Penn, the Village 1968

Hopkins and Tipper

I would love to hear from anyone who may remember my great-great-grandfather whose name was Owen William Hopkins. He did live with a lady called Mrs Tipper and had two children, one of who was called Winnie. Owen died in 1937.

The Fox and Goose Public House

Hello from Australia. I was hoping that someone looking through these "memories" might remember The Fox and Goose Public House on Penn Road. I think that this is the picture of it. My mom was the cleaner there for a few years when my sisters and I were young and I can remember sitting on the steps outside the pub collecting car numbers in an old exercise book and drinking a bottle of Vimto and eating Smiths crisps while I waited for mom to finish cleaning, and then we'd walk all the way back home to Warstones estate where we lived, it was such a long way but we never minded then as we didn't have a car and money was very tight so we couldn't catch the bus. Sometimes mom would stop on the way and if it was near lunchtime she would buy sixpence-worth of batter bits from the fish and chip shop that we passed on the way home  and we'd think it was such a treat if a little bit of fish had somehow made its way in to the batter bits. Now I have grown up "children" of my own and often tell them stories of when I was growing up. I think they find it difficult to imagine that a bottle of soft drink and packet of crisps plus the fact that we had "bits of batter" for lunch was such a treat.
I would love to hear from anyone that might remember the Fox and Goose public house or the Springhill Public House in Penn as my mom was also a cleaner there for many years and the licencee's name was Val Brookes.
Thanks for reading this, my name is Kathleen Adams (nee Cook) and I lived in Enville Road Penn.

New Boy

I came to Sedgley aged ten, having been born in the dock area of Dudley. At five we moved to Wolverhampton. Finally the family moved to the new houses down Cotwallend Road overlooking the Dingle. The 1962/63 winter was a real bad one and even the trolley buses had problems running. The bus stop was outside the Red Lion pub and some used to turn on the island. Secondary school, or big school, was Dormston that was and still is up a side road next to the Red Lion pub. Across the small road was Hartill's the buchers and, at the rear, Hartill's stables. I spent many happy hours working with the horses, learning how to ride, and drinking cups of tea in the tack room which stood at the top of steep stone steps, sometimes it was in school hours!
May's paper shop stood by the crossings where I would take papers with May. She drove her Morris Minor and we would run to and fro delivering the evening newspapers.
The Cliffton, or pictures, was our only real entertainment centre and when girls became interesting it was a place to take them. The now Market in High Street was once a large shop selling sofas and beds. The name of the shop slips my mind, but I think it replaced Eggingtons. A passage went round a centre show area giving a place where friends met and stayed out of the rain, also a shelter for the new bus stop. At the top of the High Street was Granger's fish and chip shop which was another meeting place when the youth club closed. I met my first wife at the club which was built on the old tennis court in the boys' school playground before it was moved to its new position. Time has changed Sedgley and sometimes I do not think for the better, but changed it has and long may it stay a village for any other new boy.  

Sedgmore's Grand Colliery Exhibition

The Bull Ring, Sedgley, that is the location where on a fateful night in April 1906, The Sedgmore’s Grand Colliery Exhibition Travelling Show, set up in Sedgley on its way to the Wolverhampton Annual Suntide Fair, burnt to the ground. The Show had been built up over many years by my Great Great Grandfather William James Sedgmore who, being born in 1841 in Cornwall, moved to South Wales and there married Thurza Venn in July 1867. I have been quietly researching over the years but as Sedgley was the final port of call for the Exhibition, I thought it fair to post this memory in the hope that someone may be aware of the Show and would like to pass on information to John Sedgmore Blundell john.blundell1@btinternet.com

Grand Theatre

I remember going to the Grand Theatre in Lichfield Street when I was a child. My aunt took me to see Margaret Lockwood in 'Peter Pan'. Her daughter Julia Lockwood was playing Wendy. Afterwards my aunt took me to the stage door and managed to get Margaret Lockwood's autograph and Julia's for me. My aunt was quite well known at the Grand as she visited regularly. Her father, my grandfather, was a violinist in the theatre's orchestra in the 1920s and 1930s. Later he became musical director there. Because of this my aunt worked really hard to prevent the theatre closing when it went through bad times, even to the point of buying rows of seats for performances and then pestering her friends to go with her!