Kingswinford schoolboy leads tributes to tragic friend

A brave eight-year-old Black Country boy stood up in front of around 150 mourners to read his own moving tribute to a schoolmate who died suddenly after an asthma attack.

James Barlow, of Kingswinford, penned a poem for tragic eight-year-old Owen Jeremy, a fellow pupil at Wordsley's Fairhaven Primary School.

He stood with his mother, Lisa Poole, alongside him to read the tribut at Owen's funeral at Gornal Wood Crematorium.

His tribute to Owen, of Primrose Hill, Wordsley, said: "Your love of super heroes and your wish to save the world – and how around the playground you ran and whirled. Your love of Mrs Rowley's Friday lunch pizza and chips and how it always quickly passed your lips.

"Your passion for football, swimming, front crawl and backstroke and how with Mr Garner you always loved to laugh and joke.

"Your smile so wide and so bright, now for us all in the sky, as a special star of light.

"And so to heaven here we send our forever thanks for just being you, Owen, our fun, special and great friend." Owen's father, David, aged 41, his uncle, Graeme Hull, and several other mourners wore Aston Villa shirts – the youngster's favourite team.

Floral tributes included a wreath from Aston Villa and a football in the team colours from his father and mother, Rowena, 37.

Mr Hull told the mourners, who included around 40 staff from the school, how brave he thought James had been to address the funeral service.

Wendy Weavin, of the British Humanist Association, who took the service, said that Owen had wanted to invent a machine so that nobody in the world would ever be poor again.