A POPULAR Black Country entertainer and pub landlord has died at the age of 93.

Amblecote-born Reg Hooper, who was also a master tiler, passed away in Tenbury Wells Hospital on October 3.

The eldest boy in a family of nine, Reg left school at 14-years-old to become a ceramic tiler, then in 1942, during the Second World War, he was one of the first recruits to the newly formed RAF Regiment which was set up to guard airfields.

Two years later he transferred to the 2nd Battalion of the Coldstream Guards and served in Italy until 1946.

In 1942 he married Ethel Hughes, of Wollaston, and after the war Reg and Ethel went into the licensed pub trade, starting at the Kings Head at Old Hill.

At the same time Reg founded his own business in ceramic wall and floor tiling, with the enterprise successful enough to eventually employ up to a dozen tilers.

Reg and Ethel lived in Cradley for a number of years before taking on the stewardship of the Churchill and Blakedown Golf Club for three years and then becoming licensees at the Foley Arms which fronted the famous Simpkiss real ale brewery at Silver End, in Brierley Hill.

On retirement, the couple moved to Forest Houses at Callow Hill, Bewdley, and finally to a bungalow in Newnham Bridge, near Tenbury Wells.

The pair were both keen on Black Country history and joined the Wyre Forest branch of the Black Country Society. They were enthusiastic members of Sing Wi' We, a senior choir which used to tour care homes and old people's clubs singing popular songs from the 1920s and 1930s.

Reg and Ethel were married for 67 years until Ethel’s death in 2010 at the age of 88.

They are survived by a daughter and son-in-law, two grand-daughters, and six great-grandchildren.