CDM

A warning to be careful about your brand image if you create a business and a product - it may be with you for some time! The Cadbury family began selling (drinking) chocolate in 1824 and chocolate bars in 1849. Manufacturing moved to a new factory on the Bournbrook country estate in 1879. In 1897 they started selling milk chocolate bars, and Imperial purple was adopted as their distinctive colour in 1914

The Bourne Brook crosses the railway 100m beyond the station, having flowed through the factory complex, supplying it with water. Cadbury renamed their estate 'Bournville', and subsequently built a model village for their workforce - the name being applied to the village, and now the entire administrative area. This station - Stirchley Street - brought in cocoa; milk was supplied along the adjacent canal. In 1904 the station was also renamed Bournville

The factory is still operating, and all the street furniture, railings and lamp-posts in the surrounding streets are painted purple, as is the station. I assume Cadbury supply the paint. In 2010, Cadbury - iconic British brand - was controversially sold to US company Kraft, which subsequently split up to become Mondelez. The new owners have moved a lot of production to countries with cheap labour, closing factories in developed economies - a perfect model of the economic trend that has delivered us Trump and his imitators. King Charles has removed Cadbury from the list of 'by appointment' companies - possibly because Mondelez continued to operate in Russia after its invasion of Ukraine

A big family celebration day: 40 years of marriage, 12 years of marriage and a first birthday. 8+2 of us had lunch in a posh pub in Birmingham and tea on the grass in the botanic garden. A 'Cirque du Pollinate' was happening in the garden, but we did not really engage; the boys enjoyed the real bees on the flower-bed. We are staying in a hotel in Bournville; I just had a bedtime mint tea, because there is no hot chocolate