The man that was Fluepot, a local legend.

 Brownhills once had a few characters worthy of a small slice of infamy.
Though their happenings probably were not note worthy on a daily basis, they were on an accumulation basis.
One such character went by the name of Fluepot, real name Peter Cooper. Now i am not an expert on the goings on of Fluey, but have worked with him and heard many a tale which i believe are true.....well to some extent anyway.

One such tale came about just after the end of the Falklands war. There was a glut of work on the island for civil engineers, which Fluey purported to be. This was a highly paid job in a land far away from home. Now legend has it that Fluey was amongst the first batch of civil engineers to land on the island. They were billeted in army type barracks, and had full access to military facilities i.e the Naafi and bar etc. Now Fluepot enjoyed a drink to say the least. In fact i would say he spent at least half of his waking hours intoxicated. If he had money in his pocket he would be found in a public house somewhere in the Brownhills area. Not long into Fluepot's stay on the Falklands he had become very familiar with the local ale. Fluey did not know the meaning of "had enough" and almost always drank himself into a coma (cash allowing). On one such occasion, he managed to soil his bed with both number 1 and 2! This had followed a couple of bed wetting episodes which had been noted. Any way this angered the contractors so much that they forcibly removed Fluey from the island and sent him on his way back to England.

The legend being that, Fluepot, aka Peter Cooper was the first person to be forcibly removed from the Falklands islands after the Argentinian army were removed.

Fluey was a regular in the old Anchor pub when it stood at the side of the bridge. He would pick his wages up on a Friday and from that point on it was a full on onslaught against his liver. My uncle Martin said that one day as Fluey stood at the bar he managed to let all of his bodily fluids go while trying to Fart (gross i know)! Anyway that led to him being bared for a while.

Photo thanks to Brownhills Bob.

One of my last memories of Fluepot was my wife and me sitting in our car at the bottom of the high street outside the old swinging fish chippy. I could see Fluey heading towards us, it looked like he had been to Mario's as he had a large fish and chip wrapper in his hand. He was on the three steps forward and one back routine when he unfurled a large piece of cod. I said to my wife "look, i bet he drops that". True to form, he picked up the fish (by the tail), the fish began to bend away from his mouth, the more he lent forward the more it bent until it snapped and hit the floor!! I knew he would do this, he bent over picked it up and flicked the gravel from it and, yep...he carried on eating it.
Anyone who has phots of the old Anchor or Fluepot, if you send them to me i will scan them and get them back to you.

Fluey, to you i doff my cap R.I.P.