Made in Oldbury

As one entered Oldbury the smell of the tar works on the left was not unpleasant. It was said that a good cure for children with whooping cough was to hold them over the hot pitch and let them inhale the gases.

People don't realise how much that this area contributed to the economy and the social fabric of the country, and Oldbury in particular - the breadth and depth of industry here was a great example of that. Even locally now, people don't know enough about this history.

Oldbury is attractive because it has remained sturdily of its time, the first half of the last century. Its only concession to modernity is the crimson and gilt façade of a nothing-over-sixpence store. It is dominated by the chemical industry and the manufacture of metal tubes; it claims to produce the smallest commercial tube in the world, with an outside diameter of a six-thousandth of an inch and a bore three-and-a-half thousandths of an inch.