1. Express & Star Thursday, January 17, 2013 ES www.expressandstar.com 43
The story of an important area
of neighbours Write
to Carl
across the sea
HAVE you a story to
share about the Black
Country? If so, drop Carl
a note. If you have a tale
to tell, a memory to pass
on or a photo to share,
then write to Carl c/o
The Editor, Express &
Star, Queen Street,
“Unfortunately this was the last contact that
I had with Joe Austin who is with his Maker.”
Wolverhampton, WV1
Since then Mike has been able to pass on his 1ES. All photos will be
deep appreciation of their neighbourliness to
members of the Gittins family, whilst a relative scanned immediately at
of Joe Austin has been in touch.
She is Jane Nicklin who writes that “Joe
the Express & Star
Austin lived with my Gran, his cousin, some- offices and returned as
time through the mid-60s/s and early 70s in
Daisy Bank, Coseley. In my early teens I quickly as possible. You
remember him helping me and my cousins with
homework and he loved to give people books. I
can also email Carl at
still have a dictionary he gave to me, I think on carl@brummagem.fsnet
my thirteenth birthday. He had written inside,
‘When you are counting your blessings may you .co.uk
never run short of words’. I vividly remember
in the front room his huge full book cases.
Mike has since spoken with Floss and David G Carl Chinn is
and when they were talking, Floss told him
that “her niece, Christine, was married to a Professor of
man who like me is a member of the Gentle-
men Songsters Male Voice Choir and every
Community History
rehearsal we were sitting next to each other yet
the link to Joe Austin never surfaced”.
at the University of
Ian Jeavons also has memory of the remark- Birmingham and
able Joe Austin. He remembers that “I was
aged nine in 1957 when my father and I met you can listen to
Joe on a coach taking Wolves fans to Highbury
for a football game against Arsenal. I have him each Sunday
worked out it was 1957 because I remember
the score was 0-0 So it was over two years later, between noon and
in December 1960, when out of the blue I
received the attached birthday card from Joe
2pm on BBC WM,
together with a one dollar note. I still have the
dollar as well as the card. What a kind and
95.6 FM
thoughtful man he was!” Left, the poem sent to Michael after the death of his beloved mother by Joe Austin. Right the birthday card sent to Ian Jeavons in 1960
role in coronation of a king
Names and faces of 1953
works dinner to the fore
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