The Rice and Ince family tree has been outlined to me through the generations by 81 years-old Harvey Ince of Glenthorne Avenue, Worcester, who describes himself as the "family's historian".

He traces the story back to mid-Victorian times and to his maternal great-grandfather, Andrew Dufty, "a pioneer market gardener" at Pershore, whose daughter Martha became a lady's maid to the wealthy Walker family at Perdiswell Hall, Worcester.

She was a great friend of the still room maid at Witley Court and is believed to have gone over to this stately home to help when the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, made one of his shooting party visits.

It's likely too that she first met her husband to be, Edward Seabourne, at Witley Court. He was a painter and decorator based at Leigh, who won the contract to paint gold leaf on the superb Baroque church at Witley Court.

Tragically, Edward died from lead poisoning, known then as "painters' colic," not long after his marriage to Martha at St Alban's Church, Worcester, in 1877.

She was pregnant at the time of his death, and their daughter, Edith, born in 1878, was, of course, never to see her father. Martha was obviously distraught at the loss of her young husband and went to live for a time with one of her sisters at Pershore. Daughter Edith was later sent, for some years, to a boarding school at Severn Stoke, near Upton-upon-Severn.

Later, Martha Seabourne met respected Worcester publican Josiah Rice, a widower who also had a daughter, Louise, and they were married at St Helen's Church, Worcester. He had been landlord of a pub in Carden Street, but by the time of the marriage was mine host at the Alma Inn - now Tavern - in Droitwich Road.

Martha was to bear Josiah two children - Frank and Kathleen Rice - extending their joint family of offspring to four. Martha also became actively and happily involved in the running of The Alma.

Her daughter Edith also joined the family at the pub, leaving her boarding school at the age of about 10 and spending the rest of her upbringing at there. Edith became extremely fond of her step-father Josiah Rice and, in her late teens, was also to have a special respect for the Alma's most famous occasional customer, Sir Edward Elgar.

"He came to the inn from time-to-time with a friend and would be shown into a quiet side room by my mother," said Mr Ince.

"Elgar clearly liked her and eventually gave my mother a bottle of perfume as thanks for looking after him so attentively as a customer of the Alma. I still have that perfume bottle, long empty, and I treasure it."

Edith also worked in her teens at Victoria House, the gracious Georgian property at the corner of Foregate Street and Shaw Street. It was then a clothing store but is now an estate agent's office.

Edith caught the horse tram from The Alma to Foregate Street, but it was sometimes so slow she found it quicker to get off and walk the last few 100 yards. Edith was apparently none too enamoured with her job at the clothing store because it mostly sold sombre mourning clothes.

Josiah Rice died in 1899 and, for the next few years, the licence of The Alma was held by his widow Martha until she handed it over to her son Frank Rice during the Edwardian era.

Frank, who ran the pub for several years, had previously been a carpenter working on the building of the Hopmarket Hotel block at Worcester, and then fitting out new railway carriages built at Swindon.

After handing over the pub, Martha went to live at Cypress Cottage, a substantial Victorian house opposite St Stephen's Church in Droitwich Road. It still survives today. Martha Rice died in 1924, at the age of 78.

Josiah Rice's daughter Louise married Tom Tombs from near Bromyard, emigrated to Canada and there, opened a large hotel.

Edith, Martha's daughter from her first marriage, married Harvey Ince from Bewdley, whose father John Ince had a china and toy shop at 19 Load Street in the town and also acted from time-to-time as a butler in large country houses in the area.

Harvey and his brother Charlie had come to Worcester in their youth as apprentices to the butchers' firm of Molineux in The Tything.

Charlie Ince was later to set up as a master butcher with a shop at the corner of Crown Street and Droitwich Road, while Harvey was also to be a master butcher for many years with a stall in the Shambles Meat Market where he specialised in selling "good beef imported from Argentina".

In his younger days as a Worcester butcher, Harvey, a bit of a betting man, took part in a race which involved carrying a large section of cow carcase along Bridge Street. The weight was clearly so heavy that he suffered collapsed arches in his feet and, for the rest of his life, had to wear metal supports in his shoes.

In the 1920s, Harvey and Edith Ince took over the Edgar Tower Dining-rooms, a restaurant at No.46 Sidbury, Worcester, which stood on what is now part of the side of the King Street car park.

It seems Harvey left his wife to run the dining rooms at most times, particularly on busy Saturdays. He would be at his Shambles Meat Market stall, but the restaurant eventually took toll of Edith's health, forcing the couple to give up the business in 1928.

Edith and Harvey were to have seven children - Jack, Molly, Ben, Francis, Dorothy, Harvey junior, and Margaret. The family moved home quite a few times around Worcester living, in turn, at St Stephen's Street, Fort Royal Hill, Blanquettes Street, Love's Grove, Barbourne Lane and Wyld's Lane.

However, good fortune shone on Edith Ince and her daughter Molly, in 1930, when they drew a horse which came second in the Manchester November Handicap and won, between them, £1,500 on the Irish Sweep Stake - quite a significant sum in those days.

It enabled Molly to have a lavish wedding to Sid Tombs, who came from Malvern, while her mother used her share to set up the family in the large and imposing house at 44 Tunnel Hill.

It is a property which still today commands a prominent place on the East Worcester skyline.

The house had rows of bells to summon servants and also large marble grates, and Edith had gas lamps replaced with electric lighting and a heating system installed. The other half of the property was occupied by the Goodyear family including Jackie, a leading Worcester boxer.

However, some of the Ince children left 44 Tunnel Hill on marriage or going to jobs elsewhere and, for various financial reasons, Edith and husband Harvey also had to move out.

The Depression too, hit Harvey's trade as a butcher, and he had to give up his Shambles Meat Market stall in the late 1930s.

Not long after the outbreak of the Second World War, Harvey began work with a contractor putting up black-out fixtures and fittings and was working on a roof at Powick Lane, in 1940, when he suddenly collapsed and within a few hours he had died. He was aged 59.

The family had moved in 1938, to a new council house at 8 Glenthorne Avenue, which they greatly appreciated, though Edith Ince was by then in poor health having had a breast removed. She was bed-ridden throughout the war years, nursed by daughter Dorothy, but recovered her health after the war, getting around first by wheelchair and then on foot. She died in 1967, at the age of 89.