To put it simply, I couldn’t have wished for a better big brother.
The tone was set for our relationship when I was just a few weeks old. Apparently, and I find it difficult to believe, I was quite a difficult baby and cried a lot. To placate me, Tony was commissioned by our mother to walk me round the lanes in my pram, a circuit of around two and a half miles. As soon as we left the house, I would stop crying, and as soon as we reached home and the pram stopped moving, I would scream the house down, and so off he would set again, and often again and again….. Brotherly love well beyond the call of duty.
After leaving school Tony had a brief spell at the Midland Yorkshire Tar Distillers before joining the police and was eventually stationed in Stafford. When his schedule permitted, he would take me there for weekends away, these days akin to going to Paris, Rome or Amsterdam for the weekend! We would explore Stafford, the surrounding area and we often went to watch Stafford Rangers, all facilitated by a healthy dose of weekly pocket money.
After leaving the police force, Tony joined Bowmaker’s, now Finning’s, on Watling Street, working as a clerk and spent 28 happy years there. His generosity continued and I have a very impressive set of model yellow diggers to prove it!
Tony also introduced me to one of the loves of his and my life – Wolverhampton Wanderers. I will never forget the first game that he took me to at the beginning of the 1962-63 season when I was 10 years old – the final score was Wolves 8 Man City 1 – I thought that it was going to be like that every week! We subsequently travelled the country supporting our team, and I never paid a penny. Being a Wolves supporter over the past few decades has been a roller coaster ride, but I am delighted that at the end of his days Tony was able to see Wolves back in the top flight - the Premier League – I know that it meant a great deal to him.
But Tony’s service to the community was not just limited to his little brother.
First and foremost, when our parents were in their last days, it was Tony who provided the daily love and care that meant so much while I and my family lived a long way away, either in California or Norwich. They too would be very proud of Tony.
He was certainly active in village life in Wedges Mills, organising various coach trips to shows and football matches. For many years, he served as Secretary for Wedges Mills F.C. and worked hard behind the scenes to make sure that everything was in order and worked properly. He also served as a magistrate in Cannock, Wombourne and Stafford, and as a member of the Board of Visitors at Brinsford Prison.
He also had a number of hobbies, including archaeology, and was once interviewed on local television about the Staffordshire Hoard, hanging around the exhibit until the reporter felt that he just had to be interviewed. As some of you know, Tony liked to chat!
Ancestry was also one of Tony’s big interests, and he spent a great deal of time and effort working out the family history on our mother’s side back to 1675. In the parish records, in addition to various professions such as miner, we also boast a village idiot – thank you Tony for revealing that bit of family history.
And he also took a big interest in local history, belonging to both the Bridgtown and Cheslyn Hay Local History Societies, which he truly enjoyed.
There are too many people to mention individually who have contributed to Tony’s life, so please accept a very big and collective thank you from me and the rest of the family for enriching Tony’s life.
A description of Tony that I have heard time and time again, often from people that I had not met before, is that he is/was a really nice man. A kind and thoughtful gentleman. I couldn’t argue with that. We will miss him a lot.
Mervyn