POPULAR tradition the Pershore Plum Festival that was cancelled due to the pandemic has instead been celebrated online.

Determined to make sure the town could celebrate its plum heritage Pershore Abbey Community has produced activities and videos each Saturday in August on their YouTube channel.

Pershore Abbey's Reverend Claire Lording said “The Plum Festival is such an integral part of our social calendar and it’s extremely sad that we cannot celebrate it in the usual way but we must all continue to do our bit to try and stem the spread of this virus.

"So we put our thinking caps on and devised new ways to be able to celebrate our plum heritage online."

Among the video activities already shown has been the Abbey’s mascot bear Pershore Abi launch a ‘Plum stone hunt’ with 32 hand-painted rocks hidden around the town for young explorers to find, town stalwart Edwin Ball telling the history of the town and a video documenting the life cycle of the plums growing in the Abbey Park community orchard, captured from March to August this year.

There was also a video researching Pershore Horticultural society and various festivals in the town over the past 150 years.

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This Bank Holiday weekend the virtual event comes to a close with more celebrations.

Today, August 27, 'Bike Nite videos' first shown in 2018 and 2019 will be available to view again.

On Saturday Pershore Plum Day will be celebrated with a display of Pershore rocks and old photographs of the town in St Andrew’s Garden.

On Sunday a video of 2019 Plum Praise and Teddy Bear Service will be reshown while on Bank Holiday Monday there will be a brand new video “Pershore Abbey’s Virtual Tower Tour’ released.

Rev Lording added: "I do hope that people will be able to join in at home and also take the opportunity to see our display in St Andrew’s Garden on Saturday.

"We ask that people observe all social distancing measures currently in place and do not touch anything on display to minimise the risk of infection.

"My thanks go to our team for all the research and hard work in putting on this virtual Plum Fest.

"Hopefully next year for the 25th anniversary, we will be able to celebrate together once more."