10:47am Monday 4th January 2010
By Michael Grundy
THIS WEEK IN 1990:
A NEW decade was welcomed in by more than 1,000 people in the centre of Worcester as they waited for midnight and the Cathedral bells to ring out. Despite the freezing temperatures, the revellers were in fine voice and the police say there were no serious incidents with the only problems being caused through drunkeness. Extra police were drafted in but this move and the barriers around the Cathedral traffic island Christmas tree could not prevent some determined young people from climbing it.
● During the coming year, Berrow’s Worcester Journal, the world’s oldest surviving newspaper, will be celebrating its 300th birthday with a whole series of events and publications. It was in 1690 that the Berrows was born as the Worcester Postman.
● The Three Counties Agricultural Society is unlikely to hold an autumn food and farming festival in 1990 even though this year’s inaugural event drew a bumper crowd of 18,000.
Members of the organising committee have decided that, in spite of its great success this autumn, it should not become an annual feature.
The lukewarm support for the 1989 festival from food producing and processing industries is blamed for the decision not to repeat the event.
THIS WEEK IN 1980:
ONE of Worcestershire’s most famous stately homes has been sold for more than £300,000. Croome Court has been bought for use as a preparatory school, though the name of the purchasers has not yet been disclosed.
Croome Court was built in the early 1750s for the sixth Earl of Coventry and has impressive Robert Adam and Capability Brown features.
● Worcester is still progressing determinedly towards official twinning with the elegant French city of Orleans, says the Mayor, Councillor Syd Smith. The two cities have much in common , each standing on their country’s longest river.
THIS WEEK IN 1970:
THE winter flu epidemic in Worcestershire has been “worse than usual,”
according to county health chiefs. At least 10 per cent of ambulance, hospital nursing staff, doctors and school health officers have fallen victim and the number of cases has been higher than for some years. Because of the number of deaths from flu and the number of bodies in the mortuary at Kidderminster General Hospital, a chapel at the hospital has been brought into use as a temporary mortuary. More than 20 per cent of the hospital’s staff are off sick with flu.
● Pershore, described by the Council of British Archaeology as a town “so splendid and precious that the ultimate responsibility for it should be a national concern,” may be built up as a tourist centre. This is the main effect of a report on the town’s pilot study which has been carried out by Worcestershire County Council’s planners and defines Pershore’s central area for conservation and development.
THIS WEEK IN 1960:
WORCESTER City Council has accepted a £334,783 tender for the building of the new Grammar School for Girls in Spetchley Road.
The successful tender was submitted by Spicers Limited of Worcester. The new five form entry school, designed to accommodate 960 pupils, will be one of the largest in the Midlands. A start is scheduled for February and completion will take two years.
● Fowl pest which has necessitated the destroying of more than 100,000 head of poultry in Worcestershire alone over the past two months, appears, mercifully, to be on the wane, according to Ministry of Agriculture officials.
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