As the delicious smell of vinegar-soaked fish and chips wafts down the cobbled street Ray Franklin has to hold his nose.
For while walking past the fried fish shop is hard for most visitors, for guides and workers at the Black Country Living Museum it can be a daily challenge.
But three members of staff at the museum have battled with the bulge and lost more than 18 stone between them.
“In February this year I was told at Russell’s Hall Hospital that I weighed 20st 8lb and had diabetes,” says Ray, aged 63.
“I knew I had put on some weight but I didn’t realise it was that much.
“The signs had been there – I had started to feel out of breath while walking around the museum’s site and my legs would feel like lead.
“I needed to have a change of lifestyle and now I feel like I have been given a second chance and I’m determined to see my two grandchildren grow up.”
Ray, who is now 15st 8lb goes to WeightWatchers at Cradley Labour Club.
A guide at the museum for three years, he lives at St Catherine’s Mews in Colley Gate.
Working with him at the museum are seamstress Joanne Bustin and site cleaner Adrian Abbotts who have lost weight in the last year.
Joanne Bustin, 32, from Stourbridge, shrank from 17st 8lb to 11st 2lb after she couldn’t put her boots on.
“I love shoes and when I went to the doctors about my swollen ankles they told me I was carrying too much weight,” she says.
“I joined WeightWatchers and then followed their diet by myself.
“When I look back now at pictures I can’t believe how big I was.”
Adrian Abbotts, 39, who lives on Laburnum Road in Dudley says finding out his eight-year-old daughter Celine had diabetes encouraged him to diet.
“To help her I decided to cut out sugar and snacks and I have gone from 22 stone to 16 in just a year,” he says.
“Doctors have decided to take me off my diabetes medication because I have done so well loosing weight.
“I don’t see the same fat person in the mirror anymore and I can now walk around the site without needing a rest.”
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