For many years, and unknown to many, a group of dedicated people had committed to erect a memorial to these men, and also to William Hackett, VC. He died in Givenchy-Lez-La Bassée whilst attending a comrade underground following an explosion. Given the chance to make his own escape after the Germans exploded the Red Dragon crater he refused, but stayed alongside his injured colleague Sapper Collins. Neither man saw daylight again, and both remain in the exact same place. The new memorial sits just a hundred metres away.

WW1 tunnellers came from Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and all of these countries were represented today. More than 400 people, relatives, locals and military attended.

It was a super day, and the high wind and showers took nothing away. Each man a hero, and each deserving of this monument.

Tomorrow I’ll be travelling with my father and aunt to identify the place where Sapper Thomas Eden lost his life underground at the age of 29. Tommorow would have also been the 100th birthday of my Grandfather – left fatherless at the age of seven.

For more information visit www.tunnellersmemorial.com

Click here for a professional set of photographs taken on the day.

Click here for BBC News coverage of the day.

An exchange with the Stourbridge Twitterati discussed the fact that young men, in their mid teens and below pub age, drink because they are expected to and not because they wanted to. I wanted to record what I’ve noticed through my litterpicking exploits.

Over the years I’ve been surprised at the number of ‘empty’ beer and lager cans which are still at least half full! The same applies to bottles. Why would that be? It can only be one reason, and that’s because they don’t actually like it, but like to brag that they’ve downed 6 cans when if the truth be known they’ve barely had 2.

I can only speak of my own findings, but would welcome any further evidence which would corroborate.

So are they actually drunk when they dance on cars and walk through town shouting and screaming, or are they just pretending to be that too?

Captain Reggie is also known as Alex Jackson. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/captainreggie

This year we paid more attention, and for days we’d heard the chirping increase and had been able to sit and watch parent wrens feeding the young. Then, two days ago, the first fledgling fell to the ground, where it sat helplessly dependant upon a parent to bring it insect meals. We kept watch as it became more adventurous and hopped onto the log splitter.

Within hours it had made it into the bottle recycling box and had to be rescued, whereupon it clung to the bit of flesh that appears when you stretch out your thumb. It sat there, chirping, for about three minutes before I placed it somewhere safer.

Others started to fall from the nest, and the woodstore became alive with chirping and feeding. They became more adventurous and hopped and semi-flew from box edge to log, to log splitter, to pallet, etc. We’ve kept a close eye on them this time, and watched in amazement at the work rate of parent wrens on a feeding mission; flying between our stuff to find and feed their young ones.

Today I found three fledglings huddled together on our lawn, and then they flew closer to the hedge and followed mother – or tried to. It was so funny to watch them try to fly up into the hedge, hang onto a leaf only to fall away back to ground. Wonderful.

The last few days have been a revelation to us. At one point today I watched as four young ones hopped around the garden. Seeing how quickly these new lives came to be, and how quicky they learn to cope with what will be their relatively short lives. I only hope they’ll be back next year.

For years now this Great White shark of retailers has been desperate to establish a store in Stourbridge. It acquired the Angel Triangle and proposed a complete redesign of the town and ring road to suit itself. One way or another the council was able to hold off that time.

Not long after, and with Modus to act as a stalking horse, plans were submitted to redevelop the Crown Centre white elephant with Tesco at the heart of it. The economy nosedived and Modus backed away, leaving Tesco to develop alone – and there really isn’t anything we can do about it. We will have a Tesco by the summer of 2012 – but will we have town centre to balance it out?

If the experience of Cradley Heath and other towns up and down the country are anything to go by we’ll have a dominant store and very little else. Which other store will sell everything, be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and have free parking? None. Dudley MBC has forced Tesco to levy parking charges to a minimum level, but these will be reimbursed to Tesco shoppers. So not that much of a good deal then.

Go to Google and search on ‘Tescopoly‘. There are scores of towns around the UK threatened with the same. Battles are being fought, but very few are being won; it’s almost futile for even a local authority to challenge in the courts the incredible wealth and resources of this unyeilding beast.

Once built this store will change the face of Stourbridge for ever, and perhaps to a magnitude not too dissimilar to when the ring road was constructed. Human behaviour, being what it is, will ensure it’s immediate success, but to the detriment of the rest of the town. If Tesco didn’t believe that it could take business off every other retailer in the area I don’t believe it would bother. Sure, some stores will survive: I can’t see them doing a line of £1000 bicycles, or have much in the way of Denon high end hifi equipment. But woe betide any store which relies on selling lines available in Tesco, for they’ll have more choice and at cheaper prices. The promised 400 new jobs will probably nett out much lower once lost jobs in the town are factored in.

Aesthetically, I have no objection to what I’ve seen. There will be a serious realignment of the Bell Street exit to the ringroad as this needs to be two way and accomodate all delivery vehicles. Dudley MBC should make it a condition to make this junction a top level cycle access to the town too. The subway from Enville St will be filled in and ring road pavements realigned, and I’m sure that traffic will be affected by rephasing of traffic lights to allow pedestrian crossing times. This may lead to traffic problems further afield as vehicles displace via residential areas.

I clearly have a fundamental issue with Tesco and what they have done to other towns. I’ll do my best not to use it, but many others will love it and care not one jot for the rest of the town. You have to see a grown man cry to realise the damage that this company has the power to do to people’s lives. I’ll guarantee the traders of Stourbridge will cry many a tear once this is built.

Many thanks to the guy at Dudley Council Plus who took my call, and to the teams who came and cleaned up for us. It’s just such a pity we had to wait so long.

Cllr Mike has a vested interest, since he owns a business called SB Events Ltd which is the main organiser and financial beneficiary. No one is suggesting that there is anything untoward here; this is clearly legal, and the Cllr no doubt admits his interest and takes no part in any council decision. The same is said for Cllr Angus Adams and Cllr Heather Rodgers, as they are both officers of The Friends of Mary Stevens Park and Swinford Common – a recipient of some cash raised on the day.

The event itself takes place in the beautiful Mary Stevens Park in Stourbridge, and involves fairgrounds, stalls, live music, and thousands of people. It went swimmingly well it could be said. The weather was perfect and people came from miles around, and the queues to gain admittance to the park were hundreds of metres long. Gate receipts would have exceeded expectations and Mike Attwood would have a very big smile on his face. Kerching!

Not so for those of us who live close to the park and have no say in events. We are the people who have to put up with horrendous traffic problems. We are the people who couldn’t get off our drives because someone had parked so as we couldn’t. We are the people who wanted to benefit from the superb weather and spend time in our gardens, only to be forced to listen to loud music and PA systems blaring out. What do we get out of this event? Nothing positive I can assure you, but plenty of negatives. I guess you could say that we have the other 364 days of the year, and you’d be right. Let’s take that positive.

But while we’re talking about just one day, wouldn’t you have thought it possible to show some consideration to neighbours by arranging to tidy up the mess? As I blog this it’s not far of a whole day later and the litter bins surrounding the park haven’t been emptied. Clear up in the park was pretty swift, but all areas outside the park have been completely ignored. So we had to endure unusual amounts of traffic, unlawful parking, armies of skinny white lager swilling youths running through our front gardens, hundreds of thousands of unenforced littering offences, etc, etc. And then to rub salt into our wounds neither Mike Attwood’s men nor Dudley MBC extend to us the courtesy of cleaning up outside the park. After all, and as I stated earlier, they have been planning this for a year; you would have thought that local councillors like Mike Attwood, Angus Adams and Heather Rodgers would have suggested that a clean up beyond the boundary of the park would have made sense. It would have made a lot of sense, but would Dudley MBC have charged the organisers for a Sunday working crew? Of course they would, which is probably exactly why we didn’t get it. Remember who’s making money from all this!

I’ll certainly be making my thoughts known on this, and will be attending planning meetings for any other planned events. Not happy. Not happy at all.

Fairly usual ground, starting with Sugar Loaf Lane out of Norton, over to Churchill, back up Waggon Lane and then down over the A456 and on to Chaddesley. A few hills, Dordale, Belbroughton, Hagley and home.

Saw a lovely brick gable out the back of Chaddesley Woods. I like a nice bit of brickwork.

And just look at the sky! It makes life worthwhile.

Time to crack on with the garden projects.

It’s also bloody warm – and I miss having the woodburner on. Tonight is the warmest night since September, and since then we’ve had our favourite heat source chucking out heat most nights. Our woodstore has run very low.

If you’ve never had one you won’t understand. We would certainly prefer to spend our evenings in instead of out. We’re more than happy to invest time sourcing wood and processing it into 15″ lengths at the weekend.

It is about time we didn’t need it on. It’s saved us a small fortune on gas this year, and at this rate we’ll hit ROI in a couple of years.

Take the summer off. Until next Autumn my friend.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

In her blog she attacked a friend of mine, and was so far wide of the truth it needs addressing. I’ve known Alun ‘Reg’ Nicholas for many years. He’s a very caring, considerate and religious man. He is not at all how Maddy Westrop describes him:-

“There was another, independent candidate, called Alan [sic], who has five Aston Martins, hates the Stourbridge NHS hospital where he had just left his mother, but wouldn’t pay for her to go to the private hospital because then he would have paid twice. Some rich people are very mean.”

Alun wasn’t aware of this tosh until I mentioned it to him last night. He’s written a response to Maddy’s blog, but just in case she decides not to publish it I’ve added his comments in full below:-

“I think we’d better check your policies over very carefully Maddy, I mean if you can get that much wrong from one conversation with me how many other ‘chinese whispers’ have crept into your manifesto and campaign?? Let me put you straight: I have one Aston Martin, just the one. I worked very hard for it over the last few years assisted to some extent by being in my mid forties and without children and the associated expense they bring. Being the largest independent British owned manufacturer of cars, I would have thought ‘you’kip might have celebrated my choice? Does the car you drive show support for British workers? Some people can be very judgmental about other folk’s success! It was the Dudley hospital that I had just left, not the Stourbridge one; had it been Stourbridge I would have walked and you would have been oblivious in respect my choice of car! the Stourbridge hospital is far cleaner than the Dudley one, I suspect only because it is younger. I have many issues with Dudley NHS Trust but wouldn’t use the term ‘hate’, its so emotive! I have applied to the Board of Trustees to see if I can do something from the ‘inside’ but they have yet to revert to me. Private care? its not a matter of paying twice, simply that neither I nor my Mother believe in private health care; one fundamental reason being the drain of NHS trained resource that it causes. If my Mother wanted Private care she would have it; the question has been asked of her often enough. Rich? Me? Well, wealth is relative; maybe you’ve managed to access my accounts somehow in order to be able to judge me so, but if you consider me mean as well you obviously haven’t else you’d know how much I give away. Had I not stood for election myself, your party would have been the most likely recipient of my vote; as you have chosen to make this so personal I’m very glad I made the choice I did. I suspect had you ‘played ball’ with the BBC’s wishes last Thursday we might have all been given a little more coverage; the party food was given more air time than we were!”