Author Archives: swanny

Hot on the heels of how the continuing “Oldbury smell” had tainted chocolate in Birmingham come yet more newspaper articles from the brilliant British newspaper archive. In the report below from the Birmingham Post of 4th December 1957. This appears … Continue reading →

The former Tividale sewage works area off John’s Lane has a long and murky history, almost as filthy as the solids that once passed through it. This post looks at some of the developments that occurred up to its eventual demise … Continue reading →

  Albright and Wilson as a company and as two families engaged in chemical production making profit from an industry which poisoned animals and birds with their industrial pollution effluent. What is less well known about the founder families was their love … Continue reading →

So to the inevitable Sandwell cabinet head nod to their planning officers ludicrous “garden city” proposals, part of which includes building more houses next to rattlechain lagoon on  land still heavily contaminated itself as part of a housing allocation scheme. … Continue reading →

  A great man visited Sandwell  last Tuesday, The West Midlands Mayor Andy Street. The free event at the now festively decorated Oldbury Kremlin offered “A chance for residents of Sandwell and the wider West Midlands, to come and ask … Continue reading →

    Another in the continuing saga of “The Oldbury smell” – you just can’t keep that kitty down! I have previously outlined how this had all started in The Albright and Wilson Oil additives plant. This ongoing social menace … Continue reading →

There are so many layers comprised within the Rattlechain site and its history, and just when I thought I had got to the bottom of one aspect, up surprisingly pops another piece of the jigsaw which reveals a new set … Continue reading →

In a previous post I spoke about how one councillor had stood her ground and called out Albright and Wilson regarding their obscene pollution and smell blighting the local area of Oldbury. It’s just surprising she wasn’t replaced with a Stepford clone. … Continue reading →

  By 1957 people living locally in Langley had obviously been long suffering of a notorious “Oldbury smell”.  But before Mrs Gunn and her withered bush , it is clear from other articles published in the Birmingham Gazette that not only … Continue reading →

It is almost uniformly agreed, even amongst the shills and apologists of this longstanding industrial polluter that Albright and Wilson stank and pumped forth pollution so bad in terms of smell that it resembled the odour of cat piss. I … Continue reading →