Anybody here from Stoke on Trent who can smell the smell?

Man of Honour
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* While the etymology is uncertain due to changes in spelling over the centuries, one plausible translation of 'Hanley' is 'high meadow'. Stoke-upon-Trent is an older town and from the point of view of people living there in the early medieval period 'high meadow' would probably have been an accurate description of this area.

I know that the word 'ton' means farmland - Blurton, Fenton, Longton etc
 
Soldato
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I have no problem walking through our 'rough' areas like Fegg Hayes, Bentilee, Meir etc but don't be mistaken that they are the same as proper rough areas in other areas of the country, they are pussy areas compared to them.

"Walking through" you'd rarely see any issues as outright attacks of people passing by is pretty rare so they wouldn't be considered "rough" in that way. Instead it's when you live there, for years at a time, that you get to see underneath the surface and find the hate for those who want to "escape" the same life their parents, and sometimes grandparents have led, although that older generation still had coal and pottery to keep them busty TBF.
 
Soldato
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I live in Silverdale and the smell can be nauseating on a good day, sometimes I can smell it at work in Tunstall which is a good few miles away, you often get a whiff of it passing Keely Services on the M6, its afflicting huge parts of the local area.

Was anybody at the protest the other week? - I was - along with the local MP who in fairness has tried his best on the issue, even involving the P.M.


I drove past. I had to look twice because there was a guy demonstrating dressed as a turd :)
 
Soldato
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Saw a post on Facebook earlier showing the EA’s air monitoring recent results. Comparable monitoring in other troubled parts of the country showed figures of 5-45Ug/m3.

The quarry registered over at 200!
 
Soldato
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I used to live in fairly close proximity to it in the Westlands, this was about two years ago. There were rumblings about it then, however it seems that since we’ve moved its really taken off. I’ve always been a very very mild asthmatic, however looking back now in the 5 years that we lived in proximity my asthma got progressively worse, to the point that I could go through an entire inhaler in the space of a week, sinned we moved to Alsager I’ve used it on one or two occasions, no more. I know that they were perfuming the air to help to mask the smell back then, when running past it you could really smell it.

There must be some kickbacks going on, for the lack of input from the EA and local councillors. It’s an absolute disgrace to have that in such close proximity to households and businesses. I feel bad for people who bought the new builds about 7-8 years ago that back onto it, they’re completely stuck now with no chance of selling unless they take a massive hit. I can’t believe that they’re building more houses on the old Hamptons scrapyard, they’ll back onto both the landfill and the gypsy camp whilst also having cars ending up in their back gardens in the winter when Keele bank gets iced up.
 
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I should know better being a Staffordian myself, so thanks for explaining. I knew about Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley and other towns that form the overall city but didn't know Stoke was a town too.

As far as I know, it was the original and dates back at least as far as the 9th century. It was mainly coal mining and pottery that changed the relative importance of the towns in the area and that came much later. So some parts of what's now the city probably smelt bad back then too as smelly stuff from towns tended to be on the outskirts of the town. Leather working (necessary but extremely foul smelling), for example. And probably a lot of sheep pooping all over the place.
 
Soldato
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Our local church in Stoke still has some early 9th century Anglo-Saxon arches standing in the grave yard. Just a shame they've had to be partially filled in with bricks to stop them from crumbling though.
 
Man of Honour
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Our local church in Stoke still has some early 9th century Anglo-Saxon arches standing in the grave yard. Just a shame they've had to be partially filled in with bricks to stop them from crumbling though.

I've only just found out a lot of stuff about my past that I could fill a book with.
One story that would be added was that just before my Mum died in Dec 2019 she was talking about when she got married and then mentioned she had to go for some Roman Catholic lessons before she could marry my Dad.
This was an absolute shock because I thought she got married in a Church of England Church so I asked where I was baptized and it was in a Roman Catholic church :eek: (growing up I have always ticked the Church of England box on stuff until you didn't have to).
I said "but hold on, you used to take me to St Peters every Sunday for Sunday School and leave me there?"
"Yeah, it was only 200 yards from our house so it was the easiest" :)
 
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