Third world Britain of the 1970’s.
This article from the Sandwell Evening Mail of 23rd April 1977 shows how the control of substances hazardous to human health were not being dealt with by any reliable form of legislation but instead the safeguarding of communities unlucky enough with Bad neighbours like Albright and Wilson were reliant on the “early warning” system of one woman’s nostrils.
Of course, at this point in history, the stench from the Langley stink panther was the stuff of legend, and I do not mean myth. “The Oldbury smell” I have chronicled in several posts, and an overview of these can be read HERE.
1974 had seen The Flixborough disaster where 28 people died in a chemical explosion in Lincolnshire leading to the Health and Safety at Work Act , and two years later in Italy, the Seveso disaster. More kneejerk reaction followed this, and yet in 1984 we would see The Bhopal disaster as well. Living near to any chemical factory puts your health and life at greater risk, and that is a fact, whatever the chemical industry tries to lie otherwise.
We know of course the form for the works management scum at the Langley factory and their semantics and distortions of the truth, and this article appears to show the type of gaslighting that continues to the present day with this industry about health and safety. We know that Day’s successor, the ludicrous “Dr” Bloore, had a nose like Pinnochio.
Cissie Jones , I assume she is no longer with us unless you know otherwise, should be commended for her community spirit, like that of the terrier Mrs Gunn who took the fight to these phossy buggers back in the 1950’s over the blight to the local area. Unfortunately, it is fairly clear to me that an article like this was a propaganda piece for this company rather than a serious or credible story about the continued risk posed by the works. At this time, phosphorus and chlorine were still being delivered by rail, and there had been leaks and fires. A chlorine leak in 1974 for example had hospitalised several staff.
The “good neighbours committee”- what a terrible name implying somehow that this dire company were anything of the sort, was a vehicle which they could use for pretending that they cared or were listening. As I found out when attending such meetings where I raised concerns about bird deaths, it was merely a way of gauging what you knew about their shit, and getting nothing and no credible info back in return- such as the toxicity of fucking phosphorus.
The quarterly meetings referred to would no doubt give Pat Day the vehicle to bullshit about how wonderful AW were and tea and biscuits would be served. This type of personalised meeting would also offer the biggest moaners a chance to be neutralised in isolation, rather than dealing with the press outright, as Mrs Gunn had done in the early days. All of these matters were about psychology and nothing to do with chemistry.
Unfortunately, the gaslighting of poor Cissie is completed with believing that she is actually making a difference by reporting such smells to Day. How much had already been covered up, and not reported by those at the plants is not mentioned or delved into in this daft story. If she smelt anything bad, it was just a means of giving her some bullshit knowing that she would communicate this back to the others in her street.
What Cissie and the community did not know, and certainly not revealed by Messrs Day and Bloore was the following, sent to us by a then serving policeman in Oldbury. The bloodhound of the law could at least detect bullshit. 