Group's battle vow over 'elf and safety

Covering windows to protect modest swimmers and a ban on residents mowing an overgrown grass verge were moves condemned by a newly-formed Black Country pressure group.

The Black Country branch of the Campaign Against Political Correctness met at Sedgley Conserva tive Club in Hall Street last night.

Organiser Bill Etheridge and a dozen like-minded people huddled round a table to discuss issues ranging from the "absurd to the quite serious".

The group says it is embarking on a crusade to restore reason to the region in an age where blackboards have been renamed chalkboards so as not to cause offence.

Walsall Council's decision to cover up windows at Darlaston Leisure Centre to protect swimmers' modesty met with universal disdain.

Bill Etheridge's father Alan, aged 69, a former director of Woodsetton-based Holden's Brewery who lives in Catholic Lane, Sedgley, said it was a "perfect example" of poor judgement influenced by politically-correct thinking.

Meanwhile Dudley Council's warning that residents should refrain from cutting an overgrown grass bank in Wordsley in case of injury also received a hostile response.

Retired Aerospace industry consultant Ron Heath, aged 65, of Moat Road, Oldbury, raised the topic and Bill Etheridge's wife Star waded into the debate.

Qualified solicitor and mother-of-three Mrs Etheridge, 38, who is wheelchair-bound, said: "These ambulance-chasing solicitors should be shot, it's this litigious society that's to blame for things like this.

"There's that advert for compensation where the bloke says he was given the wrong sort of ladder and then fell off. Well why did you climb up the ladder you fool?" Mrs Etheridge said she made no apology for "not being very PC".

For 90 minutes members shared their frustrations about "ludicrous" interventions in language. They spoke of the desire to end discrimination. And they pledged to fight compensation culture and the 'elf and safety' brigade.

Former steel salesman Bill Etheridge, told the meeting: "We have all got to look at our local councils and our local schools."