THE Fearnside family has now been a well-known feature of the art and commercial life of South Worcestershire for about a century.

It began with William Fearnside, who was Pershore "born and bred" and ran a printing and newsagent's business in that town's Bridge Street for many years.

He catered for the printing and stationery needs of local people and also delivered newspapers and parcels to a wide area surrounding Pershore.

His son, Norman Fearnside opened his first shop in Worcester, in the 1930s. It specialised in art and drawing office materials and picture framing and was in Foregate Street, opposite what is today the Odeon Cinema.

During his Second World War military service he met and married his wife Marion in her home town of Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, in 1943.

On demob in 1945, Norman Fearnside moved his Worcester business to the former Austins' music shop at 56 The Tything, the Austins transferring to No.60.

After Norman Fearnside's death in 1969, his widow Marion continued the business but moved to smaller premises in the Hopmarket just after its modernisation in the early 1980s.

She retired from the business until shortly before her death in 1986.

Her son, Derek - featured in the 1918 Flu Pandemic article published left - has pursued a career in social services but his brother Ian followed in his parents' footsteps with an art and art materials business in Great Malvern.

He later sold the shop at Belle Vue Terrace, though it still carries the Fearnside name.

Ian is a professional artist and runs an art gallery in Malvern.