Mayor of Worcester Blog

I have been a member of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) since it started in the seventies. This consumer organisation was set up to protect traditional brewing, then threatened by a few very large drinks manufacturers who wanted to replace “real ale” with more profitable very fizzy, pasteurised, filtered and characterless beverages made in large factories.

So I was delighted to open this year’s CAMRA beer, cider and perry festival on Pitchcroft. Around 200 real ales and 100 ciders and perries were available, many from our local area. CAMRA is rightly proud of its achievement – and thanks must go to the army of volunteers who worked to make our festival such a success.

On Monday, daughter Lucinda accompanied me to help celebrate the first birthday of Sanctuary Grove in St John’s Bromyard Road. This includes a 60-bed care home, 24 retirement living apartments and bungalows, 60 independent living apartments and 14 apartments for adults with learning disabilities. As we live longer, there are more and more elderly people who need these services and I was delighted when residents told me the staff are so caring and friendly. Residents enjoy excellent facilities and we saw many taking advantage of the entertainment and activities on offer.

Visitors from Worcester, Massachusetts, USA, arrived this week and I invited them to tea in the Guildhall. I also joined them and members of our own Twinning Association for dinner. It is good to continue these friendships with our twin cities.

Jenny Meadows, the World and European 800m runner, came to the Countryside Centre near County Hall on Wednesday to support our Worcester 10K run, which takes place on Sunday 18 September. It was a pleasure to welcome her. We watched large numbers of children enjoying the free activities organised by Freedom Leisure; it was good to see so many youngsters having fun in the sun.

Recent stories in the Worcester News and elsewhere about people being abused simply because they look or sound “foreign” to their abusers have made depressing reading. As a local councillor and Mayor, I represent all our residents, whatever their places of birth or ancestry, and try to encourage people to reach out to and value people with a different heritage.

The party last week at the Horizon Community Centre in Midland Road was a great way to celebrate diversity and Lynn and I were delighted to attend and support it. Over 100 people, including lots of children, celebrated the Muslim festival of Eid by sharing food and conversation. Children jumped on bouncy castles and their angelic-looking faces were painted, transforming them into Spiderman and other heroes. Well done Worcester Community Trust (WCT) for providing this happy event.

Much of the most valuable work in our city is done by volunteers, who give up a few hours of their time, not for payment, but to make life better for others and WCT could not exist without them.

Other people volunteer to read and record stories from the Worcester News so that blind and partially-sighted residents can enjoy what sighted readers take for granted. Every week, Worcester News & Equipment Services for the Blind makes over 200 copies of a two-hour recording session produced by a team of volunteer readers. These are delivered free of charge to subscribers’ homes so that they and their friends can listen to the news. I enjoyed being a guest reader last week and helping this superb service.

I also enjoyed welcoming to the Gulidhall the first of four groups of students from China, hosted by our University.

It was a real pleasure to open the newly refurbished London Road Post Office. My friend Councillor Jabba Riaz has worked extremely hard to ensure that this valuable community facility, under threat of closure, now has a secure future.

Worcestershire people are rightly proud of our musical heritage and of Edward Elgar, the famous composer who was born and lived in this area. The three choirs of Hereford, Gloucester and Worcester cathedrals have been keeping this heritage alive for the past 289 years by staging the world famous Three Choirs Festival every year in one of these three cathedral cities. This festival of choral music is the oldest choral festival in the world and this year’s event opened in Gloucester cathedral on Saturday July 23.

I was honoured to represent Worcester by processing in state from Gloucester Guildhall to the Cathedral, accompanied by our mace bearers and sword bearer in their resplendent uniforms. A sizeable crowd seemed to be enjoying our procession as we moved along the pedestrianised shopping streets in the glorious sunshine.

Inside the cathedral, we joined bishops and clergy representing all three cathedrals for the opening service of the festival. The Three Choirs Festival Chorus, joined by Gloucester cathedral choir and youth choir, were accompanied by the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama Symphonic Brass and Percussion and Jonathan Hope on the organ. They filled the enormous space with superb and uplifting music.

On Tuesday, 50 members of the Pax Christi Chorale arrived in Worcester from Toronto for a brief tour of our city before their lunchtime concert in our own Cathedral. I was delighted to welcome them into the Mayor’s Parlour before they headed to the Elgar Birthplace Museum and then to Gloucester to join the Three Choirs.

They will return to Worcester’s Three Choirs Festival in July 2017, which promises to be as excellent as ever.

I also welcomed visitors from our French twin town Le Vesinet, and Bologna, Italy and opened the Zip Yard, the latest shop to appear in The Shambles.

The highlight of the week was our invitation to start Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life. Around 2,000 ladies formed a sea of pink as they gathered on Pitchcroft ahead of the race, to warm up and hear encouraging words from the stage. Most participants had either been afflicted by cancer themselves, or knew someone close to them who had. There were fond memories of those who passed away, but determination to help Cancer Research UK raise money so that diagnosis and treatment can be improved.

Mayoress Lynn has been successfully operated on to remove a cancer within recent weeks, so she was pleased to share her own story and encourage the runners.

Last Thursday was St Swithun’s Day, when rumour has it that any rain on that day will be followed by 40 days and nights of further downpours. There was an odd shower, but we have had wonderful dry and sunny days in the following week. Since former Mayor Jo Hodges began the tradition in 2000, there has been an annual procession of the mayor and councillors from the Guildhall to St Swithun’s Church for a special evensong service.

This wonderful ancient church is used for worship only rarely, but is open to the public for organ recitals in summer and restoration work is planned so that visits will be even more enjoyable in future. We were made most welcome by Raymond Fowler from the Friends of St Swithun’s and Rev Brian Gant who lead the service. Afterwards, we shared a magnificent cake with the rest of the congregation.

We opened the Worcester Referees Society summer fete and visited others hosted by Dines Green School and the Horizon Centre in Midland Road. Visitors to the Mayor’s parlour included Dr. Liu Peng, the Deputy Director of China’s International Business School, and groups of children from Hollymount and St Barnabas primary schools.