The Charlie Ramsey Research Fund

Meet the Committee

Here are the committee, please click a photo for a larger image!

Committee Members

Sandra Ramsey (SR) - Charlie Ramsey Research Fund/Childrens Hospital

Jane Greenshields - Ladbrokes, One Stop

Mark Burbridge (MB)- One Stop Operations Manager

Natal Chapman - One Stop Centre Administrator

John Benham - PC & Printing, One Stop

John Poultney - Olifleurs, One Stop

Mark Dixon (MD) - Centre Manager, Coventry

Ray Tilley - Network Rail

Pat Carberry - Johnsons Cleaners

Katie Blabey - Au Naturale, One Stop

Louise Nolan - Asda

Sandra Thompson - Greggs

Carl Chinn MBE FRSA Ph.D. is Professor of Community History and Director of the BirminghamLives project at the University of Birmingham.

A social historian with a national profile, he is also a broadcaster, newspaper columnist, public speaker, writer, and campaigner for the rights of working-class people. Professor Chinn is the author of 28 books that include studies of working-class housing, urban working class life, working-class women’s lives, manufacturing, Birmingham, the Black Country, and ethnic minorities. He has appeared as an expert on various television programmes, including Channel 4’s ‘History Hunters’ with Tony Robinson and BBC 4’s ‘Edwardian Larder’.

In the Midlands he is a long-running columnist on local history for the Express and Star and the Birmingham Mail; he has a weekly local history show on BBC WM and regular history slots on BBC Midlands Today; and he is the expert on ITV’s ‘The Way We Were’ series. Professor Chinn has appeared on numerous Radio 4 programmes, including those presented by Libby Purvess and Laurie Taylor, and has recently presented ‘Centre of Our World’, looking at various ethnic minorities in Birmingham. Professor Chinn’s broadcasting and writing on housing, working-class life, poverty, women and ethnic minorities is deeply affected by his family’s working-class background and life in the back-to-backs of Birmingham. This affinity led him to take a prominent role in the campaign to save the last back to backs in Birmingham and turn them into a National Trust Museum.

Professor Chinn also featured strongly in the fight to ensure the re-opening of Birmingham’s Town Hall, whilst he has been an active supporter of the Birmingham St Patrick’s Parade and is chairman of the Birmingham St George’s Day Association, which has led the way in celebrating England and Englishness in a positive and embracing way. An ardent supporter of manufacturing, Professor Chinn was a key figure in the battle to keep the Longbridge car factory open in 2001 and has since been supported the struggle for jobs at Chubb, Alstom, HP Sauce, and Smith and Nephew.

In 2001 he was awarded the MBE for his services to local history and to local charities. Carl is married to Kay, who is from Dublin, and they have four children, aged from 28 to twelve. His family has lived in Birmingham since the 1790s and he himself lives less than half a mile from where his great, great, great grandfather lived in the 1840s.