Peeping into the past (From Worcester News)

Peeping into the past

10:57am Monday 25th July 2011 in Country News latest By Mike Pryce

OVER the last decade – I suppose it all began with ways to celebrate the Millennium – more and more Worcestershire villages have been looking back over the years and producing books to celebrate their heritage.

These have ranged from glossy, hardback publications selling for way beyond £20, down to much more simple efforts for about a fiver. All, obviously, have relied heavily on old photographs but few have managed to capture the feel and atmosphere of life in times past better than Bishampton Remembered.

The only sad fact is that Peter Averis, the man who led the project, did most of the interviews and collated most of the pictures, died shortly before it was published. But as a tribute to his work, it is a little gem.

Packed with sepia photographs of haymaking, horse-drawn ploughing, thatched black and white cottages and village characters of long ago, it’s a hark back to the old days in this pretty south Worcestershire village near Pershore.

Thanks to Peter’s enthusiastic interviewing, the images are accompanied by a fund of stories and anecdotes, which bring them to life. For example, alongside the picture of Bishampton’s “formidable” district nurse Edith Rachel Cox are tales of her digging herself out of snowdrifts on her way to attend births and of her dashing to a “life and death”

call at Rous Lench Court only to find it was because the owner couldn’t give his pet dog its medication. Nurse Cox’s response, however, was not recorded.

Appropriately the book was launched at the recent Bishampton summer fete this year and is available for £10 from the village shop, Coach House Books, Pershore, and online at bishampton.org.uk