Artist who's been sketching Aldridge on a scroll for 50 years finally calls it a day
After more than fifty years of sketching scenes from his hometown on a roll of wallpaper artist Maurice Ivor Birch has completed the project with a right royal touch.
The 100-metre length of paper features some 320 pencil and ink drawings of buildings and scenery, many taken from old pictures which he researched.
The self-taught artist has spent more than five decades capturing historic buildings in Aldridge on a scroll he purchased at a car boot sale in Cannock in 1969. A selection of that work even made it into Aldridge On A Roll, a poetry and local history book released by Mapseekers Archived Publishing in 2015.
Following publication a decade ago the retired quality engineer suffered a series of strokes and was confined to his garden and conservatory, in Mountford Crescent, but managed to bounce back. He has now rounded off his lifelong hobby with images of George VI, Elizabeth II and King Charles III.
