Remembering the Wolverhampton pub which once honoured WW2 heroes before being razed to the ground

Alas, this pub which honoured our RAF heroes became something of an embarrassment in its final days. It closed in November 2005 and then became a derelict eyesore, with the state of the building on the corner of Birchwood Road and Sandringham Road driving people living nearby to distraction.

It was a constant target for vandals and anti-social behaviour and was smashed up both inside and out.

Despite attempts by the real ale group Camra to save it, the bulldozers moved in in April 2008. Camra had claimed the pub could have been a thriving watering hole and that it had been poorly marketed ahead of its closure.

For residents, demolition saw one problem replaced by another, as the site became a blot on the landscape, covered in rubbish and broken glass. Eventually the site was redeveloped with housing.

But let's remember some better days of the pub. It was once a popular local, and was mentioned by TV chef Nigel Slater in his memoirs of growing up in Penn.

It opened in either 1958 or 1959, and had a rather splendid pub sign, an artwork featuring nine Spitfires in formation.

According to the original licensee Tom Chambers the pub did occasionally attract airmen, but none of them were regulars.

By 1968, by which time he was 70 and he and his wife had been licensees for over 30 years, he was planning to retire.

The distinctive pub sign was replaced with some fanfare in September 1969, with hundreds of guests at the ceremony.

The new sign, showing a Spitfire in a dive, was unveiled by Mr W J Gough, of Sedgley, who as a Flight Lieutenant was a fighter pilot with 68 Squadron, and who had won the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Billboards outside the pub told of the battle and inside there were more reminders in the redecorated newly-reopened rooms, RAF badges, the Spitfire Lounge, and a copy of the front page of the Express and Star at the time telling of the struggle as it happened.

The evening was organised by the brewery company, Mitchells & Butlers, to mark the exploits of The Few and officially celebrate the pub's redecoration.

It was by no means the only pub in Wolverhampton to honour Second World War heroes. The Chindit pub in Merridale Road continues to do so – it is thought to be the only pub in the country honouring the Chindits, the name given to troops under Major General Orde Wingate who went on behind-the-lines missions in the jungles of Burma.

It is said that the first landlord had been in the Chindits and named the pub in honour of his comrades. Can anybody tell us more about him?

In any event, there would have been plenty of Chindit veterans in the Wolverhampton area, as soldiers of the 1st Battalion of the South Staffordshire Regiment were part of the 1944 Chindit operation.

Wingate was killed in a plane crash in the early part of that operation.