FIFTY years ago, those running Worcester Royal Infirmary at Castle Street appear to have had scant regard for the safe keeping of the monthly wages of their nurses and clerks.

The Journal for this week of 1952 reported the theft of about £5,000 - the monthly pay of all the 250 nursing, clerical and administrative staff of the WRI at that time.

But the eyebrows of many readers must surely have been raised by the revelation that the money, all in £1 notes, had simply been stuffed into two chair cushions in a wooden hut in the Infirmary grounds!

The Journal report explained: "The monthly salaries of all the administrative and nursing staff were stolen during last Wednesday night. The money was taken from the wooden hut which serves as the wages department."

Detective Sergeant (later Chief Superintendent) Joe Davidson told the Journal that all the money had been "stuffed into the covers of two red and white striped cushions on chairs in the wages office."

He added that there had been no evidence of forced entry, but the stuffing of the cushions was strewn all over the floor.

Mr J.S Rippier, secretary to the infirmary's management committee, said hundreds of people would have known the regular routine for keeping the payroll moneys in the hut building. Despite the robbery, all the staff had since been paid their monthly salaries in full.

By coincidence, the Journal for this week exactly a century ago also reported a theft of Worcester Royal Infirmary cash.

Felix Freeman, a labourer of Redmarley, was brought before the Worcester County Petty Sessions, charged with stealing a charity box containing about £5 from the counter of the Holt Fleet Hotel. It was a collecting box in aid of the WRI.

The court was told that the defendant had not long returned from active service against the Boers in South Africa and was given a good character reference by the Army. Even so, he was sent to jail for three months with hard labour.