David Powell Profile

User's Picture
I'm pleased to be able to make my book available for the people I participated with, for the wider public and particularly for any campaigners who find that the going sometimes gets tough.

Male

Newport

UNITED KINGDOM

17th September 1947

Under the heading “David and Goliath”, in The Observer of September 10th 1989, the Pendeniss column said:

Gossip columns – even this one, intent on subverting the genre – too often dwell on famous people: Prince Charles this, Joan Collins that. So today we toast an unsung village Hampden: physics teacher David Powell. Powell has played a leading role in persuading the Canadians to reconsider sending their Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) to the ReChem incinerator near Powell’s home. The publicity at one point knocked a cool £24 million off ReChem’s share price. Powell was sued. He was not alone. ReChem issues writs like Clint Eastwood bullets . . . Radio 4’s The World Tonight grovelled on air after a feature which quoted Powell . . . .

Following seventeen fascinating years in industry I was a schoolteacher when I was sued in 1989 at the age of forty-two. Married with two young children, I was then playing rugby for Caerleon and slowly trying to finish an unusual home. In my other life, our community campaign resulted in the turning-around of Soviet vessels carrying Canadian toxic waste and led to my four-year fight against a libel writ. My High Court success made me the only unscathed survivor of a legal onslaught that caused newspapers and broadcasters to cower.

I'm catching up on things I didn't have time to do when campaigning and then when writing the book. One of those things is making music, on my own and with a band. Another occupation is the finishing of The Unfinished House.

Books I've written

  • The Writ That Went to My Heart
    The Writ That Went to My Heart Environment by David Powell
    The Writ That Went to My Heart
    The Writ That Went to My Heart

    Reads:
    145

    Pages:
    249

    Published:
    Mar 2014

    When the world was plagued with toxic waste, I led a campaign to stop it coming to Pontypool near my home. Newspapers and broadcasters were sued by the compan...

    Formats: PDF, Epub, Kindle, TXT