From BBC News:
The Bewdley Express is an eight-week trial taking travellers from Bewdley to Kidderminster on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, where they can change to a Birmingham service.
The trial, run by the Severn Valley Railway and West Midlands Railway, is intended to test demand for a regular rail connection between Bewdley and the wider West Midlands network.
Jonathan Jones wrote about the painter Richard Dadd, who spent much of his life as a patient at Broadmoor Hospital, in the Guardian earlier this week:
You can’t escape the tragedy of a gifted artist who spent so much of his life locked up, albeit in more liberal conditions than our stereotype of Victorian asylums might lead you to expect.
When I went on my guided walk around Desford in May, the guide stopped at the top of hill above the village's railway station and told us that doctors would bring patients from a local asylum by train for picnics in a nearby field. She also remarked that this isn't how we usually think of the Victorians treating what they called lunatics.
Yes, I think I may have found another myth about the Victorians – or at least a partial myth.
As I've argued before, part of the trouble is that the Victorian age lasted for more than 60 years. There's a limit to the number of useful generalisations you can make about such a long period that saw so much change. And there was both kind and brutal treatment of mental patients in the 19th century, just as there was in the 20th. Frequently they occurred side by side in the same institutions.
What you can say, I think, is that there is no simple, Whiggish tale of progress to be told here. Some of the worst abuses of such patients – lobotomy, leucotomy, electroshock – date from the 20th century, not the 19th.
While Edward Elgar began his musical career in 1879 at Powick Lunatic Asylum near Worcester. There he rehearsed and conducted the staff orchestra that played at dances for the patients and also gave concerts for their entertainment.
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River Avon and Workman Gardens, Evesham |
For the English boater who has completed the delights of the Trent and its disappearing power stations and riverside pubs other venues await. One such is a trip down the Severn and up the Warwickshire Avon, with a stay at the tourist trap of Stratford when leaving the river.
It is worth a stay at Evesham on the way. We had embarked a local guide with knowledge of both volunteer water pollution activism and the best drinking places. Before we were done I could identify a CSO (combined sewer overflow) and an Environment Agency solar panel, which indicates a remote monitoring system nearby. If I had watched the documentary Dirty Business before the trip, I might have understood better why they are located where they are.
After a thirsty tour of the Lower Avon we moored at Workman Gardens at Evesham. There is plentiful mooring there although it is not technically flood safe (for example, using tall poles to moor on). However, the weather forecast said we would be safe that week.
And so up hill to the Red Lion for drinks before dinner. This is an unusual pub, aiming not so much for real ale as real everything. Real cider, real music, real atmosphere. It has a shop front exterior rather than a faux olde worlde tourist appearance. The guest ales appear on a hand written list and the tables are small and mismatched. You can even have tea. Well behaved dogs welcome.
This was a great place to spend an hour before going on to dinner at the River Avon Restaurant. Happily, being up the hill from Workman Gardens, it is not going to flood.
Evesham was a nice break between the Lower Avon starting with Tewksbury on the Severn and the Upper Avon ending near Stratford. A chance to pick up on some local knowledge.
It was also interesting to come across the Charity Commission filings from the Avon Navigation Trust (ANT) that document the state of the trust in 2020 and 2024. In 2020, ANT turned in £959,995 (larger than a parish council but smaller than a principal council) and had a single employee earning a reportable remuneration between £80,0001 and £90,000 (about 8.9 per cent).
By 2024, ANT had an income of £1,058,900 and reportable (individuals on £60+k) of one between £60,001 to £70,000 and one between £100,001 and £110,000 (about 16 per cent). The cost of governance seems to have nearly doubled. Happily there is a lot more detail on file to dig into.
Peter Chambers is a Liberal Democrat member from Hampshire.
They also have a new word for you – "asparamancer" – and a nice second mention: "the sought after vegetable":
Jemima Packington, a practising asparamancer, said she is able to make her predictions by grabbing "a handful of asparagus" which she then casts onto a flat surface.
Ms Packington grew up in Evesham, Worcestershire, known as a growing hotspot for the sought after vegetable.
Stacy Patton shows that Donald Trump is not the first US president to be accused of paedophilia.
"In 2024, Pershore and Thrapston became the first towns in the UK to twin their rivers, the Avon and the Nene, creating the Sister Rivers partnership. The idea is simple and scalable. Each town takes guardianship of its stretch of river, monitors it, and shares results, data, and strategies with its twin. Two councils, two communities, one purpose: to restore what regulation has failed to defend." Michael Chapman Pincher on a new initiative to protect our rivers.
Gordon McKelvie finds that historians must be alert to the dangers of AI and its potential to simplify, and ultimately impoverish, the study of the past.
"At one point the White Lady apparently benevolently watches over the father’s daughters as they sleep but she is revealed to be a form of predatory grim reaper when suddenly the silhouetted arc of a scythe she holds appears over their heads." Stephen Prince revisits White Lady, a lesser-known television play by David Rudkin that was broadcast in 1987
The Crow Inn has a guide to some of the best pubs in Derby.
Fed up commuters have called a railway station near the city "the worst in Europe" and also criticised the site's facilities.
People who use Worcestershire Parkway have complained that it lacks a warm waiting area, platform seating, and only has two toilets for the whole station.
And new railway stations generally provide few facilities for passengers and are remarkably unattractive.
Despite this lack of comforts, they are remarkably expensive. A report in the Malvern Gazette from 2020 says this station cost £22m.
Worcestershire Parkway has platforms on two levels, so it was bound to cost more than most new stations, but an article in Rail Magazine agrees that British railway projects are expensive.
It sees a lack of sustained government commitment to public transport as a large part of the problem, but also notes that all British infrastructure projects cost more than they do in most comparable countries.
After days of research, a trip to rural Worcestershire and lots of unanswered emails, I’d uncovered a saga involving dead horses, a legal case no one will - or can - talk about, and a landlord allegedly disrupting the water supply to push tenants out - a potentially criminal offence. Clearly, trouble was afoot.
I visited the Bewdley plotlands myself back in 2010, inspired by one of Jonathan Meades's television programmes, and these are some of the photographs I took that day.
If you want to know more about the plotlands movement, you can listed to a recent Uncanny Landscapes podcast on it.
If you are a regular reader of this site, you are probably well aware of the iniquities of our election system. You don’t need a lecture from me or, probably, anyone else on the subject, but you might like to consider some of the more unusual results thrown up in the recent county council elections.
To set the scene, in order for a candidate - or party - to succeed using the current system, the procedure for nearly the last 100 years has been to engineer public opinion to regard the contest as being between just two parties.
That way, Party A can tell the voters that it’s a straight contest between them and Party B, and that it’s the duty of the electorate to recognise that a vote for Party C is a wasted vote. Verily, “It’s a two horse race!”, say the leaflets, and no other considerations are required.
However, the political world is changing, and changing rapidly. The number of two-horse races has declined, to be replaced in some contests by veritable cavalry charges, with a handful of candidates all vying for the voters’ attention with almost equal success. There are some extraordinary examples from 1 May.
Some 1405 contests took place for the English County Councils. Remarkably, in 32 contests, five candidates all managed to get over 10 per cent of the vote.
In some cases, the result was still clear. For example, in the Leamington Milverton Division of Warwickshire, the Liberal Democrat got 53.5 per cent, with four other candidates getting 14, 13, 12 and 10 per cent. In Bedwardine (Worcestershire) Reform won with 41.5 per cent, the other candidates getting 24, 14, 10 and 10 per cent. Clearly, the winning candidates had a solid core of support.
But what about Heavitree and Whipton Barton in Devon? There the Green won with just 26.2 per cent of the vote, the others getting 25.6, 25.4, 12 and 11 per cent. Or over in Alphington and Cowick, in the same county, where Reform won with 26.8 per cent but two other candidates both got over 25 per cent?
How do people still justify the use of First Past the Post elections, particularly for local government elections, which produce results like those?
However, the Joint Prize for the Most Indecisive Result has to be shared by Bierton, Kingsbrook and Wing Division in Buckinghamshire, and Truro, Moresk and Trehaverne Division in Cornwall. There, six candidates all managed to get over 10 per cent of the votes each.
The Conservative in Buckinghamshire won with 26.5 per cent of the vote, and the Lib Dem in Cornwall won with 18.9 per cent - not so much a ringing endorsement as an indication of grudging tolerance.
Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.
I was right about Alan Amos.
Over the years, Amos has gone from Conservative to Labour to Independent to Conservative to Independent. What comes next? Will he perhaps rediscover his enthusiasm for reactionary social policies and join Reform?
And that's just what Amos, who Conservative MP for Hexham between 1987 and 1997, has done. He is fighting the Bredwardine ward of Worcestershire County Council for Reform.
What makes this particularly interesting is the the identity of his Liberal Democrat opponent there.
It's another former Conservative MP - in fact a former Conservative cabinet minister. Step forward Stephen Dorrell, who joined the Lib Dems back in 2019 and stood in Buckingham in that year's general election.
That's his photo above. According to Worcester News, he now calls himself a "Liberal Conservative".
h/t Mark Pack.
Augustus Carp, our Defections, Principles and Opportunism Correspondent, has drawn my attention to the remarkable career of Alan Amos. What follows comes from research by Mr Carp, backed up by investigations of my own Wikipedia.
Amos was first heard of as a Conservative councillor in Enfield, sitting between 1978 and 1987. He unsuccessfully fought Walthamstow at the 1983 general election, but had more joy four years later, when he was elected for Hexham in far-off in Northumberland.
He was to become a victim of John Major's Back to Basics campaign, or rather of a briefing given to the press by the now-forgotten figure of Tim Collins - he was the Tory MP Tim Farron defeated to gain Westmorland and Lonsdale in 2005.
As far as Major was concerned, Back to Basics was about bringing back the three Rs in school and the timely repairing of pot holes. But when asked by journalists if it was also about private morality, Collins said yes.
The result was the appearance of a never-ending stream of scandals (or minor incidents dressed up to look like scandals) involving Tory MPs. And Amos was involved in one of them, having the misfortune to be arrested for what sounds like cottaging on Hampstead Heath just before the 1992 election.
Amos was not charged, but he accepted a police caution for indecency, and stood down as MP for Hexham. Perhaps this might have been survivable by the Nineties, but in the climate engendered by Back to Basics he was toast.
While at Westminster, Amos was known for his vehement opposition to abortion and his enthusiasm for corporal punishment. So it was a great surprise when, in 1994, he announced he had joined the Labour Party. In 2000 he was the star of a Guardian article about the former right-wingers who were now approved Labour parliamentary candidates.
And he was given a seat to fight, losing to Peter Lilley in Hitchin and Harpenden in 2001. He was elected as a Labour member for the Millwall ward of Tower Hamlets in 2002, but lost four years later as the yuppies invaded the Isle of Dogs. In 2008 Amos was elected to Worcester City Council.
In May 2014, with the Council hung, he resigned from the Labour Group to become an Independent, allegedly because Labour hadn't put him up for Mayor. At the Council AGM in June, Amos accepted the Conservative nomination for Mayor, and as Mayor he then voted for council control to change from Labour to Conservative.
A year later, hours before his tenure as Mayor came to an end, Amos announced he was rejoining the Conservative Party. In May 2024 he was to find himself returned as the last remaining Tory on Worcester City Council.
And, a few days ago, Amos resigned from the Tories to become an Independent once again.
So, over the years, Amos has gone from Conservative to Labour to Independent to Conservative to Independent. What comes next? Will he perhaps rediscover his enthusiasm for reactionary social policies and join Reform?
Here is an account of a visit he paid to Great Malvern in 1905, which was recycled by the Worcester News a century later:
How To Walk And The Boots To Wear was a headline in the Malvern Gazette 100 years ago.
It came as Mr C W Allen, the champion long-distance pedestrian of the world, gave an exhibition of his powers in Malvern.
"At six o'clock in the evening, he started from Mr Oliver's boot stores on the Promenade and walked along the Belle Vue Terrace, through the Wyche cutting, round the hills by West and North Malvern, down Trinity Bank to the Graham Road and up Church Street to the starting point," the paper reported.
"This walk, which is practically an afternoon's walk to an ordinary individual, and has plenty of difficult ascents, he accomplished in the marvellous time of 49 minutes, or at the rate of eight miles an hour.
"A considerable number of people watched him en-route and the critics had to admit that in spite of the rapidity with which he travelled, it was a fair and square walk with no suspicion of breaking into a run.
"Mr Allen wore a pair of Oliver's celebrated boots and stated that he never had any others to beat them as regards wear and ease and comfort."
But then Allen, whose forenames I have yet to discover, was a great one for endorsing things. He endorsed the tonic Phosferine tonic in the makers' advertisements, even when he had joined up as an air mechanic in the Royal Flying Corps during the first world war.
Another Phosferine advertisement gives Allen's home address: 43 Nithsdale Avenue, Market Harborough.
The illustration above is one of a number of postcards of Allen that the CardHawk site has sold in recent years. You will see that in this one he is endorsing Harboro Rubber Soles, which were made at the Dainite Mill in St Mary's Road by the Harborough Rubber Company.
Later. A reader has researched this (thank you!) and his full name was Charles William Allen. He was a commercial traveller working for a boot manufacturer, so he was a walking advertisement.
Allen was originally from Stroud. His first child was born in Market Harborough, but he had left the town before the 1911 census and was living on Jersey in 1921.
It occurs to me that he may have seen that airship because he was off his tits on Phosferine.
Dillon Pennington possesses the natural strength and height to become an imposing fast bowler of international quality. He was part of Worcestershire's satellite academy in Shropshire - coached by Paul Pridgeon - which has been so prolific in producing young players in recent years.
Thrilled to see Dillon Pennington @DillonPenningt4 called up to the England Test Squad. I had the pleasure of captaining him for his first games in adult cricket, when he played for Much Wenlock CC in 2012.
— Matthew Green (@MatthewGreen02) June 30, 2024
Always a delight to see others who are #Shropshire born & bred, excel. https://t.co/p6HkQRW89q
And summer 2024 is here, reports the Kidderminster Shuttle, thanks to the head boy of a school in Worcester:
Nikita Tkachuk, who has just finished his GCSEs at Nunnery Wood High School, protested as he believes it is unfair that boys must wear long trousers during summer months.
He wanted the uniform to include tailored shorts but the school said it does not have plans to change its uniform policy at this time.
The 17-year-old, originally from Ukraine and now living in St Peter's, had the support of his classmates when he turned up in the school skirt. ...
According to Nikita, the scorching heat during lunchtime made wearing long black polyester trousers 'unbearable.'
He said, unlike girls who could wear skirts above the knee, boys attending Nunnery Wood School are required to wear full-length trousers.
Let's start with the trivia. Miles Hunt, the guitarist and songwriter in The Wonder Stuff is the nephew of Bill Hunt, a horn player who followed Roy Wood through The Move, ELO and Wizzard.
And The Wonder Stuff shared those bands's West Midland heritage, coming out of Stourport at the same time as Pop Will Eat Itself. Members of both bands had already played together in once called From Eden.
The Wonder Stuff album everyone bought was Construction for the Modern Idiot, the last the band released before splitting in 1993 - they were to reform a few years later. But their best-loved single was this, and it comes from the earlier Never Loved Elvis.
Wikipedia quotes praise for The Size of a Cow:
Record Mirror made "The Size of a Cow" its single of the week upon release, with Peter Stanton's review describing the song as "a rampant jingly-jangly-organ affair that trips at a happier than happy pace".
Reviewing Never Loved Elvis in Vox, Keith Cameron described the song and "Caught In My Shadow" as "paragons of pop virtue", noting "huge melodic sweeps, artfully clever lyrics and nagging hummability".
Music & Media linked the song to contemporaneous singles by the Milltown Brothers, R.E.M. and Susanna Hoffs in what they heralded "the return of the classic pop tune".
Writing in 2017, Jon Bryan of Backseat Mafia described "The Size of a Cow" as "the equal, if not better, than almost any other guitar-pop song of the 90s".
Talk of "the return on the classic pop tune" puts you in mind of Britpop, and The Size of a Cow feels like an earthier, beerier essay in that genre. Most important of all, it still sounds good.
From BBC News:
Worcestershire may have no choice but to move home if water levels continue to rise at New Road, their County Championship base since 1899, chief executive Ashley Giles has warned.
The promoted Pears' short-term mission is to have the pitch fit for the first home game on 19 April against Durham.
But Giles says that, as Pears CEO, his first job is also to "consider the club's long-term sustainability".
"The situation is worsening, and we need to keep an eye on it," he said.
Speaking in the county's own new Three Pears Chat video, which was launched over the weekend, Giles said: "The stats say in the last 20 years we've had as many high floods as they did in the previous 100."
Those quotations are taken from Three Pears Chat, Worcestershire County Cricket Club's new monthly videocast. If you stay on this site to watch it you will see the relevant portion of the discussion.
The New Road ground at Worcester has a special place in the affections of cricket fans of a certain age, as this was where countries on a test tour of England traditionally played their opening first-class game.
And I can recommend the tea and cakes in the Ladies Pavilion.
There's more about this waterway on the Friends of the Leominster Canal site. There's more from Paul and Rebecca Whitewick about their railway and canal explorations on their website.
I once had bed and breakfast in the Teme valley near Tenbury Wells, and was told that the track running behind the house used to be the Leominster Canal.
Paul Whitewick goes looking for more substantial remains, and what he finds is nothing short of extraordinary.
There's more about this waterway on the Friends of the Leominster Canal site. There's more from Paul and Rebecca Whitewick about their railway and canal explorations on their website.
