FONDLY remembered is a well-known Worcester High Street shop which was frequently an eye-catching feature of the city centre scene through the first half of the 20th Century.

I refer to Hunt's fish and game shop which occupied part of the site of today's Marks & Spencer women's wear store and which was regularly adorned with huge outdoor displays of poultry, pheasants, rabbits and bumper size Severn salmon.

This once spectacular feature of the High Street vista is fleetingly back in the picture as the life of the late Albert (Bert) English is recalled. He was to be found behind the counters of Hunt's shop for more than 30 years.

I've been learning all about him from his daughter, Mrs Valerie Stimson, of Larchfield Close, Malvern.

Bert English was born in 1904, the eldest of 11 children of foundry worker Albert English and his wife Catherine, who lived in Carden Street, in The Blockhouse. Young Bert was often expected to help his mother bring up his seven younger brothers and three sisters and, on leaving Hounds Lane School at the age of 13, went to work in a city foundry.

Bert always remembered the legendary Woodbine Willie who, as the Rev Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, was vicar of St Paul's, Worcester, from 1914 to 1922.

"Dad always talked glowingly of Woodbine Willie, who was the local parish priest. He was often to be seen walking around the streets of The Blockhouse talking to the poor and helping them with their problems," says Mrs Stimson.

"And when dad was taken seriously ill as a young man with peritonitis, Woodbine Willie took the trouble to go and visit him in hospital. This did dad the world of good."

In the Depression days of the early 1920s, Bert lost his job at the foundry but was told by his mother the next day to go out and look for another job, and not to come home until he had found one.

He was desperate in his search and was lucky enough to be offered a job by Jack and Nellie Collins, who ran Hunt's fish and game shop in High Street. He never forget his debt of gratitude to the Collins' for giving him a job, and he stuck loyally with them until the shop closed down.

He began as an errand boy, cycling all over the county making deliveries of fish and poultry. Large country houses would be on his rounds, and he also helped prepare oysters and fish for hunt balls which had ordered catering supplies from Jack and Nellie Collins. Bert would also be dispatched on foot regularly to the Ice Works way out in Bromyard Road to fetch large blocks of ice which he would push back on a sack truck.

Nellie Collins was a member of the Hunt family before her marriage to Jack Collins, and she owned the High Street shop.

"She and her husband were quite strict with their staff," says Mrs Stimson, "always requiring them to wear a stiff white collar and tie and demanding that they show great respect to the public, adopting the attitude that 'the customer is always right'.

"Jack and Nellie Collins lived in a large house on the corner of Bath Road and The Hill Avenue and I vividly recall being allowed as a girl to go once a year into their garden to pick windfalls from under the fruit trees. I would be given a piece of chocolate cake in the kitchen afterwards.

"My mother and I were also invited by the Collins to join others in the first floor windows of their shop to enjoy a vantage point for the Royal visit of the Queen and Prince Philip to the Guildhall in the 1950s," says Mrs Stimson.

"Dad often told me that Jack Collins had originally been invited by Kilbourne Kay to go into partnership with him when he set up his mail order company, Kay & Co., but Jack turned down the opportunity, commenting 'Let people have stuff without paying for it - no way!".

In 1936, Bert English was married at St Mary's Church, Sansome Walk, to Doris May Price, who was from the Arboretum. They set up house at 18 Northfield Street, their home for the next 41 years, and where they brought up their only child, daughter Valerie.

By the time of his marriage, Bert was working behind the counters of the High Street shop and had as colleagues Percy Pope, Miss Phyllis Thatcher, who worked in the office, and, occasionally, Jack Collins junior, son of Jack and Nellie Collins.

Jack junior attended The King's School, Worcester, and was never keen to follow in his parents' footsteps in the shop. He later worked for some years in the SPCK Bookshop in High Street and became a knowledgeable local historian, becoming a good friend of Memory Lane. He would from time-to-time supply me with me with fascinating facts and old photographs, right up until his death in the late 1980s. Jack was always an unassuming and amiable character.

During Bert English's three decades at the High Street shop, Christmases were always a hard and taxing time, with an abundance of orders for poultry and game to satisfy.

"Dad would usually be so tired that he would sleep through most of Christmas Day and then be back at the shop on Boxing Day," added Mrs Stimson.

Bert had many friends among The Shambles' butchers and traders, particularly the Pratley family, and also had chums running stalls in the City Market Hall. The proprietors of the White Tea Rooms in High Street, were also good friends, and during the war years, all these "buddies" came to one another's aid with goodwill gestures.

"At home there would be cakes from the White Tea Rooms, though, alas, they were usually stale by then, and also pear drops from a Shambles sweet shop - but ALWAYS pear drops," says Mrs Stimson.

For the VE Day street party in Northfield Street, Bert English supplied all the ice for the children's treat - ice cream.

Bert was a member for many years of the Worcester Workingmen's Club in New Street and would do his party piece at concert parties - dressing up in women's clothes as Salome.

To Bert's dismay, Jack and Nellie Collins closed and sold off their High Street shop to Marks & Spencer in the late 1950s. This left Bert without employment in his 50s, but he managed to find a similar job with Roberts' the fishmongers in Broad Street, near its junction with Angel Place. He was there for a few years until that family firm also closed its doors.

Bert ended his working life with four years as a messenger at the Ministry of Agriculture offices in Whittington Road.

He died in 1977, at the age of 73. Alas, of the 11 children of which he was the eldest, only one, Derek English is still alive and living in Worcester.

Like her parents before her, Valerie English was married at St Mary's Church, Sansome Walk, in 1959 and set up home with husband Jim Stimson at Malvern, where they have lived ever since. After leaving Stanley Road School at 15, Valerie worked for Kay & Co., and then, after bringing up her two children, she was employed from 1977 until three years ago at RRE Malvern.

The Stimsons' daughter Kathryn (now Mrs Fish) lives in Malvern and son Nigel in Worcester, and the couple have grandchildren and two great grandchildren.