This week’s Pictures from the Past

Corporal Norbert Sandy was obviously posing for the camera in this wartime picture taken at Nedge Hill, Stirchley, but look closely and there are some interesting points.

Is he on a motorcycle – or a bicycle? It’s difficult to tell, but it has to be the former (you don’t have licence plates on a push bike). Sandy, as he was known, was in charge of the RAF fixer station, a sort of navigation aid for aircraft, at Nedge Hill. The photo was loaned by Mrs Bess Edwards, of Victoria Road, Shifnal, whose parents Sam and Dorothy Harris farmed at Sunnymede Farm, where some wartime airmen based at the nearby fixer station were billeted.

Naturally she remembers Sandy and his bike. “He would go round and round the yard scaring the chickens,” she said.