A mention in a TV programme prompted a Malvern Gazette reader to write in and point out a small corner of the town's wartime history.

Grace Loach, (nee Fenn) was surprised to see The Heart of the Country on ITV on October 9, in which it was said the Morgan factory had been used for manufacturing anti-aircraft guns during the Second World War.

As an office worker there, Mrs Loach, a native Malvernian, knows the plant was used to make aeroplane engine parts.

She recalls: "I was at the college of further education, what we used to call the night school (now Malvern Hills College) studying shorthand and typing.

"I was then 16, and my mother did not want me to join the forces, so I got the job there. I was there from 1941 to 1945."

The Morgan factory had been taken over by the Standard Motor Co, which relocated from Coventry, then suffering from bombing.

"There were three workshops, I think Morgan might have kept one of them, but the rest were used by Standard. They used to make cars before the war and they went over to making aeroplane engines."

Mrs Loach can still recall the sight of the factories with the girls manufacturing the parts and oil all over the workshops.

"Most of them were girls, only the managers were men. I worked for what was then called the project manager, Mr Andrews.

"Our offices were in the factory at first but then they built a building for us, which became the Chance Brothers glass factory."

The workers were largely from Coventry and were billeted on families in Malvern Link.

Although Mrs Loach has lived in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, for the last 50 years, she returns to Malvern now and then, and is surprised how few people know about Standard. "It would be a pity if it was all forgotten. The books and pamphlets mention TRE and RRDE and stop there," she said.