I have often suppressed a wry chuckle ever since we moved to this part of the Midlands in 1981 when faced with the pretensions to royal grandeur of the local newspaper and some of its residents led by the local Tory High Command.
The fact of Sutton Coldfield being part of Birmingham and potentially overrun by the great unwashed who inhabit all points south of Wylde Green has always been one that keeps the true blue ladies awake at night and forces real gentlemen to make sure their shotguns are well and truly oiled and loaded.
I am therefore confident that Mr Mitchell's antics had nothing to do with a hard day at the whip's office or an excessive lunch at his club or swanky London watering hole. No. It was the weekend drills and manoeuvres with the Royal Borough's Home Guard wot did for him.
Spode like he can be seen in Sutton Park urging the boys to do their duty. "Friends Romans countrymen gird your loins. To the barricades! Repel the plebs and barbarians from the other side of the Chester Road." Our London Bobbies should have realised he was simply practising his rallying cry for the troops for the coming weekend.
Where then will we find a Mark Antony who will come not to bury our noble Caeser in the pages of the Sun but to praise him in the headlines of the Daily Torygraph? Answers to the Editor of the Sutton Observer.
