Memories of Billy's home

Billy Wright pictured during a return visit to 33 Belmont Road in 1979 under the watchful eye of an ATV news film crew and accompanied by interviewer Peter Green.

When Dave Wallace moved in to his new home in Ironbridge in 1971, little did he know that it was the birthplace of a legend - the Wolves and England footballer Billy Wright.

But it was not long before he found out.

He says: "We bought 32 and 33 Belmont Road. I knew he was born in Ironbridge and was drinking one night in what used to be the George and Dragon pub, on the Madeley bank - it's now a private house - and said: 'Billy Wright was born around here.'

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The landlady said: 'Yes, he was born in number 33.' I said: 'Gosh, that's the place I have just moved in to'."

The two cottages - 32 and 33 - had cost £2,500 and Dave set about converting them into one.

"I knocked down seven or eight internal walls downstairs. They were tiny little rooms downstairs. I converted it into one cottage and bricked up a front door.

"I was there about 15 years, and left in about 1986 or 1987, and moved to Broseley."

Billy Wright's home has been in the news of late because it has been on the market, and a recent reader's letter to the Shropshire Star claimed that the 33 Belmont Road address was only pinpointed as his old home by research in the 1990s.

But Dave says not only is this wrong, but that Billy actually visited his old home in the late 1970s as part of the bicentenary celebrations for the Iron Bridge.

"ITV got in touch and asked if they could film outside the house and bring him over.

"They bought him down to the Golden Ball pub and arranged for a number of young kids from the Abraham Darby School (the school which, as Madeley Modern School, Billy had attended) to go down and greet him. He was quite worried about it because he said: 'These young kids won't know who I am.'

"The presenter was Peter Green and it was a Midlands Today item. I used to have a video of it - I don't know where that's gone.

"They showed him walking up the road and all the kids running down and greeting him. My daughter Cathy was one of them.

"He came up and met Sue, my late wife, who was a well-known ceramicist and potter. He told her: 'I've never been back to this place. It's hard to believe that my mum bought up six kids in one half of this house.'"

As an aside, it is surprising that Billy had never been back to the property - certainly he had returned to Ironbridge, as we have a picture in our files, perhaps from the 1950s, showing him attending the wedding of his younger brother Laurence at St Luke's Church, Ironbridge.

"Billy added: 'I was lucky to survive. When I was born I was wrapped up in newspapers and the doctor or midwife said take this outside and throw it away - it's too small.' He was a very small boy. When he went for trials at Wolves years later he was sent home by Major Buckley because he was too small.

"As they filmed him and Sue talking he said: 'I was born in one half of this.' She said: 'You've already told me that.' He said: 'Yes, my dear - it's only for the benefit of the filming.'"

With the house having considerably changed over the years, there was little or nothing that remained familiar to Billy.

Dave said: "He said: 'I don't recognise any of this.

"It would have been the back bedroom I was born in. There were six of us in one half of the house.'"

He added: "He signed a book of mine. I have still got it somewhere. He was a lovely man."

Billy's visit was reported with pictures in a bicentenary edition of "Telford Wrekin News" - possibly some sort of council, Telford Development Corporation, or tourism paper - dated July 2, 1979.

The article said Billy was born in Ironbridge in 1924 and left in 1938.

It quoted Billy, who at the time of his visit was head of Outside Broadcasts and Sport for ATV, as saying: "I spent much of my youth here, and obviously I can see that there are changes being made. But the changes are nice, and the overall character of the place remains the same.

"I still see people I haven't met since I left, and I know them."

The newspaper said Billy's tour of his birthplace had been broadcast on the Midlands Today programme on June 22 - that is, June 22, 1979.

Nock Deighton's sales particulars of 33 Belmont Road at the time of the Wallaces leaving in the mid-1980s describe it as: "A 19th century detached cottage with a wealth of exposed beams and refitted old cast iron ranges to dining/kitchen and lounge and being the birthplace of world famous Wolves and England football player Billy Wright."

Offers of "over £95,000" were invited.

During their time at the house Dave and Sue tried to get the property recognised as Billy Wright's birthplace, without success.

It was only much later that a blue plaque was placed on it.

"He was one of my boyhood heroes. I'm very proud to have lived in his home for a long time and made a big deal of it - and always have done," added Dave.

By Toby Neal

The Ironbridge-born Wolves and England legend Billy Wright with the 1949 FA Cup.

Number 33 Belmont Road, Ironbridge, seen in the sales particulars in the mid-1980s. The Wallaces had converted numbers 32 and 33 into one property - so Billy and his family lived in one half of the house pictured.

Home again . . . this grainy late 1970s photo shows Billy Wright chatting over the garden wall at his Ironbridge birthplace to Mrs Sue Wallace, who lived there at the time.