Mighty Flo's growing old grapefully...

She's a founder member of this amateur wine-making group, currently holds all three of its main trophies for her potent products and is a spirited 92 years of age this month.

Her "vineyard" is her allotment at Northwick, which she tends three days a week and where she grows cultivated blackberries, the vital ingredient of her top prize-winning products - a dry blackberry wine and, her own personal favourite, a sweet blackberry wine.

Flo's a diminutive, buoyant character whose vitality, energy and cheer belie her age. Every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday she can be seen pushing her working trolley from her home in North Worcester to her allotment at Northwick.

She has now enjoyed tending an allotment for 57 years, though - for much of that time - it was in company with her late husband Harry Weaver. And it's only in recent times that she asked to be relieved of half of her Northwick allotment as it had become too large.

Over the years, her sizeable plot has not only enabled her to be self-sufficient in vegetable production for her home, it has also provided the main fruit or veg ingredients for her prodigious output of wines. Little wonder that she still spends three mornings a week on the allotment, the most she can spare from her busy schedule. Thursdays are allotted to attendance at a senior citizens' club at Perdiswell, while Fridays are always pencilled in for the WI Market held in St Clement's Church Hall on Worcester's Westside.

She has been one of its regulars for many years, up early each Friday in order to catch the bus to arrive on time, armed with her produce. In the past, she was noted for the tempting treats she baked at home for sale at the WI Market.

But it's not just as a successful amateur wine-maker, allotment gardener and housewife that Flo Weaver has made her mark in life. For 45 years, she was a highly-skilled machinist with Dents, the former leading Worcester firm of glovemakers.

So expert had she become by just 16 years of age that, even as a teenager, she was sent to cities all over the country to give promotional demonstrations in major stores, not least Harrods in London.

"We all think Flo's truly remarkable and unique," says Mrs Eve Lane, president of the Worcester Wine Circle, which has been running for nearly 40 years.

Flo was born at Hylton Road, Worcester, in August 1911, the daughter of Frederick and Lillian Stockall. Her father was an engineer at the factory in the Tallow Hill area, but died at the age of only 37.

One of Flo's amusing childhood memories is of playing in a field which, in those times, lay to the rear of Tybridge House in Tybridge Street, now a veterinary centre.

"A stream ran through the field and, one day, I went with two friends to fish for minnows from it. I was only about eight, but somehow fell into the stream and got my clothes soaking wet.

"I feared what my mother would say, but my friends suggested I take off my clothes and lay them over a nearby hedge to dry. However, after I'd done so, a face suddenly popped up from the top of a wall at the end of the back garden of Tybridge House. It was one of three Misses Stone who lived there. She shouted out sternly: 'You disgusting child, put your clothes back on immediately!' I did and ran home."

Flo Stockall's education was at St Clement's School, and she attended many an assembly and prize-giving in the church hall where she now goes every Friday for the WI Market. She also has fond memories of the former Worcester electric trams which plied the city until 1928 from their main depot at the Bull Ring. The Co-op supermarket now covers the site.

Flo left school at 14 and was fortunate to find a job straight away as a trainee machinist at Dents' glove factory on the riverside at Warmstry.

"It normally took girls two years to train and qualify as machinists, but I became skilled at it very quickly and, from the age of 16, was being sent all over the country. I'd usually be sent with another girl as company, and we were put up in hotels. Dents dispatched our machines to us by road or rail, and I gave displays in the big stores in a lot of cities.

Flo points out that glove making was no easy task but involved 28 processes from skins to finish.

In 1936, Flo was married at St Clement's Church to "local boy" Harry Weaver, who lived with his parents in Park Street and was educated at St Peter's School. His father, Harry Weaver senior, was a master tailor in the city for many years .

Harry junior was a delivery man with the Co-op Bakery in Worcester but finished up as the department's treasurer.

Marrying at 25 and becoming a housewife could have spelt the end of Flo's career as a skilled glovemaker, but so valued was she by Dents that they provided her with a machine at her house in North Worcester so she could work from home.

She did so for about 16 years until her only child, daughter Gillian had virtually competed her education at the Worcester Grammar School for Girls.

At that stage, in the early 1950s, she was persuaded to return to the Dents' factory as an examiner and teacher to pass on her specialist skills.

In 1953, she had the honour of being in the team of experts at Dents who made the intricate and beautiful ceremonial glove worn by Queen Elizabeth II at her Coronation in Westminster Abbey. Dents was specially commissioned by the monarch to produce the glove for her.

Flo also trained in first aid and became one of those responsible for this service at the Dents' factory.

She joined the St John Ambulance Brigade and was to be an active member of its Powick and Bedwardine Division for 22 years, being on regular first aid duties in her spare time at local cinemas, theatres and public events, together with undertaking voluntary hospital nursing one night a week. She was also a member of the Casualty Union, producing her own realistic make-up to act as an injured person at many first aid competitions.

Flo continued working for Dents until 1969 when the firm, established in the 1770s, merged with another local company, Fownes. Flo didn't like the new set-up so she quit, ending her 45 years of glovemaking.

However, by this time, Flo already had two othe passions - allotment gardening and wine-making.

She and husband Harry took their first allotment in 1946 - a patch of land leased to them free of charge by a Mr Ingram, who Flo seems to remember was head of the Worcester building firm of Joseph Wood and Co.

He had a house and estate opposite Ogilvy Square in North Worcester and let off some land as allotments in order that it would be tended.

Seventeen years later, however, the land was sold off for development and, instead, Flo and Harry had to take one of the Northwick allotments. It's that plot which Flo still tends today.

The mid-1960s saw amateur wine-making become, literally, a consuming pastime for Flo and husband Harry. They began attending classes in wine making at the Worcester Technical College annexe in the Victoria Institute and, in 1967, joined with other classmates to form the Worcester Wine Circle.

Harry was to be founder treasurer and held the post for several years. Alas, he died in 1989 at the age of 77 and three years after celebrating his Golden Wedding anniversary with Flo.

They'd shared 53 years of married life at their home in North Worcester and had taken pride in their daughter Gillian who is married to Richard Harvey and lives at Leigh Sinton.

I'm grateful now to Mrs Audrey Murel, of School Road, Worcester, for brief notes on the life of the Wine Circle. The group met for some years in the Bishop Perowne School at Barbourne with social gatherings in the nearby Talbot Hotel or Swan Inn. The founder chairman was Reg Lockyer and the honorary secretary was Bob Shaw.

It was about a month after the setting up of the Wine Circle that Audrey Murel and her husband Harry joined, and he went on to be a local and regional prize-winner with his wines.

"It's always been a very active club, and the social side of the Wine Circle has been wonderful with dances, socials, harvest suppers, and outings to theatres and seaside resorts. There were also memorable trips in the 1970s to wine festivals in Germany, Portugal and Italy.

"The Wine Circle always had a stall and display too, in the main marquee at the annual City of Worcester Show on Pitchcroft."

This proved popular with the public as there was free tasting of members' wines on offer!

Audrey Murel says subsequent meeting places for the Wine Circle after the Bishop Perowne School included the Talbot Hotel, Barbourne, a hall in Foxwell Street, the Gun Tavern in Newtown Road, the former Drill Hall at Southfield Street, and the Bush Inn, St John's.

In recent years, however, the club venue has been Dancox House, in St John's, but a spate of vandalism to members' cars has prompted a search for a new meeting place.

Over the years, members have greatly enjoyed competing among themselves for the Wine Circle's three main trophies - the Chapman Cup for dry red and white wines, the Wine Maker of the Year Cup for the most points scored in competitions over the year, and the tankard for the best dry white wine.

These three trophies have, of course, all been won by Flo Weaver this year to set up a club record. No member has ever won all three in the same year until now.

Wine Circle president Eve Lane, of Church Terrace, St John's, fears the group is in its twilight years due to changes in attitude towards wine-making.

"Back in the 1960s and 70s, people very much enjoyed making their own wines at home, and among the favourites were damson, elderberry, blackberry and dandelion wines," said Mrs Lane.

"People used their surplus fruit, vegetables and even flowers as basic ingredients.

"In recent years, however, wines from all over the world have become readily available at reasonable cost in supermarkets with the effect that most people are no longer interested in home wine-making. Our membership too, is ageing and dwindling."

Flo Weaver points out that the Wine Circle began with a membership of 30 which grew in the group's heydays to 80 or 90, but is now down to about 25.

In addition to Eve Lane, the other officers of the Wine Circle are Tony Jenkins (chairman), Christine Grant (secretary) and Jack Pugh (treasurer).