GUARLFORD residents have joined together to recall village events and compile a history of their community.

The group will give a presentation about its work in January, and hopes to publish a book some time next year.

The history will go back to Guarlford's beginnings and reveal that it started life as part of an area called Baldenhall.

The village was once a stop-off on the Roman salt way, when salt was transported along the River Severn from Droitwich, before being moved through the Wyche Cutting in Malvern.

But the main emphasis of the project will be on the 19th and 20th Centuries.

Joan Bradshaw, who, at 85, is one of the village's oldest residents and has lived there all her life, has been a key figure in the initiative.

She has been interested in Guarlford's past, particularly its archaeology, for a long time and has already written her own history of the village.

Joan said compiling the history was an excellent idea: "So many things have happened here it's a shame to let it go.

"There's always something going on in the village and we always manage to celebrate in some small way."

Events she remembers with affection include the Golden Jubilee celebrations this summer when 150 people gathered in the garden of The Cherry Orchard to celebrate.

Joan also recalls the Silver Jubilee in 1977 as a very happy event. Former parish council chairman Major Monty Smythe gave all the children in Guarlford tea in the garden of Drips Hill Farm

The history reveals that Guarl-ford played host to its very own three-and-a-half-mile 'marathon' in the years around the Second World War.

But perhaps the most unusual thing about Guarlford is that three RAF planes have crashed near the village.

In 1944, village resident Charles Williams pulled a pilot out of the blazing wreckage of a Beaufighter.

The pilot, Stanley Morris, and his navigator both survived the crash.

On March 30, an Oxford trainer crashed at Woodbridge Farm, killing the pilot, acting-pilot officer Douglas Lewin.

And in 1981 a Jaguar strike jet crashed in fields at Home Farm, near the old salt way.

The pilot survived the crash after ejecting from the plane as it fell to the ground.

Celebrations for the millennium and the Golden Jubilee were the inspiration for the project and a committee of local people got together to begin the lengthy process of compiling the history.

Rosemary McCulloch, president of the Guarlford Women's Institute, is listening to the stories of people in the village and transcribing them for the book.

Pictures are being collected and prepared by parish clerk Michael Skinner. Project chairman Dr Eric Jones is applying for funding to help meet publication costs.

This will mean the book will be available to parish residents at a nominal cost.

The writing will be a team effort by members of the project committee.

Dr Peter Mayner, parish council chairman, Don Hill, chairman of the village hall committee, Joan Bradshaw and another long-term resident Joan Newell will be using their experience of life in Guarlford to help tell the story of the village.

The presentation in Guarlford Village Hall on January 25, at 2.30pm, will aim to show people what the committee has been doing.

"We also hope it will promote other reminiscences, memories, photographs and material about life in the village," said Dr Jones.

"But people are very willing to contribute their memories so it may well turn into a three-volume history."

Anyone interested in contributing material to the project should contact Dr Eric Jones on 01684 574521.