I love wandering through cities, visiting big and small sights or just enjoying the atmosphere. And where would there be more to discover than in a city like London. But somehow I didn't get far on my tours. When I was in the centre for an hour, I got tired and lost any motivation. Only the next day, after a good night's sleep, did I regain some of my strength.
At first I thought the exhaustion was a result of the move or my last intensive months in the lab. But even after weeks, there was no improvement. At some point I complained to friends about my problems. They were not surprised; I would have to develop London lungs first. The air in the city has always been bad. Many who first move to the city as adults (and don't just stay for a few days) have similar problems. Some even develop asthma. But after a few months, the discomfort would subside.
I was a little sceptical. After all, I had visited the London dozens of times without suffering from such problems. But perhaps my stays had been too short to feel the effects. Because, if you walk through the city with your eyes and nose open, the miserable air quality and its consequences are hard to ignore: the facades of many buildings are caked with dirt, the city centre stinks of exhaust fumes almost everywhere.
If you go underground, it doesn't get any better. On the contrary. In the underground stations, so many dirt particles float in the air that the tunnel entrances appear grey instead of black. The upholstery of many seats is more dirt than fabric, and there is no air conditioning. In summer, the carriages turn into saunas. The only way to cool down is to open the windows. But then the dirt in the tunnels is blown directly into your face. After a few minutes in this atmosphere, my chest was burning. If I blew my nose after a long ride, the handkerchief turned black.
I like to compare stories or personal impressions with other sources. Assessing air pollution thus became the first research work for my manuscript. Our friends were right when they described London's air quality as historically bad. At least the problem has existed for centuries.
In medieval times, the city's population increased without city expansion. People lived close together, along with their waste and stoves. The latter were initially fired with wood or charcoal. The wood came from nearby forests until they could no longer meet demand. Coal from the region around Newcastle, which found its way to London by ship, served as a substitute. However, the so-called sea coal was of inferior quality and produced a lot of smoke when burnt. Its use was repeatedly banned, the first time by King Edward I in 1306.
Pollution worsened with the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Under certain weather conditions, smog billowed through the streets as thick as fog. The particles in the air reacted with water. Acids could form, such as sulphuric acid. Not a pleasant substance for the respiratory tract. The mortality rate increased significantly after such events. The worst episode occurred in December 1952. The smog hung in the city for four days and was so thick that pedestrians could no longer see their feet. It even penetrated buildings. According to a study, up to 12,000 Londoners died as a result of the air pollution [1]. Politicians reacted with the Clean Air Act of 1956, and after another smog episode in 1968, further measures were adopted.
Today, the city is no longer plagued by deadly fog, but London's air still has a negative impact on residents' health. According to research by King's College, they lose about 140,000 years of life as a result, every year [2]. With a population of almost 9 million, this is not much on average. However, the impact varies for different population groups, depending on, for example, health status and living conditions. In 2013, for example, air pollution combined with asthma led to a cardiac arrest in a nine-year-old girl, Ella Kissi-Debrah, who could not be saved [3]. The girl lived in one of the poorer parts of the city.
We should have been less affected due to the location of our flat. Outside the city centre, our street was hardly frequented and trees acted as a filter.
Despite this, our flat could be unbearably smelly. As is typical of London, our bathroom had no window. The built-in fan removed the humid air after a shower reasonably efficiently, but it was powerless against the smells that were pushed into our flat from the pipe system when the wind blew.
The pipes had probably not been cleaned for decades and gave off a smell that I would describe as stale cellar air with a hint of cloaca. In addition, our neighbour was a chain smoker. In the first weeks, our bathroom always smelled of old cigarettes.
Then I had added a removable shutter and a carbon filter to the fan. My do-it-yourself solution worked quite well, but it wasn't perfect. If there was a decent wind, the stench was not only pushed through the pipe system, but also through the walls… There is hardly any escape from bad air in London.
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[1] M.L. Belle et al., A retrospective assessment of mortality from the London smog episode of 1952: the role of influenza and pollution, Environ Health Perspect., 112(1), 6-8 (2004), doi: 10.1289/ehp.6539
[2] H. Walton et al., Understanding the Health Impacts of Air Pollution in London (2015) https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/hiainlondon_kingsreport_14072015_final.pdf
[3] https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Ella-Kissi-Debrah-2021-0113-1.pdf