CHISTMAS suddenly looked much brighter for Stoke Works residents Corporal and Mrs Hughes, from Sagebury Terrace, when they heard their son, Private Tony Hughes, was safe and well in a German prisoner of war camp. Paratrooper Private Tony Hughes had been reported missing at Arnhem in September. It was the second time he had been captured. The first was in Sicily but he had managed to escape and rejoin his regiment.

BARNT Green actress Eunice Rogers, from Hewell Road, won £3,570 damages from the LMS railway company at Birmingham Assizes over the loss of an arm. During the blackout last February, she had alighted from a train, believing it had pulled up at Barnt Green station. She had, however, stepped down onto the tracks and was struck by a passing goods train.

DUE to a heavy demand and shortages caused by five years of war, many shops in Bromsgrove had sold out of Christmas cards. The shortage had been aggravated by the flying bomb attacks on London.

THE high prices of shop-bought children's toys meant many handymen in Bromsgrove and Droitwich were making their own this yuletide. Edna Brueton, of the Golden Cross Hotel, Marlbrook, was doing her bit to bring some cheer to a children's home in Birmingham by sending them a tree supplied by Frank Wakeman. The local Wakeman family had yielded up their sweets points to enable them to decorate the tree with 25 boxes of fudge.