The Sons of Rest
The Sons of Rest is a social organisation that has provided leisure facilities for men of retirement age in and around Birmingham and the Black Country in the English West Midlands since 1927, and more recently for women. The movement was established when a group of retired working men, veterans of World War I, met in Handsworth Park, Birmingham, in 1927. One of them, Lister Muff (1852-1938) proposed that they form a club. The name was suggested by W. J Ostler recognising that they had been "sons of toil" during their working years. They originally  met in an old cab drivers' shelter in the park in summer and the park's bowling pavilion in winter, but appealed for funding for their own building, where they could meet and play games such as cards, draughts and dominoes. Their appeal succeeded, and the first building was opened in Handsworth Park in 1930. The appeal was supported by the chairman of Birmingham Corporation Parks Committee, Councillor George F. McDonald, who became the first president of "The City of Birmingham Federation of The Sons of Rest", on its inauguration in August 1932. The organisation's anthem, "Sons of Rest