From pioneering solar inventions in Cannock to heated neighbourhood disputes over suburban kerbs, 1976 was a year when everyday life across the Black Country and Staffordshire rarely lacked a talking point.
These archive pictures capture a year of summer heatwaves, personal milestones, local campaigns and familiar faces.
Here is a look back at the stories, unusual happenings and everyday moments that shaped life across our towns and villages in 1976.
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13. Measuring the final bar at Birchley Rolling Mills
With a cigarette casually perched on his lip, Joe Washington measures the very last section of steel to be rolled at Birchley Rolling Mills in Oldbury, closely watched by mill manager George Murphy in May 1976. The poignant moment brought an end to over half a century of steel production at the First World War-era plant, which had survived political swings of nationalisation and privatisation before British Steel Corporation finally ran down operations, offering the remaining 80 men alternative jobs and retraining. Did you or a family member work on the hot rolling lines at Birchley before the furnaces went cold in the spring of 1976? | Express & Star archive
14. Striking for glory in Smethwick
Fifteen-year-old goalgetter Brenda Viney tests the keeper with a sharp strike as she prepares for a local penalty shootout contest in November 1976. A pupil at Holly Lodge High School in Smethwick and a regular player with the Sportsco Ladies team, Brenda was the sole girl entrant stepping up against the boys in the district-wide competition open to all Sandwell schools. Staged at the Hadley playing fields on Waterloo Road, the contest served as a curtain-raiser to a charity football clash between BBC sports commentators and BRMB Radio in aid of Warley Cancer Research. Do you remember cheering on the teams at Hadley playing fields or taking part in school sports competitions during the autumn of 1976? | Express & Star archive
15. A lively new community hub for Bolton Court
Tenants' association secretary Mrs Jan Turner and association president Councillor Geoff Dalton survey the near-complete construction of a purpose-built club at Bolton Court, Ocker Hill, in April 1976. Set beneath the towering residential flats and scheduled to open by mid-June, the new facility—complete with a large assembly room—was built to accommodate more than 180 members with a full calendar of social functions, live shows, and dances. Did you live at Bolton Court or attend any of the community dances and shows held at the tenants' club in Tipton during the 1970s? | Express & Star archive
16. Victorian foundations for a modern parish centre
Workmen laboriously mix tar and lay brickwork during the construction of a brand-new social centre for St Michael's Catholic Church in West Bromwich in August 1976. In an ingenious blend of heritage and new construction, the original walls of a 100-year-old Victorian primary school—which shut its doors in 1962—were incorporated directly into the structural shell of the building, made possible after parishioners spent five years raising the funds through weekly draws, sponsored walks, and community events. Did you help raise funds for St Michael's or attend functions at the parish centre after it opened its doors in the late 1970s? | Express & Star archive