WORCESTER'S new multiplex cinema centre, between Friar Street and the City Walls Road, is partly occupying the site where a one-time Mayor of the city was in business for 30 years.

H.J "Bert" Evans owned and ran the County Magneto firm at various locations in Sidbury, from 1927 until the mid-1960s, when he left Worcester to live in retirement on the south coast.

Now approaching his 97th birthday, he witnessed the infancy of both wireless and television in Worcester and helped to bring these technical wonders to the people of the Faithful City and a wide surrounding area.

He also experienced the early years of cinema at Worcester - a topical fact in view of the current fate of his former business premises.

Mr Evans spent his first 63 years in Worcester, but he has now lived "in exile" for 34 years.

He has written to me from his home in Dorset, to say he keeps in touch with life in Worcester, thanks to his grandson, Richard Drewitt, of The Hill Avenue, who is head at Powick School. Mr Drewitt regularly sends him copies of the Evening News, and particularly those issues in which Memory Lane is printed.

As a result, he was moved to write following my article in February, on a fellow nonagenarian, 95-year-old Frank Wilkes MBE, of Timberdine Avenue, Worcester, who spent more than half-a-century as a top officer in the Worcestershire County Highways and Bridges Department.

Mr Wilkes' parents, Alfred and Harriet, were mine hosts at the Plume of Feathers pub opposite the Royal Grammar School for some years, before moving to the Lansdowne Inn - a home-brew house at Lansdowne Street - for a long period.

Harriet Wilkes also ran a small groceries and sweet shop from the same premises.

Mr Evans, who was born at Lavender Road, Worcester, in 1903, says his early years and those of Frank Wilkes ran in parallel.

"For 14 years, I lived with my parents at 64 Flagmeadow Walk, and the favourite pub of my dad, Frank Harry Evans, was the Plume of Feathers run by Alf Wilkes. In fact, when the Wilkes decided to move to the Lansdowne Inn, my dad was among the 99 per cent of the regulars who moved with them. Dad was greatly involved with the pub and ran several of its clubs and savings schemes.

"I remember that, each Saturday morning, a friend and I would go along a narrow passage leading to Mrs Wilkes' tempting sweet shop window at The Lansdowne. With only a half-penny to spend, it was a serious decision whether to have just on Everlasting Strip or a licorice pipe and a packet of coconut tobacco!

"Later, we gave up this pleasure when our weekly pocket money was increased to one penny. With this, we and a few hundred other noisy children would crowd into the Empire Picture House and, having shouted and screamed our heads off at the cowboys and indians in an airless, totally dark hall, we would come out again to receive a stick of Worcester Rock. Bliss indeed!"

Bert Evans went to St Stephen's School, but left at 13 and became a despatch rider, operating on his "30 shillings bike" from The Worcestershire Regiment recruiting office at 9 Broad Street. At a halfpenny a mile, he covered a very wide area with at least two journeys a day to Norton Barracks. This was, of course, at the height of the First World War.

He later served an apprenticeship with Coombers, the electrical dealers in The Tything, continuing his education with evening classes at the Victoria Institute.

"In 1920, and long before the arrival of the BBC, my boss, Frank Westrop Coomber, and his son Robert, began experimenting with this 'new thing' the wireless. Most days, a time signal was being sent out at 10 am from the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and jewellers, Cassidys at The Cross, had a brainwave.

"They did, of course, sell watches and clocks, and hit on the idea of using the time signal from Paris as a publicity and sales aid. Coombers were brought in on the practical side, and we fitted them up with a receiver.

"At a few minutes to 10 each day, an ever-increasing crowd gathered outside Cassidys, watches and clocks in hand, to get THE TIME! A bell was rung precisely as the 10 am time came in. Where else in those days could you get the real time?"

While working for Coombers too, he undertook some electrical work at the Apollo Picture House - "better known as The Fleapit" - in Park Street and was "overjoyed when allowed to operate the hand-driven projector for a short time".

In 1921, Bert Evans joined the RAF and became a technical NCO in charge of magneto repairs, serving in this country and in Turkey.

Back in civvie street, he commenced business on his own in 1927, at 58 Sidbury, trading as County Magneto and repairing magnetos for the motor trade. No.58 was alongside Sidbury Bridge and opposite The Commandery.

By this time, Bert was married and living over-the-shop with wife Minnie and daughter Pamela, but the family eventually moved to Northwick Close, because of the "very close proximity" of the Worcester-Birmingham Canal to their "over-the-shop" home.

"The canal was very busy in those days, and the bargees, whose vessels were pulled by horses on the towpath, always had difficulty getting their long boats under Sidbury Bridge and immediately into the lock. The conversations between the husband leading the horse and the wife steering the barge could be very colourful, and my young daughter had good ears and a wonderful memory!"

Mr Evans also hit the news while at No.58.

"Dashing downstairs at 3am one night, I found the shop window smashed and the most expensive radio set snatched from the display.

"The News and Times made the most of it as a news item and also printed an advert from me which read: 'Will the person who took the Philips Wireless Set from the window of County Magneto last night please call in the shop as he forgot to take the separate loud speaker!'

"It's hard to believe but, for years afterwards, I was being asked, quite seriously 'Did that man ever come back?' Clearly, my totally tongue-in-cheek advert had proved wonderful publicity for County Magneto."

Mr Evans' shop at 58 Sidbury also made and repaired "wireless sets" but, in 1934, he moved the business to 25 Sidbury - a property on the corner of what we know today as the junction of Sidbury and Friar Street.

Sidbury used to extend to a point near the Cardinal's Hat pub, but this stretch subsequently became part of Friar Street. No 25 had formerly been the Santonna electrical and theatre lighting shop and travel agency.

From 1938 to 1942, Mr Evans also had a presence on the High Street with a County Magneto shop selling a wide range of radio sets. It was next to Timothy White's and opposite the Guildhall.

In 1954, Mr Evans took over the Chinese laundry of Fong Shee and Fong Quon adjoining 25 Sidbury and considerably extended his store which, by this time, was also selling television sets. In fact, he created Worcester's first Television Theatre in the former Chinese laundry. It consisted of a multi-sets display - commonplace in electrical stores today, but an innovation then.

In 1962, the County Magneto business was acquired by Allways Electric Limited, though Mr Evans remained as a director of this company in an advisory capacity.

Significant public service was given to Worcester by Mr Evans, who was an Independent member of Worcester City Council from 1951 until 1966. He was elected a city alderman in 1962 and was City Chamberlain in 1961, High Sheriff in 1962 and Mayor of Worcester in 1964-65. He is a past President of Worcester Rotary Club and Worcester Chamber of Commerce.

Alas, his first wife, Minnie died of cancer in 1952, having helped him "so much" in his first 25 years in business, and sadly, his second wife too, Joan Marian, died two years ago. The Evans' family home for 32 years was in Northwick Close.

As an historical footnote, Mr Evans tells me that, towards the end of the Victorian era, his grandparents ran the Mount Pleasant pub in London Road, then a home brew house.

"Grandpa was also employed as a locksmith and bell hanger," he said.