A PAIR of starlings had built a truly mobile home. It was in a coal wagon in a Midland Railway Wagon in sidings at Blackwell station.

BROMSGROVE haulier Charles Lamb had a lucky escape when an 18 hundredweight girder, destined for the new ayslum at Barnsley Hall, slipped from a chain when it was being craned from a truck onto his wagon at the railway station. It narrowly missed his head and struck him on his back. He was taken by cab to his home where Dr Rowlands attended his injuries. He was later said to be "going on well."

ASHWELL Binner's obscene language directed late one night at a woman in the Whetty, Rubery, and overheard by PC Poyner landed him in Bromsgrove Police Court. Fining the 15-year-old, from Wildmoor, 5/- (25p) with 7/6 (37.5p) costs, the chairman of the bench declared he was sorry he could not hand the boy "a downright good whipping."

THE young son of J McGregor, landlord of the Red Lion pub in Bromsgrove, captured a live 2ft 7ins long grass snake at Cobbler's Coppice and took it back home, where he put it a jar. He was astonished sometime later when the reptile disgorged a live, full-sized frog.

PROPERTY prices continued to rise in the Bromsgrove and Droitwich Spa areas. "Osmotherley", a Tudor-style residence built on a spur of the Lickey Hills at Blackwell, attracted spirited bidding when it went under the hammer at the Grand Hotel in Birmingham. Surrounded by close on one and a half acres of tennis lawns and orchards with extensive views to Malvern, Clent, Habberley, Bredon, Clee, Walton Hill and the Cotswolds, it was sold for £2,400.