FONDLY remembered this week are a popular Shambles character of yesteryear and a once-familiar landmark building in the heart of Worcester.

In my recent feature on the Elt dynasty, the members of which have been in the footwear business locally for about two centuries, I quoted the youthful recollections of Robin Elt from his years at the family's shop in The Shambles.

He particularly recalled a cheery character who worked for ironmongers J & F Hall whose superb black and white mediaeval store stood on the corner of The Shambles and Church Street - now the site of H Samuel, the jewellers.

Robin said: "Hall's apparently had no tea-making facilities so this chap would walk right along The Shambles to the City Market Hall to collect tea in a billy-can for his colleagues. The problem, however, was that the chap, alas, had a gammy leg and limped badly, so much so that he spilt a lot of the tea before he got back to Hall's."

When the Elt's feature was published, the chap with the gammy leg was immediately identified by reader Mrs Mary Crawford as having been her late uncle Harold Hemming.

Mrs Crawford has kindly provided me with photos of him and I am sure that, like me, older citizens will remember this local personality of distinctive features.

He was born with a hip deformity which caused him to limp noticeably, but during the 1950s he had a major operation to correct much of the disability.

"Uncle Harold was a lovely fellow - always cheerful and friendly and known to lots of people, particularly customers of J & F Hall," says Mrs Crawford, who lives in Bilford Road, Worcester.

"He certainly loved life and liked nothing better than a party where he would usually sing old-time songs."

Harold Hemming worked for J & F Hall for about 50 years and would go daily to collect tea for him and his colleagues from the City Market Hall where his niece, Olwyn Hughes had a flower stall.

Every evening, Harold put up the outside wooden shutters on the windows of Hall's historic three-storey shop premises.

Older citizens still much mourn the early 1960s demolition of Hall's - a cornerstone building which was centuries old and of great character. Posterity has always laid the blame for the loss of this vintage property at the city council's door but, for once, the local authority was not responsible for this particular 60s blunder. The council firmly rejected the planning application to pull down Hall's and redevelop the site but the applicants appealed to Whitehall and won the day after a public inquiry.

Harold Hemming came from a long-established Worcester family, was brought up in Spring Lane and married a local girl, Ada Knight. They had one child, Grace and lived for about 60 years in Lansdowne Street, where their house was a couple of doors away from the former Peep O' Day pub and also close to another hostelry, The Lansdowne.

Harold was a regular of both pubs and a member of the Lansdowne crib and quoits teams.

He died in 1981, at the age of 79. His wife Ada, who was in service for some years at Britannia Square with the family of the owners of J & F Hall, died in 2000, at the age of 91, not long after the death of daughter Grace.

Ada was one of a set of identical twins born to Charles and Rose Knight, who lived in Sansome Place. She and sister Polly (Pop) attended the nearby Holy Trinity Girls School in the buildings which now house the Heenan & Froude Social Club.

Polly married Jack Shinnick and continued to live in what had for many years been the Knight family home in Sansome Place.

She and Ada were born there, as had been their mother and other forebears, and Polly's five children were also born and brought up at Sansome Place - Beryl (now Mrs Flynn), Thelma (Mrs Cresswell), John, Mary (Mrs Crawford) and Kathleen (Mrs Doughty).