THIS WEEK IN 1960:

A MOTHER and two of her six daughters from Hanbury, near Droitwich, were saved from drowning off the north Cornish coast near Polzeath on Tuesday.

Her husband, a nonswimmer, was on the beach at the time. Their rescuer, a 39 year-old London businessman, was too weak to reach the shore himself and was washed out to sea.

His body was recovered later.

Gladys Mary Hancock of Egthorne, Hanbury, had gone bathing near some rocks with her daughters, Joan, aged 15, and Sandra, 11, when they got into difficulties. Alfred Charles Cleaver of Harrow, Middlesex, dived in to help them. He got them to the shore and holidaymakers pulled them to safety over the rocks. Then he disappeared exhausted beneath the waves.

THIS WEEK IN 1970:

PEOPLE of the Worcester area can expect more palatable drinking water from the mains in about six months’ time. This promise has been given by John Phillips, chief engineer to the South West Worcestershire Water Board. There have been many complaints about the condition of the water, the taste being described as “horrible”, “musty” and “undrinkable”. While major extensions were being built and new plant installed it has been necessary to increase the level of chlorine. Mr Phillips said: “We earnestly hope that within the next six months we shall be able to take the level of chlorine down again to a point where consumers will not find the taste of the water anything like so objectionable.”

THIS WEEK IN 1980:

FOR the first time since the Reformation, Worcester Cathedral on Sunday played official host to the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales. This historic event, 400 years on, was a service of praise to celebrate the 1,500th anniversary of the birth of St Benedict and the 13th centenary of the Worcester Diocese. Cardinal Basil Hume, the Archbishop of Westminster and a member of the Benedictine Order, played a leading role in the packed service alongside the Bishop of Worcester, the Rt Rev Robin Woods. For 600 years of its life, Worcester Cathedral was a Benedictine monastery and, during the service, Cardinal Hume went into the crypt to read a passage from the Rule of St Benedict. Clearly, 1980 will go down in Worcester’s ecclesiastical history as the year when the cathedral had the extremely rare privilege of not only playing host to the Queen and Prince Philip for their Royal Maundy visit but also to the head of this country’s Roman Catholic Community and to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Robert Runcie who led a major service of celebration on the County Ground.

THIS WEEK IN 1990:

AN air ambulance, touring the county this week as part of a region-wide publicity campaign to raise £250,000 to fund it, was twice called into action on its visit in order to assist at road crashes. It carried a consultant surgeon from Birmingham to the scene of a coach crash on the M50 near Ledbury where the driver and five of the 38 pensioner passengers were seriously injured when the vehicle careered down an embankment. Later it picked up a seriously injured victim from an M5 crash. The helicopter is fully equipped, has a crew of two and room for two patients.