A STRANGE touch of Armageddon came to Malvern 50 years ago, when the town was the venue for an army exercise involving the 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Division (Territorial Army).

"The exercise, code-named Jordan, was to study the deployment of Divisional Medical Units for the crossing of a major water obstacle in the face of a retiring enemy full of fight," said the article.

Colonel R J S Doherty, based at GHQ (the Abbey Hotel) told a reporter that the object of the exercise was to cross the Severn at several points, "it having been assumed that an atomic bomb dropped at Worcester has put the bridge completely out of action and that the bridge at Upton had been blown".