Page 145 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

Aberdeen as manager of the BHS store where he remained until retiring about 1995. His home
is at Balnagubs, a remote locality about 8 miles SW of Aberdeen. In retirement he remains active
in local affairs, including being a member of the North Kincardine Rural Community Council. He
is a native of Somerset.

487 Michael (‘Mike’) Connor SUMMERFIELD (1939- ) (Inducted 9.7.1979;
President 2000-01; made a Paul Harris Fellow 2007, with added ‘sapphire’
in 2019; still a member at 2022.) Housing management. Chief Housing
Officer of Dudley Council until retiring in 1997. He was raised in Rushden,
Northamptonshire before moving to Dudley at the age of eleven. After
leaving Dudley Grammar School he trained at Wolverhampton Housing
Department for five years, but interrupted by National Service. He was
appointed as Deputy Housing Manager at Bilston in 1963, followed by
appointment as Deputy at Dudley in 1965. He was promoted to Acting
Housing Manager in 1968 when Ted Walker (Rotary member #414) was summarily asked to
leave, and confirmed as Housing Manager in 1969. He became Chief Housing Officer in 1974
when the old Dudley borough amalgamated with Stourbridge and Halesowen. The combined
Dudley authority had a total housing stock of 45,000 properties and a staff of around 1500. He
continued to apply his experience as a Board member of Jephson Housing Association from
1998, and more particularly as a director of the Rotary Club of Dudley Housing Association from
2001 and its chairman from 2012 until Rotary House was transferred to CHADD (the Dudley &
District Churches Housing Association) in 2018. He was Club Secretary 2003-07 and Team Leader
of the Rotary District 1210 Group Study Exchange team to South Carolina in March 2002. He
lived at Pedmore until 1996 and then in Kinver.

488 Reginald John LITTLE, JP OBE (1929-2004) (Inducted 9.7.1979; left in 1983/84.) Boot & shoe
manufacturing. He was Managing Director of W Little & Sons Limited and
Winit Sports Shoes Limited, having taken over from his father Reg (club
member #280) in 1961. The firm, whose factory and offices were in Hill
Street, Netherton, was founded by his great-grandfather in about 1850. In
addition to work boots, walking boots and shoes, it manufactured footwear
for rugby, football, cricket and various other sports under the brand name
‘Winit’. In his younger days John was a good rugby player and captained
Moseley RFC in the season 1957/58. He maintained a connection with the
club and in 1986/87 Winit donated a ‘Golden Boot’ trophy to be awarded
annually to the Player of the Season. John grew up in Netherton and married Erena, daughter
of Doris Pardoe, better known as ‘Ma Pardoe’, licensee of the Old Swan. When Ma Pardoe died
in 1984, Erena inherited the pub and brewhouse, so John ran it for a couple of years to ensure
its future as a celebrated home-brew establishment. He was a senior magistrate on the Dudley
Bench and became Chairman of the local Lord Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Justices of
the Peace. For services to the Magistracy he was awarded the OBE in 1994. He lived in The
Parade, Dudley until 1962 and then in Priory Close.

489 Ronald (‘Ron’) Keith WESTERBY (1939-2007) (Inducted 9.4.1979; left in 1982/83.) Education,
Administration. Deputy Director of Education for Dudley from about 1976 and Chief Education
Officer from 1981 until retiring in 1995. He came in for some ridicule in the national press in
1991 when he banned Postman Pat and Thomas the Tank Engine books from nursery and
primary schools in the borough because of their supposed male stereotypes. He grew up near
Doncaster, West Yorkshire but appears to have held posts in Lincolnshire and Wakefield before
coming to Dudley. Although working in Dudley his home was in Ditton Priors, Shropshire. After
retirement he became chairman of the governors of the small village school in Ditton Priors and