Aer Reg contemplating the unveiling of the refurbished George Fullelove Memorial Shelter at The Parade, Brownhills. Image Kindly supplied by David Evans.

Yesterday (Monday 25th June 2018), this post was supposed to be automatically published at 6am. Sadly, I forgot to tick a box and didn’t notice, so it never saw the light of day.

I’m rectifying that now: Happy (belated) birthday to the Grandfather of the Brownhills Blog, Reg ‘Aer Reg’ Fullelove, now resident in Norton but a Brownhills lad through and through.

Reg is a wonderful local historian, poet and community elder, and his comments on the blog have their own cult following and we all love every one. But more than that Reg has donated over the years a huge amount of meterial, from films like this one of the 1934 Brownhills Carnival that opened up the remarkable history of Edgar Pritchard, to photos of old times, to local ephemera, great tales of his youth and of course, his brilliant poetry.

Happy Birthday for yesterday old lad, you’re a star and the blog would not be what it is today without you.

Apologies for the delay, Reg. We all of us here look up to you, and I can’t think of a better Grandfather the blog could have – but you’re not just that, you’re a most excellent friend to us all, too.