RISK OF EXPLOSION

I’ve been passing this old industrial site for years and often wondered what it once was, and why the warning sign. When writing ‘The Singer-Songwriter’s Last Stand’ I asked people at local folk clubs. Someone told me they thought it was an old glass factory. Further research revealed that it was a specialist company, originally called ‘The Thermal Syndicate’, set up to exploit a process invented by Dr J F Bottomley for producing transluscent silica from high purity sand. Over the years the company changed its name and was merged with other companies and eventually closed down in the 1990s. Though some people recall occassional bangs from the site when it was still in production, the reasons were unclear and there seemed no danger to local residents or passers by.

The sign did give me an idea for a song however, partly based on Woody Guthrie’s composition ‘Lonesome Valley’ and also my own thoughts on the many dangers inherent in every human activity.

‘There’s a risk of explosion wherever you go,                                                                                         But the risk of going nowhere is the worst risk I know…’