A PROUD Colley Gate woman has finally been able to see her war hero father’s sacrifice acknowledged on Stourbridge’s cenotaph – following a campaign by a Pedmore war veteran.

Keen history fan Ray Griffiths spent the last couple of years on a crusade to have 26 tragic soldiers from Lye commemorated on Stourbridge's main war memorial in Mary Stevens Park after discovering their names were never added.

He made the discovery during a research project to find out more about the 49 war heroes commemorated on a stained glass window at Christ Church, Lye, which was commissioned as there was not enough space on Lye's cenotaph to list the town's fatalities.

Mr Griffiths, aged 88, realised 11 men from Lye and Wollescote had been missed off the window and later produced a booklet as a tribute to all 60 servicemen.

But while matching up the names, he was shocked to discover 26 of the men had never even been added to Stourbridge's main war memorial.

Mr Griffiths, who is chairman of the Teutoburger Wald history group, said: "We endeavoured through our group to correct that and the new plaque was dedicated at this year's Remembrance service.

"There were four men named on the new plaque whose relatives had the opportunity to lay a wreath on the war memorial for the first time. It was very moving and very touching."

Among them was Pat Handley , of Hillside Avenue, , whose 30-year-old father Lance Corporal John Southall, of the 3rd Monmouthshire Regiment, was killed by a sniper on April 2 1945 in Teutoburger Wald, a forest in Germany, when she was just three-years-old.

Mrs Handley, aged 72, who lived in Lye High Street as a child, said being able to lay a wreath for the first time for her father was a poignant moment and she added: "It feels as though you are nearer to them.

"I would have loved to have known him and often wonder what life would have been like if he'd been alive."

A £5,000 grant from Dudley Council's Stourbridge and Norton community forum made the additions to Stourbridge's war memorial possible.