THE morals of the nation were seen by some as being at "a very low ebb" at this time exactly half-a-century ago.

The Journal for this week of 1953 carried just such an assertion by a leading clergyman, preaching at the Remembrance Sunday service in Pershore Abbey. "The Rev J.C. Davies, British Legion Chaplain for the Midland District, claimed the morals of this country were at a very low ebb indeed, with the newspapers full of crime and violence and the prisons crowded.

"He stressed: 'Let us remember that we owe this historic day to those who fell in the 1914-18 War, the 1939-45 War and, more recently, in the Far East. We are debtors to those men and women who fought and died for a better and happier world and for a better country, and we must take up their unfinished task.

'Twice the deadly foe has been defeated and our shores kept inviolate and freedom preserved. However, remember that this very freedom can be threatened from within. Pick up any newspaper and one will see murder, the killing and assaulting of young children, crime, hooliganism, sexual licence, pockets of vice in our great cities, and the prisons full up.

'Is that freedom? Is that what was fought for? Should we not fight against such insidious evils?' asked the preacher. 'This day is not only one of tribute to the dead but a re-dedication of the living. We must do all in our power to bring the nation back to the word of God'. "