Friday afternoon saw the unveiling of a permanent memorial to all those people who worked in Hamstead Colliery and to those who lost their lives. The original concept was the brain child of a close friend of mine Ken Styler who with his wife Brenda has worked hard over a great number of years. They formed a committee and launched a memorial trust:- http://miners.b43.co.uk/
Not often our local newspaper the Express & Star get it wrong but last night I think they did. The front page picture was a local councillor leering at us with the memorial and others very much a background item. Lots of people have helped in all sorts of ways. I’m thinking of the lady who runs our local stroke club who organised two concerts to help with fund raising. I know Ken tried to keep the project none political and tried to involve all the local politicians. Some helped others didn’t. I have expressed reservations about the wisdom of having a memorial on this site. Although we do not suffer greatly with graffiti it would be tragic if the site was vandalised. Good to see the funders provided a litter bin. I hope that whoever is going to be responsible for maintenance will keep it nice. Our community deserve it.
Hamstead Miners Memorial Trust Headquarters is at Tanhouse Community Centre Hamsead Road Great Barr. Which is about as close as possible to the original mine workings.
Hamstead Miners Memorial Trust Headquarters is at Tanhouse Community Centre Hamsead Road Great Barr. Which is about as close as possible to the original mine workings.
Well done Ken, Brenda, Maureen, Tony, Val & Tony
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3 comments:
Hi glad to see you have recognised local people who worked so hard to get this off the ground, what about the company who built it FOC.
Nice and well deserved as the memorial is I hope Mr Ward can now return to sorting out the problems of his own ward!
Thank you for your comments on this. Ian & Tracy, I deliberately left off mentioning funding and construction because I was unhappy about the way the company dealt with other bidders for the funding. Anonymous, Tony does live in our ward and it is nice to see a councillor championing something in our community. Dave Hosell is starting to do more but the others as far as I know send complaints to member services, write it up in a leaflet and that’s about it. I’d like to see more.
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