Eighty years on and Ernest is still a server at his church

Ever amiable, he is perhaps best known for his life-long and active association with Old St Martin's Church in the Cornmarket.

This began more than 80 years ago when he joined as "a little choir boy" and, with his fine voice, he was soon a regular soloist in church. However, after his voice broke, he turned instead to being a server at the church, and he has fulfilled this role for the seven decades since.

Ernest is still to be seen regularly in his robes as server and also as occasional acting verger and, for a period of 15 years, he was churchwarden of what was then the St Swithun's with Old St Martin's Parish.

Born on July 24, 1912, Ernest had a somewhat harsh but generally happy boyhood in Worcester. His first home with parents Walter and Elizabeth Smith and his four sisters was at No.1 Court, St Martin's Gate - a closely knit cluster of houses on what is now part of the parking area of H A Fox, the Jaguar dealers.

The next family move was to a row of six back-to-back houses at Eagle Place, Pheasant Street, and, at just three, Ernest began school. Though not a Catholic, he was sent for his entire education to St George's RC School, off Sansome Place.

"Though I was only three, I was left to walk all the way to school on my own," he said, "something which would not even be contemplated today for a child of such tender age, though it all seemed safe enough then. I would walk along Lowesmoor and through an alleyway which ran alongside the Boat Inn - now the Co-op Funeral Department.

"There was only one street character of the time who frightened me a bit. He was a stumpy chap who used to run up to children, throw his arms round them and kiss them. He got the nickname Kiss Me Fred and, though there was no harm in him, he would obviously be arrested for his behaviour today. I always used to scoot out of his way by making detours to avoid him."

Sadly, tragedy happened when he was only seven. His mother died, and the children were split up, two of the girls going to live with aunts, while he and two sisters were taken in by a kindly neighbour in Pheasant Street - Mrs Clare Evans.

Not along afterwards, she too became a widow when her husband, a railwayman, died. He had no work pension so, though the Depression Days of the 1920s, Mrs Evans had only a widow's pension of 10 shillings a week to exist on and to care for her "adopted" family.

"Our staple diet then was rabbit which she got from the butcher at 6d each, and I was allowed to have the skins which I took to Harrison & Bowen's, the hide and skin merchants in Lowesmoor.

"They gave me a penny for each skin and tuppence if it was a good one. This money used to burn a hole in my pocket until I could spend it at the weekends at the Apollo Cinema in Park Street. I loved going there even though the films tended to break down a lot.

"The charge was a penny downstairs and tuppence upstairs, but on the Saturday before Christmas the charge went up to 2d downstairs and 3d upstairs. However, as each boy and girl left the cinema, they were handed a bag containing an apple, orange, banana, some nuts and, at the very bottom, a brand new shiney penny. Those were wonderful days then."

From his school days, Ernest vividly remembers one particular episode when he was aged about 11.

"Our teacher, Sister Columba, called out one of my classmates and asked him to go across to Mr Whiteman, the grocer in Silver Street and bring back a dozen canes costing 1/6d.

"Perhaps fearful of the use to which the canes might be put, the lad returned and told her: 'Please, Sister, they haven't got any left - they've sold out.' I can see her standing there, towering above him, and accusing him of telling lies. She said: 'I was passing the shop last night and they still had plenty of canes in the window'.

"Sister Columba immediately dispatched the lad back to Mr Whiteman's, and he returned shortly afterwards with the requisite dozen canes, uttering the feeble excuse: 'Yes Sister, they were able to find some in the window'.

"The lad was called out in front of the class and was perhaps expecting Sister Columba to congratulate him on his shopping expedition. But, no, she told him to hold out both his hands, upon which she delivered sharp strokes with one of the new canes. 'That's for telling lies,' she declared.

"Corporal punishment of this sort was regular, but that was discipline and we abided by it and it never did us any harm," says Ernest.

He left St George's RC School at 14, in 1926 and found a job with Lancasters, merchants in yeast and bakery sundries. Their large shop was in Lowesmoor - now the site of Blunts shoe shop - and he earned the princely weekly sum of four shillings.

"Three times a week, I was sent out on a carrier bike making deliveries of yeast to 40 small and large bakers in and around Worcester - there were that many then! This went on until I was 17 and got a driving licence. I was then switched to driving Lancasters' vans for deliveries and also for collecting 14lb. bars of salt for the baking trade from the Salt Union works at Stoke Prior.

"The only problem was that the salt bars rubbed together in transit, and bits fell through the floor boards of the vans, landing on the silencers and badly corroding them."

In fact, this problem led to a much publicised court appearance by young Ernest Smith.

"One morning a silencer replacement failed to arrive but I still decided to take out a Ford Model T one-ton vehicle to collect salt from Stoke Prior. However, as I was going along Droitwich Road, a policeman stopped me and said: 'Young man, you're making a bit of a noise aren't you?' I made a non-committal reply but he said he was afraid he would have to report me under the Excessive Noise Act.

"I was duly summonsed to appear at the City Police Court, then behind the Guildhall, where PC 46 Watson told the magistrates I had been making 'a terrific noise'. The chairman of the magistrates asked the policeman exactly what the noise had sounded like, to which he replied: 'Like a battalion of machine guns charging up the road'.

"The chairman then asked PC Watson if he had ever heard a battalion of machine guns and when he replied 'No', I was flabbergasted to hear the JP say: 'Case dismissed'. The next day, the local daily paper carried a headline: 'Battalion of Machine Guns in Worcester'. "

In his youth and as a young man, Ernest continued to be looked after by Mrs Evans, who moved from Pheasant Street to Brickfields and then to Astwood Road, but all this ended with her death in 1938.

When the Second World War broke out, Ernest was deemed to be in "a reserved occupation" because, with Lancasters, he was in the bakery and food industry. However, he was eventually called up as a 31 year-old into the Royal Artillery Heavy Regiment in 1943 and saw active service in France, Belgium and Holland, ending up in Germany in 1946. He reached the rank of sergeant and, not long before D-Day, met a Yorkshire girl, Mildred Heathcote, who was serving in the WRAF.

They married in 1948 and celebrated their golden wedding anniversary four years ago, now having shared 54 years together.

Ernest made some good friends in Holland, when Allied forces recaptured their villages from the Germans towards the end of the war, and they stayed in close touch afterwards. Ernest and Mildred have made visits to Holland and, in recent days, sons and daughters of those original Dutch friends have been to Worcester to join Ernest for his 90th birthday celebrations.

On de-mob, Ernest returned to Lancasters and was a manager until 1960, when he joined Morris & King as a travelling rep. This firm was then at the corner of Henwick Road and the Bull Ring, St John's, but later moved to Tybridge Street and went through a number of changes, becoming, in turn, King Goodwin, Warriners and Bookers. He retired in 1977.

Ernest and Mildred lived in Comer Road when they were first married but then bought a house in McIntyre Road, where they remained for 33 years, until moving to their present home in St Swithun's Close, off Camp Hill Road, 19 years ago.

Ernest looks back with great joy and satisfaction on his 82-year association with Old St Martin's Church.

"I was first encouraged to go there by my guardian, Mrs Evans and started as a little choir boy. For my sins, I had quite a good voice and was soon singing solos in church. Then, when my voice broke, I became a server in the Sanctuary, a role I still undertake all these years later.

"I have served under several fine rectors and was churchwarden for about 15 years. Clearly, I have always liked the Anglo-Catholic tradition observed at Old St Martin's.

"In my younger days, I was also in the amateur dramatic group run by Bridget Monahan, daughter of the then rector, the Rev Bill Monahan. I'm glad to hear she's still a leading figure on the local amateur music scene at, I believe, a couple of years older than me."

Another rector, thought "quite a character" by Ernest, was the Rev Neil Denlegh-Maxwell.

"There was one occasion when he was sitting collecting alms outside St Swithun's Church when a chap came up and taunted him: 'I'll give you a quid if you can down a pint of beer in one gulp'. To the man's surprise, the rector immediately took up the challenge and sent for a pint from the City Arms, then on the other side of Church Street.

"The rector duly downed the pint in one and called back the chap to pay up. He had been trying to walk away."

For the past 30 years, Ernest and Mildred Smith have been regular attenders and popular figures at social events in Whittington Village Hall. Ernest has very much enjoyed the whist drives and has been caller most weeks with Debbie Slocombe for the bingo sessions.

Overall, Ernest looks back nostalgically to Worcester between the wars when it had "wonderful places such as Lich Street, the Lich Gate, St Michael's Church, and the line of superb old shops on the east side of the Cathedral end of High Street, including Sparks' music shop ,which had originally be the Elgar family shop."