Thanks for all your votes in The People's £50 Million Lottery Giveaway.

A disappointing result for the Black Country, but we must wish Sustrans all the best for winning and hope they spend the money wisely. Thanks to everyone who voted for us. Also, our thanks to the organisers of the Black Country bid for their very hard work throughout the campaign.

---

From Riches to Rags

Geoff Hill's autobiography describes his rise from a small terrace house in the back streets of the heavily industrialised Black Country town of Brierley Hill in the late 1920's, to the running of a highly successful retail electrical store. This was followed on retirement by his going back to rags - or the rag trade - when he used his business experience to open a chain of charity shops for a local hospice which raised over £1 million in the first ten years. Hence the "From Riches to Rags". In Geoff's early days he easily obtained a scholarship for King Edwards V1 school in Stourbridge, but received permission to leave at fifteen to help support the family income and to further his passion for cycle racing.

Geoff's working life was composed of some 15 very different jobs, and then several very different businesses. After working at the stores at a sanatorium and as an accountant doing audit work he then acquired a job in a racing cycle shop at Wolverhampton when he became "British under eighteen Cycling Champion". He also became the first semi professional road racing cyclist competing in Britain's first multistage massed start road race from Brighton to Glasgow. A stint as a "Bevin Boy" down the pit caused permanent damage to his lower back and a premature end to his cycling career. However he bounced back with a bewildering variety of jobs, from office work, supervising a chain of industrial canteens, door to door selling Betteraware, then Encyclopaedia Britannica and typewriters and office equipment, followed by a sales and service job with Hoover.

His businesses started with a grocery shop on the riverside at Bewdley, then tenancy landlord of a large country pub, he even sold miniature gnomes and brass items around the seaside resorts in Devon. Finally after opening and running shops for a Kidderminster electrical retailer, Geoff started his own electrical store in 1960. From humble beginnings in a small £3 per week shop, in a nondescript shopping area near Stourbridge he built it up to have the highest turnover of all sixty stores in the Birmingham and Black Country buying group that he'd joined. Since retiring, Geoff has wanted to put something back into the local community and evolved an endless medley of fundraising events. Notable of these was the hospice lottery, which also raised £1 million, this time in just 6 years. Ten years ago he started the "Geoff Hill Charitable Trust" with 10% of his company's annual profit and now over 600 local needy causes and charities have received financial assistance. Also he recounts the unbelievable response of the public in the heart rendering "Robert Parson's Story" and Geoff and Sue's four visits to Buckingham Palace. He is still a director of several other charities and although aged 80 in 2007 he still keeps as busy as ever.

Geoff intends to buy the first thousand copies himself so 100% of the profit will be going to the six local charities, which are Sunfield Childrens Home at Clent, Stourbridge Age Concern, Mary Stevens Hospice at Stourbridge, Dudley Hope (a charity that helps deprived and ill children in our locality) Leukaemia unit at Russells Hall hospital and Action Heart. After these books are sold then all the profit and royalties will go into the “Geoff Hill Charitable Trust” where all disbursements are made out constantly, mainly in our locality and usually helping smaller charities that sometimes get overlooked.

---

On the subject of Chance Glassworks, David Encill is writing a book on the subject. Please visit the page, there is a 1932 advert relating to the subject, as well as a request for information.

---

Launched on 7th April 2006 "Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths Around the Black Country". Written by myself (Mike Pearson) and former Blackcountryman editor David Cox. The book is being distributed by the Black Country Society. Stan Hill will review the book for the Summer issue. I am aware that the release to outlets such as Waterstones and WH Smith will take place on 18th May 2006. The book is available from the publishers Wharncliffe Books (www.pen-and-sword.co.uk). It is also available from Amazon.co.uk on the Internet.

New to the site, but familiar to those who read the magazine is John Taplin's labour of love "Shakespeare's Granddaughter and the Bagley's of Dudley". A lengthy and well-researched document. With 136 references; genealogies and photographs this piece deserves careful reading. I hope you appreciate the depth John has gone to when producing this article and you find it as illuminating as I did

New on the website an article from issue 38/4 - with extra pictures. The article is by Pat Talbot and is titled "A Hole in the Ground Where a Hole Don't Belong" . Also a piece about Black Country radical poet John Cornfield with some addiitonal information - thanks to Paul McDonald for the article and Alison Gale for the additional material.

New to the site- the Blackcountryman index is now contained within the main site, Bob Hart and a different view of how coal was formed. The search page is now running - both to search this site and the Internet in general. The link is on the left of this and every page on the site. The book review page has been updated with material from the Winter issue. Finally, the first part of my series of articles on researching your family history. More entries have been added to the Dudley Mayors page, and a couple of surname entries have been added.

I have received the following via email from Stanley Holland:

"In case you have not heard about it, I thought I would let you know about the continuing story of a historic coal hopper alongside the Old Main Line of the Birmingham to Wolverhampton Canal in Smethwick. Back in 2001, there was news that Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council
had applied for funding that would permit the restoration of this large concrete structure, along with other work. This news was reported in the waterways press, and it was therefore with great surprise and a sense of shock that readers realised that British Waterways had issued a Stoppage
Notice on this length of canal so that the hopper could be demolished on the grounds that it was unsafe.

In response to complaints, BW convened a hastily-called meeting, which, owing to the shortness of the notice, was only attended by four people who were by no means representative of users and other people likely to be interested. A stay of execution was put on the demolition, and there was a further meeting in Birmingham on last Tuesday afternoon, 11th April.

It is the last remaining significant reminder of coal mining in the Smethwick area, and there is no other like it in the whole country".

Anyone who would like to know more about this subject and would like me to pass on any message or contact details to Stanley please email me.