Mayor of Worcester Blog

A highlight of the Christmas season is always the Cherry Orchard School Carol Service held in the Cathedral – and this year was no exception! It is a bit of a military exercise getting that many children to and from the Cathedral safely and without losing any – and ensuring they are all in the right place with the right equipment, on time. However as always, it went off without a hitch.

The children sang beautifully and this year, we were treated to a performance by the staff choir, which was also very good. Those in the nativity, the Tableau actors, were dressed in some splendid costumes and they really looked the part. As we have seen in other schools’ carol services, the children enjoy performing and taking part was obviously great fun for them. The mix of traditional carols and popular songs was new and worked very well, giving a slightly different slant to previous years. Those in the group singing “Oh Happy Days” were excellent, and the boy soloist was superb. Well done Cherry Orchard – another excellent year!!

St Paul’s Hostel put on a film and poetry show in St Paul’s Church, on the corner of Spring Gardens and St Paul’s Street. Firstly I must comment on the building, this being the first occasion I have entered this church, I’m sorry to say. It is the second largest religious space in our City, after the Cathedral, and in its former days it had the Revd. Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy as its minister. A hero of World War 1, he was awarded the Military Cross for bringing in wounded troops under fire and is better known, of course, as Woodbine Willy. As a military Chaplin he not only gave out copies of the bible to those along the troop trains at Rouen, but packets of the famous Woodbine cigarettes from which his nickname came.

Back to the Church – it is a magnificent building and well worth a visit, you will be surprised! The St Paul’s Hostel performance was impressive, not only were the videos and brilliant photography excellent , the poems were written and read with incredible feeling, and so well presented. One member of the group has a placement at the Heart of Worcestershire College to further his skills as a poet and special thanks has to go to Claire Badsey for both her writing and the reading of her work. The host and mentor of the group, Gerry Lowman, led us through an enjoyable evening.

Simon Geraghty and I met at the Wainwright Road GPO main sorting office, to thank our postal staff for the incredible hard work in getting our parcels and letters delivered on time and before Christmas. There are 225 employees working out of Wainwright Road and they handle one million items to be delivered each week.  Throughout the year they close on only one day: Christmas Day. They are the unsung heroes of Christmas.

Our visit to Worcester Royal Hospital on Christmas Day was a lovely experience.  Patients and staff alike were so welcoming and it was great to see how happy and positive everyone was. One lady over from Ireland for a family Christmas sadly found herself in hospital rather than the family home, but she was smiley and happy and so pleased to meet the mayor, she said how she was looking forward to telling her family all about our encounter! It was quite humbling really – a lovely lady, hope she is home with friends and family very soon. Another lady was about to be discharged and looking forward to going home when I made a very unthinking remark, saying, “You’re on the way out then are you?”!! Fortunately she saw the funny side and we all had a good laugh; must choose words more carefully in future….

My thanks to all our hospital staff for their dedication and work – may I take this opportunity to wish them all a very happy and healthy New Year.

 

Christmas is coming, and the carol services and nativity plays are in abundance. RGS The Grange did not disappoint, with two delightful examples this last week. The tiny tots were a pleasure to watch and with some participants as young as two, it was an amazing production. Years three and four put on a very professional show, and their delight in performing was a treat to watch.

Worcester District Scouts, together with some very proud parents, filled the Cathedral for their Christmas carol service. The readings were so well delivered, and the carols took us through the Christmas story. In parallel they were supporting the homeless, by collecting a large quantity of warm garments for distribution in St Pauls Hostel and Magg’s Day Centre.

To see how trade was developing in the run-up to Christmas, we took a tour of some independent retailers. Whilst business was under pressure from national chains and the internet, they seemed to be doing ok. Talking to Rick Knowles of Knowles’s Sport, a long standing family business, it was clear that the benefits of buying face to face with a retailer are greater than the online option, which focuses just on price and convenience. Advice and guidance, along with the option to try out products, adds considerable value.

The same could be said of New England Country Store, a lovely shop with a Christmas grotto on the first floor giving the opportunity to touch, feel and see Christmas decorations and accessories in a homely setting. It was here I discovered the upside down Christmas tree and although I’m a bit of a conventional person, I thought these looked very good and, in some circumstances, better than the usual orientation!!

The two and a half hours I spent one evening dressed as Father Christmas and being towed in a “Sleigh” around the streets, proved to be very worthwhile. It was nice and warm inside Santa’s outfit, together with the wig, beard and hat, and the children loved it – together with some quite enthusiastic mums and dads too! This was a “Lions” event to raise money for those less well off, and it proved very successful.

The production of Dr. Faustus at the Sixth Form College was amazing! A very difficult script in some long pieces, delivered faultlessly. How they remembered it all is beyond me. The lead boy and lead girl were outstanding, in fact all the cast were, and I gather they only started rehearsals in September. A brilliant effort – I congratulate them on a first class production.

 

 

Digging the first sod in preparation for our new swimming pool was a great honour and a great pleasure, as it means the pool is well and truly on its way!  The chosen contractors are Speller Metcalfe, a locally based giant in the construction industry.

It’s good to know that we have been able to design an eight lane pool at an affordable level of investment. It will be such a great asset to both our City and swimmers in the wider world, and that it is being built by local people working for a local company. Great stuff!!

The Mayoress and I were invited to an event at the University to celebrate extracurricular work of primary schoolchildren and to award them their “graduation” certificates. We hadn’t heard before the event of this opportunity for children – it was lovely to see their efforts being both recognised and rewarded.

This project, called The Worcestershire Children’s University, is managed by the Children’s University Advisory Board and has been running for two years. It encourages children to become much more involved in local activities, undertake projects to help the environment and to get involved in clubs and their activities. On the day we attended, certificates were awarded to children of Abbeywood First School, Matchborough First School and St Barnabas First and Middle school. It was good to see the pride on their faces!

The Trashion Show put on by Oasis School, Warndon, threw a completely new light on “rubbish”. They had turned unwanted items into clothing and had a fashion show to display their very inventive creations. Not only was it fun for the children, but it also taught them quite a lot about recycling and the environment. Apart from all that, it was thoroughly entertaining!

RGS The Grange Carol and Christingle Service in the Cathedral was superb.   I’m often astonished by the confidence young children have in today’s world. To stand before a full congregation in our Cathedral and not only deliver readings, but to sing and play musical instruments, some giving solo performances, would be daunting for an adult, let along a child. Having seen many children in our schools, I think I can say that our future is definitely in safe hands!!

Two other events worthy of note have taken place: the Daisychain Christmas Tree competition where organisations and companies enter trees to raise money for charitable causes – in this case the Children’s Ward at Worcester Royal Hospital, Riverbank Ward. The trees are on display in the Cathedral Cloisters and well worth a visit. The other event was the Jack and the Beanstalk production at Pitmaston School, produced by Alsorts Performing Arts, which was a delight.

The week started off very well with Fred Seiker’s 100th birthday celebration, which was a delight.  Fred lives here in St Peter’s and as I’ve written in these columns before, he served in Burma in the 2^nd World War and after being captured by the Japanese in 1942, was forced to work on the Burma Railway, known as the Railway of Death.  Fred wasn’t repatriated until 1946 and had suffered greatly.  In 1995 he wrote a Booker prize-winning book, “Lest We Forget”.  Fred remained a Dutch national and never sought British nationality, although he spent much of his time in England.  The delightful event that occurred on his birthday was that, although this meant he wasn’t able to receive a telegram from the Queen, David Cameron, Prime Minister, stepped in and wrote to him personally, making Fred’s birthday complete!

The Three Choirs Festival Chorus and the Three Choirs Festival Youth Choir performed at Buckingham Palace as part of the tercentenary celebrations, concluding with a recital and reception hosted by HRH The Prince of Wales in Buckingham Palace.  It was a great event and a number of us from Worcester were privileged to be there.  You can read more about the occasion and the Three Choirs Association here:- http://www.3choirs.org/

The Mayoress and I had the opportunity to visit Perry Wood School to award Blue Peter Certificates to some pupils, and it was a real pleasure. The children were so appreciative and pleased to receive their certificates and very interested in the Mayoral chain, its history and what it meant. I hope they will take up my offer to visit the Mayor’s Parlour and tour the Guildhall.

The opening of the Victorian Christmas Fayre was a lively occasion and this year it was bigger and better than ever despite the weather, which could have been a lot better.  Chris Bates of LSD Promotions did a remarkable job in pulling all the strings together to deliver such a good Fayre.  There were over two hundred stalls, not only in the High Street, New Street, Corn Market and so on, but reaching into Broad Street, linking Angel Market to the main Fayre.  There were 13 school choirs and over 40 confirmed acts in total across the city streets.  My thanks also go to Sean Roberts, Mark Harrison and also Dave Joins of Cotswolds Markets for provision of stalls.

One of the performances we saw was the Deaf Direct Signing Choir and that exceeded all expectations; it was a ballet of hand movements and facial expression that was captivating.