11/08/2014 Midlands Today

Hello and welcome to Midlands Today. The headlines tonight:

Another suspected arson attack on a Shropshire farm. 500 tons of straw

I spoke to the farmer yesterday evening and he is devastated. A lot

of hard work has gone in and it has been undone in a matter of minutes.

We will be asking why there is a surge in rural crime.

Happy to go: After a long campaign against it, traders in Birmingham's

Wholesale Market finally back a move to a new site.

It was all down to the council. They have realised what a vibrant market

this is what an important market it is to the economics of the whole of

the Midlands. The FA finally agrees to research

into injuries caused by heading a football after pressure from the

family of Albion legend Jeff Astle. Catching the vibrant sights

and sounds of the inner city in And we're not quite over

the effects of ex`hurricane Bertha Find out what there is to

look forward to later. Firefighters

in Shropshire fears arsonists are targeting farms, with at least five

incidents in the last five weeks. The number of suspected attacks

comes as new figures suggest rural crime levels across the

West Midlands have risen by nine per Cath Mackie is at the scene of the

latest fire near Wellington tonight. Yes, this is a worrying time of year

anyway for farmers because typically this is the time of year when store

stacks are targeted and you can see the devastation caused in this race

and `` latest incident. There were 500 tonnes of straw here yesterday

morning and by last night the whole thing had gone up in smoke. ?30,000

worth of straw reduced to ashes, the fire on top of this hill in

Shropshire was so severe it could be seen for miles. The flames engulfed

the sky and fire crews were mobilised, their main objective was

to stop the fire spreading. Upon arrival it was clear that all 500

tonnes of it was fully involved in the crier `` fire so the aim was to

protect the surrounding area from any further damage. There have been

similar attacks at other farms in the region this summer. Just 15

miles from here a farmer has fallen victim to these are a number of

occasions. We have had two thefts of diesel from the farm and also a set

of pallet Times has gone missing. I have been talking to my neighbours

in the fast few days and it seems that fuel is one of the major

problems. These reports of thefts and arson attacks on farms are not

unique. Rural crime cost an estimated ?44.5 million every year

according to NFU Mutual and criminals are becoming more

organised and stealing to order. We have been monitoring rural crime and

the change we have seen this that crime has gone from opportunist

threat of `` set of small items to highly organised criminal activity

involving high end equipment, very expensive tractors, livestock, tools

and fuel. Investigators say they have found equipment stolen from the

UK turning up in Eastern Europe, Africa and even Australia. It is not

just about money. The effects can be devastating. This farmer did not

want to speak to the press but he spoke to the Fire Service. He has

said this is worth over ?30,000 so it feels like a lot of hard work has

been undone in a matter of seconds. Renewed security advice is now being

issued to farmers and the police continue to investigate this latest

suspected arson attack. We heard there about criminals

getting more organised but farmers have also been getting more

organised and beefing up their security. There have been a lot of

security campaigns in the countryside...

Oh, we seem to have lost her there. She was reporting from Shropshire on

those series of arson attacks in the country.

Thanks for joining us this evening. Coming up later in the programme:

Is this a snooker genius in the making?

Traders at Birmingham's Wholesale Market say they're feeling confident

as they prepare for the move to their new site in the

They'd originally opposed the move as they feared for their future.

It comes as markets across the region begin to recover

In the first of five special reports this week,

Ben Godfrey has spent a day at the country's biggest wholesale market.

When the city sleeps, the wholesalers

It's 4.30am and the deliveries are rolling in.

Tomatoes from Spain, cassavas from Costa Rica.

Mark Tate's speciality is fruit and veg.

It'll end up on the plates of schoolchildren,

We are the biggest independent in the wholesale market. We turned over

in excess of 14 million. It was an effort to bring

wholesalers in fish, fruit They're international traders

and the balance sheet reads like The market turns over between 250 to

?270 million a year. We employ 2000 people on site this morning.

Here the idea that only quality food is grown locally doesn't wash.

Take these lobsters from Canada which have lived to tell the tale.

These bananas come all of the way from Panama, direct. This garlic

comes all of the way from China. These runner beans from

Worcestershire. For four years traders have faced

an uncertain future. Relations with

the City Council were as sour as citrus fruits after this vast

site was deemed unfit for purpose. A new wholesale market will open

in 2016 in Witton. It will have a third of the units,

but tensions have eased because We are sitting on 22 acres which is

worth about ?50 million to the council. The wholesale market needs

a new image. It has had bad publicity. There will always be a

place for a market. The market needs to evolve with the times and we need

to bring it up to be fit for purpose.

Everyone seems to be flogging one particular fruit.

Mohammed Armani has come extra early to buy in bulk.

In this weather, hot weather, they love watermelon. They buy just

watermelon and nothing else. Since June one .1 million watermelons have

been sold here! Under these roofs traders

are bucking the trend. Where footfall has recently dropped

in many retail markets, the wholesale market is keeping a lower

profile, quietly making millions. Campaigners gathered in Birmingham

city centre today to protest about Israeli military action in Gaza.

Around 50 demonstrators from the organisation Solidarity For

Palestine gathered outside Birmingham City Council this

lunchtime. Perry Barr MP Khalid Mahmood says the Prime Minister,

David Cameron, needs to do much more The British government have not done

enough, they cannot even come to fully criticise what is happening at

the moment, bombing of innocent men and women and children in

particular. Hospitals, schools, any place there are children, all of

that is taking place and we cannot get any condemnation from this

government and I think it is very weak.

Sales at the luxury car maker Jaguar Land Rover are up again.

The company sold more than 115,000 vehicles in the last three months,

up by 22% on the same period last year.

The latest rise in sales comes as a result of strong global demand

for new and refreshed models, including the all new Range Rover

The family of goal`scoring hero Jeff Astle have met FA Chairman Greg

Dyke as part of their long`running campaign to highlight the risks

of heading footballs and players suffering concussion.

It was initially believed the West Bromwich Albion legend had died

from Alzheimer's disease in 2002, but a coroner ruled

his brain had been damaged by heading heavy leather balls.

Sarah Falkland is with Jeff's widow Laraine and daughter Dawn now.

It has taken a long time to get here.

It has. This family have waited patiently in good faith for well

over a decade for the FA to carry out this research into the kind of

brain injuries that killed Jeff Astle in 2002. Nothing of substance

was being done. Yesterday we had this to carry out this research into

the kind of brain injuries that killed Jeff Astle in 2002. Nothing

of substance was being done. Yesterday we had this FA had not

done enough and he also said that they owed our family a huge thank

you for bringing this important issue to the attention of people.

Quite an emotional moment for you? A very emotional moment, especially

when the whole room burst into applause. Greg Dyke says he will be

looking at this from a global perspective, what does he mean by

that? I know that they hope to get FIFA on board, he said they were

very interested and then we want them to look at Alzheimer's and

dementia in former players. Informally you have tried to

research this, what conclusions have you discovered? I have just been

doing basic searches on Google and Wikipedia and the number of former

footballers who have either died about time as all who are living

with the consequences of it, the list is getting longer and longer.

Just the other day for 20 minutes I added a number 40 mean `` another 40

names to the list that is getting longer. This could be the tip of the

iceberg. Yes, I am sure that Jeff is not the first footballer to die of

this and I am sure he will not be the worst `` last. We have had no

word on when this research may start but there is already a lot of

interest and Port Vale have already invited this family to go there and

talk about concussion in sport. Figures obtained

by the BBC show the number of inquests involving suicides has

more than doubled in the last decade The figures were provided

by the coroner in North Staffordshire, where 56 people

took their own lives last year, The vast majority

of cases involve men. Our Staffordshire reporter

Liz Copper's been investigating. It was in the letter that he left me

that he said he had suffered from depression from a very young age,

since he was 13 or so. I say to people that I probably did not stop

crying for many months. Chris Habgood was 26

when he took his own life. His father,

a former prison governor, is now behind a charity helping

families affected by suicide. We need to do a lot more around

helping young people say how they feel. There is only so ashram there

is a myth around that if you talk about suicide you can actually cause

it and that is not true. All you do is you encourage young people to

disclose how they are feeling and admit they are struggling and to

seek help. But for many young people, like

Chris Habgood, seeking help is hard. This is the coroner 's Court and

cameras are not normally allowed inside and we have been given

special permission to film. The evidence heard here is often

distressing and sometimes harrowing and this is a place that no family

wants to find themselves in. But the North Staffordshire coroner

has seen an increasing number of suicide cases

in his court over the last decade. The reasons

for the rise aren't clear. I think it is men who have found

themselves in a position where their relationship has broken down and

maybe they have lost their job and become redundant. They have ended up

in poor accommodation, maybe they are beginning to develop health

issues as well and they wonder if life is worth carrying on.

This film was made as part of a campaign supported by the Samaritans

to help reduce deaths on the railways.

Nationally every six seconds somebody contacts the charity.

It wants to do more to reach young men at risk of suicide.

As Samaritans I think what we are going to see is more of us going out

into the community to reach these men and less perhaps sitting here in

the office waiting for them to call us because maybe men just are not

very good at that. Chris Habgood didn't find

the help which might have prevented But his family are amongst those

campaigning in his memory for more to be done to support

those contemplating suicide. And if you are affected by anything

you've just seen in that report, we've put a list of organisations

that may be able to help you on Concerns over rural crime with

another suspected arson attack 500 tons of straw worth

?30,000 are destroyed. Shefali's standing

by with the weather forecast How a taxi ride down the

Stratford Road in Birmingham can And how

the war effort here 100 years ago included supplying our troops

in the trenches with chocolate Time for sport now, Dan's here with

a new star of the green baize. It is fair to say this lad has got

the best future in front of him. And he's certainly got

an impressive CV. Hamim Hussain has just become

the National under`14 Champion. And he's aiming to turn professional

as soon as he leaves school. In small Heath the washing was out

for dry and these brothers were out to play. They have a championship

standard table costing ?5,000. Hamim Hussain is the new English under 14

champion and his brother is 12 and they are both very talented players.

I will never forget the last time I met alike `` a young player like

this, it was 1996 and Shaun Murphy was the player and he went on to

become World Snooker champion in 2005. No pressure then! Well done.

When he was about the age of two and a half he would find any stick and

ball and start playing snooker and he really enjoys playing it. I love

watching my boys playing, I love snooker. All of the same brothers

inherited their passion for snooker from their dad who arrived from

Bangladesh in 1974 and learn to play the game in Halesowen and worked

flat out in the restaurant business to give all of his sons, including

the four`year`old, every opportunity to achieve their full potential. For

him the next thing is to become a professional snooker player as soon

as possible and then take it from there and join the big boys! What is

the secret to him enjoying success? Practice, practice, practice. Just

like his favourite snooker players have always done. I like Sean Murphy

and the way he plays, attacking and aggressive. I find that tactic quite

suitable for my game. One day possibly world champion? Yes,

hopefully! The boys are doing well at school but snooker is their

passion, no wonder the family is very proud of its national champion

and his future prospects. Norwich City have confirmed they are

investigating allegations of racist behaviour by a small group

of their fans during their 1`0 Meanwhile Wolves have today sold

midfielder David Davis to The 23`year`old who's spent

his whole career at Wolves has had a frustrating 12 months at Molineux

trying to break into the team. Obviously it was not to be and I do

not resent the club or resent anyone. It was just a touring top

personnel. The team was winning and it is hard when a team is winning

and we are flying and winning every week so for me now it is all about a

fresh start and hopefully I will hit the running `` the ground running

here. The new owner

of Hereford United is promising to It follows protests outside the

ground on Saturday from fans unhappy Financial problems mean the team are

now playing in the Southern League. But Tommy Agombar says he does have

new backers waiting to invest. The big investment comes from

friends of mine that I know in the city and they are really investing

in me. I am very confident, very, bury confident. How can I turn the

Hereford people around? I would have thought I had already done that by

keeping the club here. I am not really bothered about whether they

like me or not. And our full interview with Tommy

Agombar is on our Facebook page. The European athletic starts

tomorrow as well. Thank you.

Catching a taxi in one part of Birmingham has now become

Visitors are being given a tour of Stratford Road as part of

Our Arts Reporter Satnam Rana has been finding out how the area has

Welcome to the tour, I will take you on a short tour of Stratford Road.

It is three miles to be exact. This area has changed so much as I was a

child, we have had the Irish year and then the Asian people came and

now there are a lot of Somalis on this part of Stratford Road.

Stick an actor in a taxi and you get theatre on the go.

This is Taxi Tour, a free experience which immerses you

in the sights, sounds and stories of Birmingam's Stratford Road.

A key land mark is Saint Agatha 's Church which is coming up on your

right hand side. It was established in 1899 as a Catholic church and it

is a testament to the architecture that it is still standing.

Step outside and you get a better idea of what this changing

Taxi Tour is based on work carried out

You see a lot of people will come around and see new things they never

saw before, a new type of coffee that they did not ever used a drink.

It was all English shops and every thing anything about it was just

might but as the years have gone they have moved out and these have

come in. The community has developed in many ways. You have got different

communities joined in and it is good.

Taxi Tour is based on work carried out

by south asian arts group SAMPAD and is a Heritage Lottery Fund project.

In 100 years time people are going to look back and say, who were my

ancestors? How did they arrive, where did they work? What did they

do in their lives? And how did they reinvent themselves because that is

what you are really looking at here. And the reivention

of this area will continue That brings us to the end of the

tour, we will pull in here by this restaurant where you can get a bite

to eat. It has been fantastic and I have learned so much about Stratford

Road that I had not even realised even though I drive down it a couple

of times a week. Fantastic. O some grub!

During the First World War scores of factories around the West Midlands

were flat out producing military hardware for the war effort.

But for one of our region's largest and best known companies

the conflict was an opportunity to show its compassionate side.

Birmingham chocolate maker Cadbury not only supplied chocolate to

soldiers in the trenches but also cared for those affected

Chocolate, a sweet treat, even a luxury.

Not something you'd readily associate with helping to win a war.

But it was to prove otherwise during the First World War.

Cadbury Brothers of Birmingham, already established for 90 years,

found demand for its products increasing rapidly in 1914.

The government were asking Cadbury to supply chocolate and drinking

chocolate for the front line, really keeping with their philosophy a lot

of their work was to do with helping troops overseas. There was an

ambulance division setup in Bournville to caper for the people

returning from the front line. Sustenance was needed

in the trenches. These distinctive chocolate boxes

were sent specifically to the The companies war memorial shows

a tenth didn't return. Barrie Tims is remembering

his mother and aunts. This picture shows them knitting

hats, One recipient may well have been

Barrie's dad Ernie, a Cadbury worker I tend to think Cadbury started

right at the beginning, I think they set the standard

for looking after their workers. The ones that had gone away,

the families that they left. I'm grateful for what they did

for mum, I'm grateful On his return Ernie Tims helped

build the Cadbury war memorial. Like his comrades he never forgot

the gifts of chocolate Some of the letters from great feel

Ashur ungrateful soldiers were reprinted in a works magazine in

1916, this one said, I received it on Christmas Day when I was up to my

neck in water. If you could only taste the staff are here, you would

not wonder why Cadbury 's chocolate is world`renowned. `` some of the

letters from grateful soldiers. In 1914 more than 700 product lines

were running to cope with New brands were still being

developed, for example Milk But

by 1917 the war hit chocolate hard. German U boat attacks in the

Atlantic saw sugar imports plummet. Dairy Milk and many other

production lines were halted. The Bournville factory diverted

into fruit and vegetable drying The Cadbury family decided at the

end of the war that conditions in inner cities were appalling and they

were running short of basic supplies so they diverted 20,000 gallons of

milk every week from the milk processing plants and send them to

the poor areas of Birmingham. The company also handed over some

of its buildings for use But Cadbury made sure it combined

its compassion with commerce, ensuring there was

a successful factory Another intriguing story from 100

years ago. Now you can keep up to date with

everything that's happening here And Twitter is now where you'll

find Shefali, isn't that right? Yes, I may not yet have

as many followers as Midlands Today, that figure is rapidly approaching

50,000, but I'm off and running, Ex`hurricane Bertha, we are still

feeling the effects of it. It is currently situated to the north`east

of Scotland and it is otherwise known as a very deep area of low

pressure. Scotland is bearing the brunt of the effects of that but we

do not get away scot free. We get the knock`on effects with this

flotilla of fronts marching down from the north through the week and

we get showers from time to time. These are key features of the week

with sunshine and showers and gusty wind in places. It will start to

improve briefly by the weekend as an area of high pressure, ridge of high

pressure starts to build. This evening we still have a few showers

flitting across the region and they are on the heavy side as well. They

will gradually peter out and leave us with a drier and to the night.

During this time temperatures will fall to their minimum value of

around 10 degrees. We are off to a sunny and dry start to the day

tomorrow but it is not long before the showers resurface and it is the

south`west of the country that will generate them. They piling very

quickly during the morning and move eastwards rapidly in the afternoon.

They have very bright centres so there will be heavy outbreaks and

downpours in places containing thunder as well. Top temperatures

from 17 to 19. The wind could get up to 40 mph. Wednesday will be

slightly drier. Thank you. The Iraqis desperate to get away

from the militants of the Islamic state. And another suspected arson

attack on a Shropshire farm. 500 tons of straw worth

?30,000 are destroyed. I'll be back at ten o'clock

with your latest update. 'Let's bring you...'

'..The latest headlines...' CHEERING

'..With some outbreaks of rain.' Every year comes

in weekly instalments. So, why not pay your TV licence

in weekly instalments, too? Who really fought for Britain

and her allies in World War I? BBC Two reveals the forgotten

faces of the First World War. You know the bank robbery

in Headingley.