THIS WEEK IN 1990:

WORCESTER’S trio of high rise tower blocks need about £100,000 worth of repairs, the city council has been told. Water has continued to penetrate through the roofs of the Tybridge Street buildings, despite attempts over a number of years to prevent it. Some tenants were given compensation payments earlier this year for “inconvenience”

suffered. Now the company called in to investigate the problems is recommending extensive “over-cladding” of the tops and faces of the parapet walls of the three tower blocks – work which will run up a bill around the £100,000 mark.

● A 16-ton truck full of supplies Berrow’s Worcester Journal readers donated to help orphans in a strife-torn hospital in Romania is due to unload its vital cargo of medical equipment and food supplies any day now.

Following weeks of hard campaigning and of collecting, supplies of syringes, disposable nappies, toys and eight washing machines and tumble dryers were dispatched to the 57 orphans, currently surviving in poor conditions in the Romanian hospital.

THIS WEEK IN 1980:

JAMES Read, an 11 year-old schoolboy from Hanley Swan, near Malvern, has received an “honesty award” from his school.

James is a super-honest young man whose integrity does not seem to have been fully appreciated. Some weeks ago, he picked up a wallet in Malvern containing more than £200.

He immediately took it to Malvern police station and waited to hear the outcome … and waited … and waited … and waited. Eventually, his school telephoned Malvern police on his behalf and learned that the wallet had been claimed almost immediately, but the claimant had not even had the grace to contact James and thank him for his honesty. His school, feeling that James’s conduct was worthy of recognition, set up a collection for him and presented him with £5 as an “honesty award.” His mother, Margaret Read of Yew Tree Cottage, Hanley Swan, is delighted. She said: “He has started a collection of old cards with the money.

We hope it will be a good investment.”

THIS WEEK IN 1970:

AMANDA Bakewell, the brilliant 15 year-old rider from Broadwas near Worcester, retained the Basildon Bond International Junior Championship at the Royal International Horse Show. Competing against the country’s top junior riders (a field of 50 in all), Amanda and her Irish-bred Star Flight were the only combination to go clear in the five-horse jump-off and thus established their supremacy in the event which they won for the first time last year.

THIS WEEK IN 1960:

FOX hunting was defended yesterday by Joseph F Gimson, president of the Worcester and Mid- Worcestershire branch of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. He told the branch’s AGM that hunting was “the most natural and kindest way “of controlling foxes. Up to the outbreak of the last war he had hunted regularly. He said: “If I had the time I would do it again and I would not think for a moment that I was doing anything that was wrong or cruel. It is unfortunate that there are animals classed as vermin – foxes, otters, badgers – which it was necessary to control.

However, in England the fox probably has the best time of all wild animals. He leads a perfectly secure life, except in the hunting season.”