WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Stanley]

Richard, the mesothelioma that did for Graham was a growth in his stomach not the lungs, slower but just as deadly. I've been exposed to lots of it during my life.... Tributyltin was a very efficient anti=fouling agent based on organo phosphorous compounds and was very widely used. One of the most poisonous compounds there is, now banned I think.
Thinking about organo-phosphorous compounds I see that the controversy about contaminated air from air bleed from engines in planes is still alive and well. Another case where the cheapest way is not necessarily the best!

[Tizer]

You probably all have heard the story of Thomas Midgley who discovered the antiknock property of tetraethyl lead while working for General Motors (GM) in Dayton, Ohio, in 1921. In 1923 GM, Du Pont and Standard Oil formed a joint company called Ethylene Gasoline Corporation, later shortened to Ethyl Corporation, to make tetraethyl lead which they put on sale that year, but called it `ethyl' to make it sound safer, and then `TEL'. They quickly encountered the toxicity problem among workers but denied it was due to tetraethyl lead and managed to hush up most of the problems. To `prove' that it was safe, Midgley invited reporters to a meeting at which he poured tetraethyl lead over his hands and held it under his nose for a time. He didn't tell them he had been temporarily poisoned by it himself a few months earlier.

Concerns about lead began in the 1940s when a scientist (Patterson) studying the age of the earth tried to measure lead isotopes in the atmosphere but always found far more (200 times more) than expected. He measured the levels in ice cores and was able to show that there was practically no lead in the atmosphere before 1923 (once there, it stays there for a very long time). He started criticising Ethyl Corp but they flexed their muscles and he found his research funding was withdrawn and new proposals for funding turned down. The US Public Health Service and the American Petroleum Institute cancelled his contracts too. He persisted for decades and in 1970 succeeded in getting the US Clean Air Act passed and the removal from sale of all leaded petrol in the USA in 1986. Lead levels in the blood of Americans fell immediately by 80% but even now they still have 600 times more than pre-1923 levels due to lead's persistence in the environment. And tetraethyl lead is still being sold...

[plaques]

In tuning motors we always made sure the exhaust pipe outlet was a pale grey colour. This was the lead deposit on the pipe. It was only when petrol became 'lead free' that you realized how much lead you had been pumping into the atmosphere and into peoples brains.

[David Whipp]

Yesterday, ‎Barnoldswick‬ Town Council chairman, Councillor Claire Teall presented a certificate of appreciation to Stanislaw Bajkowski, the last survivor of the Battle of Arnhem known to be living in the area.

Soon to celebrate his 90th birthday, as an 18 year old Stanislaw was a member of the 1st Independent Polish Brigade that parachuted into the Battle of Arnhem during Operation Market Garden 70 years ago this week.

Stanislaw left the 'Bridge Too Far' battlefield unscathed, though many of his colleagues were killed or captured.

In 1947 he first came to live in ‪‎Barlick‬, at what is now the Rolls-Royce Leisure Centre, and raised a family in Earby and Barnoldswick.

Stanislaw's life as a teenager was incredibly harrowing. In 1939, Hitler and Stalin's pact saw the Soviet Union invade the north eastern part of Poland where his family lived. Together with other ethnic Poles he and his family were deported in horrendous conditions, which Stanislaw describes as 'Hell', thousands of miles to Siberia.

When Germany invaded Russia, Stalin offered the Polish occupants of his camps to Britain for a Polish army. The subsequent transportation in cattle trucks saw Stanislaw's older brother left unburied by the side of the railway track after he died on the journey. Within weeks of the family's arrival in Tehran Stanislaw's mother also died.

Stanislaw volunteered to train as a paratrooper for the Polish Brigade, which was intended to spearhead an invasion of Poland, but the Warsaw uprising came and went without the brigade going into action and the Polish paratroop brigade formed part of the force which aimed to seize Rhine crossings and shorten the war.

Fierce German resistance led to heavy casualties and the failure of ground troops to link up with and relieve the airborne forces resulted in the withdrawal of surviving troops, including Stanislaw.

On the 60th anniversary of the Battle, Stanislaw joined other veterans at Arnhem, but increasing age prevented him from travelling to the commemoration this year.

Claire Teall presented Stanislaw with the framed certificate in recognition and appreciation of the part he'd played in fighting for a free world.

[PanBiker]

What an excellent award from the Town Council and most appropriate at the anniversary of the Arnham offensive.

[David Whipp]

It was an honour to accompany Claire on her visit to Mr Bajkowski.

I'm expecting the local press to pick up the story and give greater recognition to someone who is very modest about what he did 70 years ago.

Hopefully, Stanley will also re-post his rather fuller account of how Stanislaw ended up in Barlick...

[chinatyke]

Richard, the mesothelioma that did for Graham was a growth in his stomach not the lungs, slower but just as deadly. I've been exposed to lots of it during my life.... Tributyltin was a very efficient anti=fouling agent based on organo phosphorous compounds and was very widely used. One of the most poisonous compounds there is, now banned I think.
Thinking about organo-phosphorous compounds I see that the controversy about contaminated air from air bleed from engines in planes is still alive and well. Another case where the cheapest way is not necessarily the best!

For the record: Tributyl tin is not an organo phosphorous compound, it is an organo tin compound. There's a lot of difference and TBT is poisonous for a different reason. Organo simply refers to organic chemicals, those based on carbon, same as your body and all other organisms.

[Stanley]

I stand corrected P.
Nice to see Stanislaw recognised. I've posted his account and hope that it gets read.... Apart from anything else, he's a nice bloke! Anytime you hear criticism of the Poles 'stealing our jobs' remember blokes like this. Good initiative David....

[Tizer]

Stanislaw must be a very brave man. All those Arnhem paras had to be brave but if the Germans had caught him he would have been treated even worse than the British paras when they found out his nationality.

[Marilyn]

Tragic news for Cazza and Maz...Coronation Street has been axed for us. We were running 7 years behind your current episodes, but we were happy to get it, and both watched it on week days. Last Friday, a little banner came up saying "this is the last episode we are screening".
That's it folks...all gone...no warnings given. No correspondence entered into.
They did this once before, and I think we were without it for about ten years.

Wearing black today, and feeling very cross. ( Cazza in meltdown)

[Stanley]

Can you get it on the web? Not a fan myself but I know how important it is to some people, there will be a way! Get out there and hunt it down.
The satisfaction of being in the shed and getting my hands dirty! Only problem is I shall have to write some articles to get breathing space!

[Marilyn]

Can for £9 a month ( must pay by credit card)...but that won't do, as we are 7 years behind!

[Cathy]

Corrie was broadcast on a channel with a programming person who must be a twerp with no class. Corrie was a highlight every afternoon and a little bit of England for me, now we won't know if Fred married the bar-maid or the hairdresser!! And will Charlie get his come-uppance? Will the young (ex goth) couple run off when they go with her parents to Paris for a holiday? Will Frankie and the knickers guy get back together? Is that young guy really a psychopath? On and on... not happy Jan!!

[Stanley]

That's a real cry from the heart!
What I noticed was the melt-down at Tesco. They reported £1.1billion profit last year but have found out this was £250,000 too much.. Shares have plummeted a third from their peak wiping out £2billion of value. The new CEO is having a baptism of fire!

[PanBiker]

Cathy and Maz, you will have to move to India. Call centre personnel are trained about the UK by watching a combination of Corrie and East Enders, I think they chuck a bit of Emmerdale in as well. If that's what gives the perception of how we are over here in the UK it's God help us. None are representative of anything really but I suppose that's what escapism is all about.

[Marilyn]

Emmerdale and Eastenders were scrapped here years ago.
When it comes to free-to-air content, I will watch anything English over American rubbish any day. ( cannot connect with American humour).
Total escapism..TRUE...but just hearing those accents daily stirs our memories, as no-one around us talks like that, and we still yearn to hear the native accent of our birth. ( possibly not understood if you have not been forced to immigrate as a child).

[David Whipp]

The pile driving on Valley Road has got into its stride; and the sound is attracting attention all over Barlick...

[Tizer]

They'll think you're drilling for shale gas and causing earthquakes! A bus load of protesters is probably leaving Balcombe heading north this very minute!

[plaques]

Did you think you were going to see something like this in Barlick??Pile Driving

[David Whipp]

With the banging all over Barlick, there's a serious concern that the town will get a reputation as a knocking shop...

[Sunray10]

Hahaha good one David - what more can I say

[Stanley]

I heard the sound the other day and knew exactly what it was. It's river bottom silt there, makes you wonder how they managed to build Wellhouse without piling! Mind you, they had to pull a lot of walls back and rebuild them....
Cathy, at the moment you'll always find me in front of the telly at 5Pm because CBS show interminable episodes of Star Trek, the Now Generation.... so I can't accuse you of addiction to Corrie!
Pissed off with BET, they still haven't responded to a query I sent. I think they have cut staff back so far that they just haven't time.... Even more reason why they should take care of someone who gives them half a page of copy free every week! GRRRRRR!!!!

[David Whipp]

No sign of labourers jumping up and down to drive the piles, but the work is moving on quickly. You can see one of the piles in the foreground of this picture.

[Stanley]

Do you think the developer has had to revise his groundwork estimates? There is rock down there but look at the CHSC minute books for their experience when boring a 186ft deep borehole....
What grabbed me was the arrival of my new dial gauge.... What a bloke my age is doing buying tools I don't know.... Still, Janet will be pleased when she takes over the Shed!

[David Whipp]

The contractor that dug out the peat for the roads was confident that the ground survey carried out before development started had correctly identified the conditions...

The developers appear to have everything planned out and everything's happening bang, bang, bang (pardon pun). Maybe their aim of completion by end of March isn't as incredible as it sounds?