Stan Highfield was born in Wednesbury in 1930 and is the last surviving of eight children. He was educated at the local Hollyhead Road School before going to Wednesbury Technical College and then spent a year at Aston College of Technology in
Birmingham.
His career in the iron foundry industry began at the age of 21. He made his way through the ranks to become a marketing and sales director where he worked in Holland for four years and also travelled to the Middle East and North America on business. He was made a Fellow of the Institute of British Foundrymen in the 1970s for his services to exports.
Stan served in the RAF for two years where he boxed for the ‘Force’ against the Navy. He was a class one football referee and has officiated at a Stafford Rangers match. His hobbies include crown green bowling and golf and he is also an armchair cricketer and fanatical Aston Villa FC supporter.
His political career began in 1989 serving on Swynnerton Parish Council. He was elected to the Borough Council for that area in 1999 and has since served on the council’s ruling cabinet with responsibility for the environment and health portfolio.
Stan was married for 42 years to wife Doreen who died in 1994. They have a daughter Mary.
He will be raising money in his mayoral year for Riding for the Disabled, Air Ambulance and Welfare for the Blind (Stafford).
Frances Knight was born in Stafford, the youngest child of Mr and Mrs Phillip Godwin, a local business man. Fran was educated at St Joseph’s Convent in Stafford; she started her training as a student nurse at Staffordshire General Infirmary qualifying in April
1970.
After working as a Staff Nurse and then Sister at Groundslow Hospital, she then moved to the new District General Hospital in 1983. Fran left there in February 1989 to start a nursing home at Oulton Abbey Nursing Home nr Stone. Following a year as a research nurse for the Department of Health, she completed the circle going back to St Joseph’s Convent to manage their nursing home in 1994.
Since 2007 she has worked at South Staffs Primary Care Trust as a registered nurse in complex health needs. Fran has two children, Dominic who works in Reading and Adam who works in Spain.
