Images Kindly supplied by Brian Stringer via the young David Evans.

Last week I pointed out that this weekend, there was to be an unveiling ceremony of the restored George Fullelove Memorial Shelter near  The Parade in Brownhills – well, the event took place on Saturday morning (21st April 2018) in splendid weather to an appreciative crowd that  included several of the great chorister’s descendants – including honorary grandfather of the blog, Reg ‘Aer Reg’ Fullelove.

 It’s been brilliant to see the Brownhills Local Committee and other involved parties work so hard to preserve the memory of one of the finest sons of Brownhills: Chorister and Choir Master George Fullelove.

Thanks to old friend of the blog Brian Stringer, I can share the above gallery of photos of the day, including our MP Wendy Morton. Thanks to David Evans for sorting the photos out, after he was indisposed at short notice.

I think few people realise that Brownhills has a fine musical and choral history, and that George Fullelove led a prize-winning choral society that really were the toast of musical circles, every bit the match for the great Welsh ensembles of the day.

George passed away in 1956, and the Fullelove Memorial Shelter or Arbor was unveiled in April, 1959. This curious hexagonal shelter still stands today on the corner of The Parade and Chester Road and was intended, not as many think as a bus shelter, but as a resting and meeting place for people of the town where they could sit and chat in the dry and out of the wind.

The Fullelove Memorial Shelter, or as many of us know it, ‘The 50p piece’. Image Kindly supplied by David Evans.

Many generations – including my own – called this shelter ‘The 50p piece’ and loved it, spending hours there.

In the last 12 months, several organisations including Brownhills Local Committee and Walsall Council have come together to get the Fullelove Memorial Shelter restored, and for an information board to be erected nearby, and I must say, it’s looking very smart.