About the same time the CPRW (Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales) had invited me to join their Pembrokeshire Executive, so I was asked to look into the matter as the proposal had major health implications.
At the outset I was not aware of these background matters and have had to delve. Having prayed for insight and wisdom I determined to ascertain the incidence of primary school children taking inhalers to school for asthma, having previously observed that my wife and huge numbers of adults and children had developed asthma in the locality during and since 1992, mostly without previous history. My technique I later discovered had been previously used by Public Health in Derbyshire and County Durham and by Environmental Health in Bristol. (It is a pity that GPs' software cannot yet print out disease, age and postcode correlations.)
When mapped out the results were extremely clear cut with over one in seven children taking inhalers to school in the high zone downwind of the power station for over 40 miles, with one in fifteen to the north and south of the hills delineating the high zone, with only one in thirty on clear coastal areas. When initial results were presented at a public meeting in Martletwy and published on the front page of the 'Western Mail' newspaper on 3rd March 1995, the effect on the local district councils and health authority was electrifying.
