read, and thereby framing their ideas and beliefs, and omitting books which were against his own views. To this day the propaganda of “local history” in Oldbury is selective and uncritical of its industrial past and more attuned to the civic society white lives mattered most movement in terms of tradition and civic political life.

It is a sinister statement concerning planning matters that stands out in the penultimate paragraph, and one can see to this day that the same sheisters now in charge of this still rotten borough are following the same trodden path as those in the 1950’s.

“This scheme, which came into operation in 1936, enabled the growth of those parts of the borough covered by the scheme to be controlled and to follow an ordered pattern.”  The Worcestershire County Council is now the local planning Authority, but by a delegation agreement with the county, Oldbury continues to exercise control over development in the borough. “

Worcestershire County Council, is of course heavily associated with the Wilson family and Ken Wilson in particular, whose Uncle, John William Wilson was also an MP in the pocket borough for many years; at one election unopposed. So what we see from this “order” and “control” is the role out of the Quaker Garden City approach, with Worcestershire of course enjoying “control” and “order” from the centre, and the shite of Oldbury being the development playground where the local wing bitches like Samuel Melsom’s get to swagger as though in control for the Daddies running the prison from the centre.

The events planned for the borough are like some desperate Butlins tie in. They even allowed “public dancing” in the baths car park after dark!  😮

We also get unashamed propaganda gifts given out to children in the shape of mugs. Women over 65 and men over 70 got a tea caddy and half a pound of tea. Don’t drink it all at once dears. There was also a coronation day lottery of births being given a savings account.

“Let its ancient glory flourish”  😆  😆  😆 

Further on, another heraldry lesson showing once again the rotten boroughs links to the chemical industry controllers of the town- this is revealed that the civic tools of office, pointless devices like the mace and mayoral chains made of Silver and Gold were engraved with the names of those who wanted to stamp their control over the people. Written on these are the marks of Accles and pollock and of course Albright and Wilson. The Mayoral chain even bears the coat of arms of the Wilson family.

Such decadence and wealth are of course tied in with these scumbags earnings as councillors in the days when business could buy you a place as a legislator. Park donating and other such gifts were the way of ingratiating  such characters into prominence in the community. They literally “ran Oldbury”. Pictures of these tribal embossed boasts are shown further on towards the end of the booklet. See below.

And this has what to do with the Queen’s coronation?

The one interesting thing about this book are the old photos of what used to be. The cenotaph is still there in Oldbury, but the flower beds have gone to be replaced by the occasional scruffy market, and the Sainsbury’s behind it. The large row of shops in the background have also now of course gone, to be replaced with the new rotten borough of Sandwell’s council house.

And then perhaps the money shot and gamble as to why I bought the book, a picture of the  councillors and Aldermen wh0 made up the rotten borough. This Picture contains an over-tracing with positional names written over for identification. I have not scanned this, but instead numbered each person and recorded their names below the picture. All councillors unless otherwise stated.

1 A.E Lee  2  O Arkinstall      3  Mrs E.M.J Gunn  4B.H Tarr   5Mrs R Starkie       6  Alderman J.W Bright  7 E. Harold Chief sanitary inspector   8 A J R Blackman Borough Librarian    9 W Hayes 10 Mrs M. E Garratt 11 J.H.C Marsh Education officer 12 Alderman J W Holland 13 B I Taylor Housing Estates Manager 14 Alderman J F Goode 15 W R Wilkes Deputy Town Clerk 16 H Jonson Mace Bearer 17   Kenneth Pearce Town Clerk 18 Mayor Alderman S Melsom 19 Alderman G W Rose 20 W H Hunter 21 L W Carter 22 J Mitchell Borough treasurer 23 Alderman Ken Wilson 24  Dr H Tabbush Medical officer  25 DD C McGibbon 26 Alderman B T Robbins  27 A Gunn 28 J D Beard 29 C. B Beck Borough surveyor 30 Mrs E Pine 31 R Hobley Deputy Surveyor 32 F Cooper 33 A E Roberts 34 J W Jones 35 T Swallow 36 H Barrada 37  W Hollyoake 38 F W Thompson 39 W Carter 40 Mrs D.M Hollyoake

Of course there are instant observations to be made. All of senior years, all white, and only four women. There are also obviously two councillor couples of the same name. The incomparable Mrs Gunn who rarely for a councillor actually spoke out about “the Oldbury Smell” caused by Albright and Wilson is present, in this the very chamber where she would waive her withered bush in anger at the fall out of the Trinity Street operation .

We love you Mrs Gunn!

The pompous Melsom sits in the centre in his robes with the list of mayors behind him on the plaque. Nearby the rat faced Ken Wilson, perhaps the real organ grinder of this rotten borough still has influence via his “alderman” position. With his hands on the table, it is almost as if he wants to grab back the mace inches from them. What a c77t. 

On page 25, The pompous arse Melsom revels in his Mayoral regalia once again wearing his chain with a bunch of other assembled self important idiots. I’m not sure what the connection is to the other picture of a new housing development?

They also appear to be proud of their Langley baths

And Barnford Park.

Three further pages show off the previously mentioned civic regalia, just to rub it in for the hard pressed working class luddites.

The Carnegie Library is also linked to the Oldbury Grammar School.

The booklet is rounded off with the Mayoral board, showing the list of these scumbags starting with rattie Wilson and up to the then present incumbent Melsom, who subsequently appeared to have a spectacular fall from grace when he fell out with members of his own party. Seems a very modern day scenario that repeats itself that one in this most “socialist” of areas.  😆

The Queen and Phillip would themselves visit the area some 4 years later, and be received by Mrs Gunn’s husband Alf, who was now the mayor. I’m just glad that Melsom didn’t get his moment in the spotlight, and at least a fairly decent man did instead.

The rotten borough of Oldbury would have a further 13 years after the Coronation event before being merged with Smethwick and Rowley Regis, (similar), into the “Warley Borough”, and then of course in 1974 with the merger of West Bromwich, “Sandwell” was born, and it’s still as rotten as ever!