Tom Hickman
You will remember Tom Hickman as the one time owner of the Penn 66 Club but Tom was also a war hero. Tom served King, Country, and Empire as a soldier in France in World War II. It was during a period of waiting for the enemy to attack that Tom, caught in the corner of his eye… a dog. The dog – a German shepherd (in those days called Alsatian) – seemed lost, hungry and disorientated by the noise of gunfire. Tom opened his rations and shared them with the dog.
Times were hard in the trenches: the difference between death and survival could be a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; friendships were never entered into as a comrade could be taken in the flash of a mortar, so the opportunity of having contact with another living thing, all be it four legged, was welcomed.
The dog stayed with Tom for several days then, as quickly as it came, it disappeared. It was almost a week until it was seen again.
It was on that evening that a strange event took place; an event that possibly played a part in altering the course of the war. What was this strange event? Unbelievable as it sounds the dog began to speak. At first it spoke in German then later in broken English until after a few hours he was fluent in both languages. He explained to Tom that he had lost his home when the Nazis had arrested his owners (a Jewish family) and he had been wandering, homeless and hungry ever since. Because Tom had shown him kindness he had decided to repay him in a practical way. Being canine he could move around the enemy lines with impunity and without raising suspicions as to his purpose. It was during a visit to the German lines that he overheard the officer in charge discussing plans to attack the British lines. All this he told to Tom and after convincing a somewhat incredulous British CO, the intelligence was acted upon. Over the course of eighteen months the dog ran many reconnaissance missions and as a result countless lives were saved.
The dog, Prinz, now known by his Anglicised name of Prince was awarded the Victoria Cross by Maria Dickin CBE and, after the War returned to Pompy with Tom to live on Penn Common where he became a favourite with the locals.
On 24th October 1947 Prince passed peacefully away and in doing so left a void in the lives of many. The Hickman family decided to obtain another dog and so adopted a stray, naming him Prince also in honour of his vocal predecessor. This Prince, it was soon discovered had gifts almost equal to the Prince of old. Although lacking the gift of speech, he could readily find his way to any part of the country and understand money well enough to do simple multiplication and division. To give an example: In those days a bus service ran from Wolverhampton to Sedgley by way of Penn Common. Prince who, naturally, could tell the time and read a timetable would wait at the stop outside his home then, embark the “36”, paying the conductor with change from a small purse carried around his neck. On reaching his destination – probably the butcher’s shop – he would purchase sausage meat or other savouries then come home on the returning bus.
Prince lived a happy life but it was cut short as a result of being savaged by Mrs Reed’s greyhounds and died soon after.

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Tom without Prince