Tipton Community Association's annual charity show

The young man's name was Barry Whitehouse, who went on to become one of the founders of Tipton Community Association 50 years ago, and is now their president.

In 1996, after Mrs Whitehouse's successful surgery for breast cancer, Barry felt the need to give something back to the hospital for the care and attention she received. After talking to the surgeon, doctors and nurses, he decided to do some fundraising for equipment, first raising money for the purchase of chemotherapy infusion pumps. This was done under the Tipton Community Association banner and called the 'President's Charity Appeal'. Barry organised sponsored walks, sponsored dog walks, raffles, etc, and 1996 was also the year that the first charity show was held in aid of the appeal. Dudley town hall was the chosen venue. The artistes were all local and friends of Barry, and the only expenditure was the room hire. Obviously things have progressed since then and eventually the name 'Presidents Charity Appeal' was changed to 'Barry's Charity Show'.

After using many venues over the years, 'Barry's Charity Show' has been staged at Brook Street Community Centre for the last decade. There have been some brilliant shows with so many talented and popular artistes including Jimmy Cricket, The Bachelors, The Grumbleweeds, Freddie 'Parrot Face' Davis, Tommy Mundon, Harry Harrison, Doug Parker, Our Trace, Norman Collier, and Michael Brooks, to name but a few.

The last charity show was held on October 10.

Thanks to the many friends who have supported these shows over the years, many from day one.

Over the past few years Tipton Community Association have raised thousands of pounds for breast cancer and hope to carry on doing so for many years to come.

See the original post on the Tipton Community Association's blog.