LONGDON Church-women's Fellowship had an extremely interesting and informative talk by Mr K J O'Dwyer, FRCS (Orth) at their April meeting.

Mr O'Dwyer had kindly come to support the work of the Wishbone Trust, formed in 1991 to support research into orthopaedics as a result of the success of the 'Great Hip Walk' of 1989.

He took us through the history of the development of orthopaedics from the 18th Century to the present day, highlighting significant steps forward and then spoke of his own speciality, hip joint replacement from the first hip replacement operation in 1951, particularly the work of Sir John Charnley, Peter Ring and Robin Ling. We were able to see the different types of prosthesis, X-rays etc. we were very grateful to Mr O'Dwyer for his clear exposition and have a much better understanding of hip and other joint replacement. A donation was sent to the Trust.

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday, May 20 when we will be joined by members of Berrow Welcome Club and Tewkesbury Methodist Wives' Group to hear a talk with slides by Mrs Frances Lawrence on Denmark.

Bridge Builders meet again on Sunday (May 6) in the Vicarage at 11.15am-12.30pm. At the same time, there will be a service of Holy Communion at St Mary's Church.