A LONG lost piece of Pershore history has finally been found - just in time for the town's celebrated Plum Festival.

Festival organisers launched an appeal to track down the missing nameplate belonging to a well-known steam train called the Pershore Plum.

Just days into the appeal, not one - but two - Pershore Plum nameplates were discovered, in Ledbury and Dorset.

The nameplates belong to the Evans family, who have a sentimental connection to the locomotive and its plates.

David Evans, who keeps one of the plates at his home in Dorset, explained: "As a boy in the 1930s, my late father watched the Pershore Plum regularly pass by the Cutnall Green signal box near Droitwich where his father, my grandfather, was signalman.

"My grandfather died during the Second World War and my dad bought the nameplate from the Great Western Railway in 1947 as a memento for the princely sum of £1.0s.0d, including delivery to Worcester Shrub Hill station."

The second nameplate is at his mother's home in Ledbury and is now on loan to the Plum Festival organisers.

Mr Evans, 64, said: "We are absolutely delighted to be able to support the festival in a small, modest way but it is absolutely great that they are supporting the Pershore plums. It is an opportunity for the celebration of local produce."

Angela Tidmarsh, Plum Festival chair, said: "We are delighted that it has been found and really grateful to the family for loaning it to us over the Bank Holiday weekend.

"I hope it gives people the pleasure that the train did all those years ago."

The steam engine was built in 1899 in Swindon and was originally named Plymouth.

In 1927 it was relocated to Worcester and renamed the Pershore Plum in honour of the area's National Farmer’s Union.

Not only was the engine used to freight local fruit and vegetables, on race days in Pershore it would ferry both horses and race-goers to the event.

The plaque will now feature in an exhibition of plum memorabilia Plum Festival, which will be held over the August Bank Holiday weekend in Pershore.

The festival runs from Saturday, August 27 to Monday, August 29.

For more information visit pershoreplumfestival.org.uk