Page 125 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

414 Edmund (‘Ted’) WALKER (1926-2011?) (Inducted 31.10.1966; left in late 1968.) Housing
Management. Housing Manager for the County Borough of Dudley (a post later called Chief
Housing Officer) from 1965 to August 1968. He resigned from his post having been investigated
for unauthorised building works and fitting of bespoke furniture at his own house in Oakham
Road (which he eventually paid for) and also for unauthorised work at the home of a councillor
and the allocation of a large council house to another councillor as a means of ingratiating
himself. He was a native of Carlisle and his early career was on the staff of the City Housing and
Estates Department. He appears to have returned to Carlisle after his eventful period in Dudley.

415 Geoffrey Thomas LOWE (1929-1975) (Inducted 16.1.1967; left 1969/70.) Commercial Vehicles.
Director of The Dudley Motor Company from 1964 until it went into liquidation in 1968 when
major investor Charles Cooper decided to cut his losses. The firm had invested in rapid
expansion and had a large garage and car showroom in Wellington Road, Dudley; a truck garage
and showroom in Netherton, and various other premises. He was originally from the Stirchley
area of south Birmingham but in 1954 set up a used-car business - Boundary Garage - in Oldbury.
This failed two years later and he became bankrupt. He moved to Walsall and then to
Wolverhampton where he remained until his early death in 1975 aged only 45.

416 Joseph Arthur Fullwood PARKES (1920-2005) (Inducted 16.1.1967; left in 11.1984.) Radio
engineering. Sole proprietor and owner of a radio and television repair shop in Wolverhampton
Street, Dudley. Although born in Stourbridge he lived in the same house in The Broadway,
Dudley from a teenager for the rest of his life.

417 Arthur William FLETCHER (1917-2000) (Inducted 17.4.1967; left in 1976/77.) Structural
Engineering. Partner in charge of the Dudley office of Septimus Willis & Associates, Birmingham-
based consulting civil and structural engineers. His office was in Wolverhampton Street, Dudley
and briefly at High Street, Wall Heath. He left the club when the Dudley branch was closed and
the work transferred to Birmingham, although the whole practice was dissolved about 3 years
later. He grew up in the Tividale area of Tipton and started work in the area as a structural
draughtsman. During the war years he appears to have lived in Leicester but thereafter his home
was at Burcot near Bromsgrove, even when his workplace was in Dudley or Birmingham.

418 Andrew (‘Andy’) McNISH (1918-1995) (Inducted 17.4.1967; left in June 1972.) He joined in the
classification ‘Credit Drapery’ as proprietor of Andrew McNish & Sons Ltd of Firs Street, Dudley
but he turned his hand to several things. The drapery business went into formal liquidation at
the end of 1972 but immediately sprang up again as A McNish & Sons Limited and continued in
the clothiery business from Firs Street up to 1984 when that too was wound up. He born and
lived in Dudley all his life. After attending Dudley Grammar school he started work as a salesman
for his father, who was also a clothier and draper. During the 1940s and 50s Andy was described
as a tailor, first in Aston Road and then Oakham Road. But from 1957 he was offering a
document microfilming service from Firs Street and from 1960 he operated a ‘Self-Drive’ (car
hire?) firm from the same address. Then, during the mid-1970s, he ran a ‘Flooring Suppliers’
business around the corner in Caroline Street, and from about 1980 started as a private money
lender offering ‘Short Term Finance’ from his home in Tansley Hill Road.