Tossie Patrick

Born in Blackheath in 1923. As a little girl, she used to visit nearby Shenstone Woods. These visits spawned a lifelong love of nature and her surroundings while school gave her a lifelong love of poetry.  She began writing her own poems and was a member of the same writer’s circle as Clarice Hackett.  Several of her poems were published in The Black Country Bugle. Her volume recalling her Blackheath childhood, A Pocketful of Memories – Blackheath was published by the Kates Hill Press in 1998.  This was followed in 2001 by the publication of a collection of poems, Memories and Thoughts. Tossie has written several short stories, some of which were published in Tales With A Twist in 2007 and her recollections of the war years appeared in the anthology A Pocketful of Memories – War Memories in the same year.  Tossie has made numerous appearances on The Carl Chinn Show on which renditions of her poems have proved particularly popular.