AT its November meeting the society had a presentation on The Working Countryside 1850-1945 by Robin Hill from Worcestershire County Museum.

The talk was based on photographs collected from the public to illustrate life in the countryside.

It covered Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Shropshire and a wide range of agricultural and village activities.

Photographs of gangs of itinerant workers, whole families working together, smallholders, tenant farmers and labourers were all there.

The sheer number of people working on the land and the number of related occupations were a vivid reminder of how the countryside has changed.

A notable feature of many photographs was that people had dressed up to be photographed.

In many cases the subjects were unknown, which made dating the photographs difficult.

Some of the most revealing were those where name, date and place were known, individuals had been able to fill in details about their families that will provide a real historical record of a vanishing way of life. Robin made an appeal for additional photographs from the Redditch and Feckenham area, as these are poorly represented in the collection. In addition to the photographs he brought along a number of objects from the museum and invited members to guess their original use.

This proved rather difficult as not many were familiar with horse tongue holders or thatching tools. The talk proved of considerable interest and generated lots of questions and memories from the audience.

The next meeting is on Tuesday, December 13 at 7.30pm at Feckenham Village Hall when Richard Churchley will present An Evening of Music from Worcestershire and Warwickshire with some extra Christmas music. This jolly offering will be followed by our usual Christmas buffet. As ever, visitors are very welcome.