00:00So we're here at Titanium Techniques in Dudley, lovely Dudley and um lads this is a big a big
00:09circle of bricks what's on the other side there that's the magic isn't it. What have we got here
00:14gents? We got we got our lovely mermaid from Langley Baths. Langley Baths the um Art Deco
00:22wasn't it? Langley Baths is that right? Art Deco architecture? Ish. It was initially an open air
00:29baths and they built another one and put a roof on it. The Art Deco one is similar to that. So
00:36it's a I mean it's a lovely building but they built the old whistles and bells aquatic centre
00:42in um Samwell hence Langley Baths sadly closed and no other use was found for the building but
00:51there was this beautiful mosaic and just describe what the mosaic is of them what's on the underside
00:57of here what are we hiding? We have a picture of a mosaic and it's made of glassine type tiles
01:04which were imported from Italy by Romany Mosaics when they existed and it was paid for by Albright
01:10and Wilson. Albright and Wilson a local industrial company also used to have swimming gardens and
01:15swimming trophies there so there's a good historical link yeah and this mosaic was actually made by
01:21pupils of Albright High School. Wow so there's lots of links to the area lots of history how
01:27how many years ago would that have been? 1960 September 1969 yeah it was the was the launch
01:33finished in 69 yeah finished yeah started in 67. It's been made over three years as part of their
01:38CSE coursework and they did it in lessons and in their own time lunchtime break and after school.
01:44So there was a war memorial there and you were hoping to save that but you were told no we you
01:50were given a quote of £65,000 to take that off the wall. So unsympathetically put it on pallets
01:57frozen shrimp on pallets yeah well they couldn't have been learning less unsympathetically than
02:00what they did to it anyway. Yeah so sadly that got ripped down but what so why do you want to say
02:06are you local are you did you used to swim at Langley Baths are you local historians what's
02:10your kind of where's the passion come from for you guys to save it? My three lads learned to
02:15swim there and actually swam there in swimming garlands over the years they're now all in their
02:2030s but my memory is going in the baths with the mum and toddlers swimming class and going in there
02:27in the water with them when they were like five six months old because i couldn't swim at school
02:31i was the last one to learn to swim at school and i wanted my sons to to be proficient at swimming
02:36yeah and they were that good they were swimming in in um swimming garlands for walley wasps.
02:41And were you a Langley swimmer? I was a Langley swimmer before the mosaics went in.
02:47Yeah and you're both passionate about the like on a local history and heritage then
02:51oh and i guess that's a given considering what you're doing yeah well because history is destroyed
02:56left right and center yeah of course yeah well it's disappearing around isn't it gone yeah forever
03:01yeah so there's a lot of work going on here titanium techniques 2001 limited are kindly
03:08offering you cup to tea use of their power facilities and they've made this lovely titanium
03:13band around it so at the minute i mean you had a bit of a shock didn't you because when it came
03:18actually there's a load of bricks just over by my bag over to the your shoulder there you were
03:23basically it was given to you as like a massive five brick deep block of wall wasn't it four
03:30tons four and a half tons four and a half tons yeah yeah so it wasn't just this nice little perfect
03:36so you've basically been having to carefully um whittle the bricks down and get there yeah
03:42and that's where we're at at the minute with the process yeah yeah so where would you like to see
03:47it go then gents what would you like to see happen to it somewhere in pub in public where somebody
03:52can on an outside wall somewhere where it can be viewed by uh generations of swimmers who swam
03:58there and hopefully they're still around the the gents who actually made it yeah where would you
04:04like to go to we need to convince sandwell i think well yeah i i said to you what about the
04:10new aquatic center but you've been told in that massive building that there's not room for it
04:16there is no room for it which is a bit a bit patronizing yeah they have relented and said
04:22um yeah we might be able to find a space for it under certain certain conditions and that's
04:27involved not putting it on an existing wall and so on and so on yeah yeah i'd like to put it to
04:33jason to a wall close to the car park yeah where there's plenty of foot traffic yeah so what we
04:40thought of was a perhaps on outside on a on a on a sloping flint yeah so people can't see it
04:46yeah but then obviously it would need to be protecting the elements yeah doing that i'm
04:51thinking of is by putting resin i mean having a protective resin over it yeah so that the water
04:57runs off and doesn't doesn't crush that crush that to the the mountain has she got a name the
05:01mermaid she's called mermaid yeah so um you know so we're still open to suggestions at this point
05:11we've got other ideas a lot of people said it should go to the black country museum okay yeah
05:14they've been asked uh twice yeah by myself and by the council what did they what was their response
05:19it doesn't fit their profile of what they're collecting they're collecting industrial stuff
05:22from 1960s i thought well this is this is an industrial link to 1960s yeah yeah well paid
05:28for by so the the albright the business he mentioned that funded it albright
05:36is that the giant chemically place we can see from the m5
05:42so so there's the industrial link you would have thought yes you would yeah but it wasn't on there
05:48it wasn't on their agenda you know they basically were putting options into our way yeah we have
05:53other options though we're talking to other people uh there is um a chance heritage trust
05:59around there yeah and they've expressed possible interest but they can't store it anywhere
06:03yeah i said no public storage yeah
06:12so if people want to keep track of developments there's a facebook group you still i believe
06:16there is what's it called
06:20save save the mermaid mountain we'll see that's the one
06:24well gents i know you've um hopefully you've not become too despondent with um responses from
06:30samwell council and black country museum because there's many people including myself that i think
06:36it's a beautiful thing and it's so important to preserve this heritage so thank you for all your
06:40hard work and we look forward to covering it on installation day somewhere yes hopefully hopefully
06:45we'll keep you we'll keep in contact with you yeah and keep you up with progress and thank you
06:50titanium techniques for their part in this as well cheers guys
Comments