Kidderminster - Sugar Town

It may have been the mini-skirt but one Saturday I cycled all the way to Kidderminster to buy Sugar Town by Nancy Sinatra. What i didn't realise at the time was that Kidderminster itself was a 'Sugar Town'!

Ok, songwriter Lee Hazelwood claims he was writing about a more psychedelic form of sugar but that was lost on me back then. Nancy Sinatra and the laid back tones was enough for me.

Kidderminster was primarily a weaving town that developed as an important carpet making town, as blogged elsewhere on this site. However it also had a sugar refinery.

http://www.miac.org.uk/sugar.htm

"This large sugar refinery on the outskirts of Kidderminster was formerly rail connected from the Severn Valley Railway at Foley Park. Rail traffic from the internal railway ceased in the late 1970's although the sugar plant remained in operation until the end of the 2001/2 campaign. There were originally steam locomotives here but steam working ended 1/1969. Diesel traffic continued through the 1970's but rail traffic had ceased by 25th October 1982 and the last remaining locomotives were sold soon after."

"The sidings into sugar factory led off to the right towards the towers of the sugar refinery."

"The British Sugar factory of Kidderminster can be found in the county of Worcestershire which was once owned by the ‘British sugar corporation’ a company which was created in 1936 as part of a British effort to nationalise their sugar beet processing."