STAFFORDSHIRE REGIMENT ASSOCIATION (WOLVERHAMPTON BRANCH)

The Staffordshire regiment Association
Veterans history
The Wolverhampton branch has been established over 50 years in the Wolverhampton area supporting the veterans of the Staffordshire Regiment and their families with welfare, advice and guidance and a place to meet fellow comrades and socialise.
We hope you enjoy the history pages of the Staffordshire and Mercian Regiment here is a overview of the Veterans Association history.
For over 50 years Wolverhampton have supported the veterans of the North and South Staffordshire Regiment hosting regular social meetings for ex-service and serving members to support each other through comradeship and brotherhood.
The Wolverhampton Branch have hosted our meetings in many venues within the City and currently host our Branch meetings at the Conservative Club situated in the heart of Wednesfield town.
We have continued to support the veterans and families of veterans by offering them support when required by support from the branch or signpost them to the relevant organisations to meet their needs.
The Branch has grown over the years by attracting new members to join the branch and get involved with supporting the aims and objectives and ethos of services we offer.
In 2015 we held our first Armed Forces Day event at the Ashmore Inn, Ashmore Park with the City Mayor Councillor Ian Brookfield and his wife Councillor Paula Brookfield to open the event. This first event catapulted the Branch into hosting many events over the years to raise the funds to support the work of the Branch.
We have hosted many social events for the members such as Day trips to Lincolnshire to see the Lancaster Bomber 'Just Jayne', to Gloucester to see the history of the area and organise trips to Arnhem to commemorate the fallen in Operation Market Garden.

The Sons of Rest is a social organisation that has provided leisure facilities for men of retirement age in and around Birmingham and the Black Country in the English West Midlands since 1927, and more recently for women.
The movement was established when a group of retired working men, veterans of World War I, met in Handsworth Park, Birmingham, in 1927.[1][2] One of them, Lister Muff (1852[2]-1938[3]) proposed that they form a club.[2] The name was suggested by W. J Ostler recognising that they had been “sons of toil” during their working years.[2]
They originally met in an old cab drivers’ shelter in the park in summer and the park’s bowling pavilion in winter, but appealed for funding for their own building, where they could meet and play games such as cards, draughts and dominoes.[2] Their appeal succeeded, and the first building was opened in Handsworth Park in 1930.[1][2]
The appeal was supported by the chairman of Birmingham Corporation Parks Committee, Councillor George F. McDonald, who became the first president of “The City of Birmingham Federation of The Sons of Rest“, on its inauguration in August 1932.[2] The organisation’s anthem, Sons of Rest, was written by one of the early members, Charles Smith, who was aged 81, and blind:[2]
United in our Brotherhood,
Our aim is for the best
We’ve passed our many milestones long,
Still happy Sons of Rest.
We sit and talk of days gone by,
And how we stood the test,
Of hopes deferred and joys fulfilled,
The stalwart Sons of Rest.
Then let us all with one accord
Proclaim “how we are blessed,”
And let contentment fill our minds,
God bless the Sons of Rest.