WORK had started on the new £27m general hospital at Woodrow to serve Bromsgrove and Redditch, although the first patients would not be admitted until 1987. The cutting of the first sod was carried out by health chief Ted Meredith.

SUNSEEKERS in Bromsgrove were hit by a strike involving civil servants. Would-be holiday makers who called at the Post Office for a passport form were told 'sorry we can't get them delivered' because industrial action by staff had hit supplies.

TRADERS said plans for an amusement arcade in Bromsgrove High Street was anything but funny. Shipleys had won an appeal against an earlier decision by the district council to refuse permission. The town's Chamber of Trade chairman John Latham said that while they were trying to encourage more trade, such a facility would encourage vandalism.

BROMSGROVE was stunned to hear of the death of Dr David Brazier who had been a GP in the town for 34 years. He died while on holiday in Devon. He and his wife Barbara lived on the summit of Breakback in a house built by his father Sydney, who was a member of the well known Bromsgrove family building firm.

THE new vicar of Bromsgrove was named this week as Canon Rev John Mushen, aged 47, who was to succeed the Rev Peter Larkin who was moving to Torquay in September.