BACK in the years following the Second World War, when despite the victory celebrations the nation was still on its knees, the Derby-based publishing company English Life began producing a series of “county” magazines.

Presumably the aim was to make a bob or two, but also remind country people of what they had fought for and managed to hang on to.

Things were never going to the same again, but at least the village church was still standing and the WI still meeting.

The English Life magazine for Worcestershire was called Worcestershire Countryside, which I think began production in 1948, and its pages now provide a nostalgic, sepia-tinted view of county events and subjects during the late Forties and into the Fifties.

It was edited by a lady called Miss Valentine Noake, who lived in Malvern Road, Worcester, and was a well-known local journalist with a lengthy career on this newspaper.

I vaguely remember her years later as a wearer of tweed skirts, sensible shoes and thick brown stockings.

We have a file of Worcestershire Countryside here that someone (probably

VN) had the good sense to squirrel away, so for no particular reason let’s open

up the Autumn Number for

1949.

Naturally it’s all in black and white and on the front cover is a photograph of Pershore Abbey taken from Newlands by AJ Woodley.

In those days a substantial brick wall enclosed the Abbey grounds at that point and note also the street lamps and what looks like a rather over loaded electricity pylon.

Inside there is a report of the Worcestershire Hunt Pony Club’s working rally at Ombersley Court, home of Lord and Lady Sandys, where young Richard Webb was runner-up in one of the classes to Gillian Clarke.

Richard, however, went in to greater things and for many years, together with wife Marigold, was the driving force behind Webbs Garden Centres, before handing over to son Ed.

Still on the agricultural theme, there is a shot of the Mayor of Worcester, Ald TS Bennett, in full ceremonial robes including splendid head gear, at the Three Counties Show with Worcester’s MP, the lengthy Hon. George Ward, whose ancestors once owned Witley Court.

There is nothing more evocative of an English summer than a garden party and the great and the good – and the sun – were out for the Malvern Festival bash in the grounds of The Priory. Another summer regular were the hill climb events held at Red Marley, near Great Witley, which became very popular in the 1930s and had just resumed after the war.

And finally never let it be said the WI didn’t have fun. At the Worcestershire Federation’s County Rally at Madresfield Court, the prize for scoring a bullseye on the dart board was – a banana!