CHILDREN were given a taste of Malvern's past in 1975 during Donkey Day.

This imaginative event was organised by Malvern Hills District Council's Resort Office and the Hotels Association.

It involved a cavalcade of donkeys which gathered on Red Lion Bank to take children up St Ann's Road to the Worcestershire Beacon.

Led by ex-National Hunt jockey Terry Biddlecombe, the parade recreated the days when donkeys daily ferried tourists up the Malvern Hills.

The children who led the group away were the winners of a drawing competition, 'Donkeys and the Malvern Hills'. They were Leslie Ames, of Heathlands Close, Malvern Wells; Leslie Stride, of Wells Road; Julia Bell, of Guarlford Road; Louise Joyner, of West Malvern Road; Miss Short, of Upper Welland Road; and Russell Underwood, of Holywell Road.

They were assisted by Vera Evans, who wore a scarlet cloak and hood which had belonged to Betty Cayley, a 'donkey lady' in the 1840s, a fragile item lent by the County Museum at Hartlebury.

Another feature of the day was a special exhibition in the drawing room of the Mount Pleasant Hotel.

Assembled by Olive Lucas, of the Thornbury Hotel, it featured items about the donkeys or their owners including a painting done in connection with the visit to Malvern in 1831 of the then Princess Victoria.

Taped music in the exhibition was Ma Favori, a piece for violin and piano written by Martin Coward-Clee and published in 1919.

His father had been one of five brothers who founded the Malvern Rhine String Band, a popular feature of the town in the 19th Century.