A SERIES of fascinating photographs I have discovered in the pictorial archives of Berrow's Journal - the world's oldest surviving newspaper - reveal that Worcester people chose unusual, if not rather strange ways to mount Peace Celebrations in the summer of 1919.

A tank demonstration was staged during which one of these mechanised giants proceeded to demolish and devastate old houses and a former city inn at Birdport - later the site of the Worcester police and fire stations at Deansway.

And a few weeks later a ruined Flanders village was created in rubble left by the tank display at Birdport.

Berrow's Journal reported in June 1919 on "the opening of the Ruined Flanders Village by the Lord Lieutenant of Worcestershire, the Earl of Coventry as part of the Worcester Peace Carnival".

To me, a rampant tank demonstration and the creation of a destroyed village would seem a morbid, rather than happy way to celebrate the return of peace at long last in the wake of the carnage and loss of millions of lives during the First World War.

However, due honour was accorded locally to "The Glorious Dead" during the same "Peace Celebrations" when a large but temporary Cenotaph was erected in front of Worcester Cathedral, to be replaced later by the permanent monument which still graces the site today.

n Above, the "Ruined Flanders Village" at Birdport in Worcester in 1919.

n Right, the Worcester Tank Demonstration at Birdport in 1919.

n Far right, wreaths bedeck the temporary Cenotaph erected in front of Worcester Cathedral in 1919. Berrow's Journal reported that four courageous servicemen, three of them holders of the Victoria Cross, took it in turns to stand guard at the Cenotaph "with arms reversed". They were Lt J. Crowe VC and Pte Turrall VC, both of the Worcestershire Regiment, Sgt George Wyatt VC from Hindlip and of the Coldstream Guards, and RSM Harwood, DCM and Bar, of the Rifle Brigade.