The Journal edition of 250 years ago carried a strange item relating to some unusual busker or street campaigner seen in Worcester.

"On Wednesday night, this city was under the greatest consternation imaginable at the appearance of the most dreadful BUGGABO who was seen or heard of in every street.

"From the best accounts we have been able to collect, the following is a true description of that strange phenomenon viz. It had nothing human about it, but its shape resembled that of a short, paunchy man with a fiddle under his arm and a long scroll of music hanging from his mouth. entitled The Fiddler's Choice Gamut. On his forehead was a representation of the Sun in Eclipse, circumscribed with the words "The Petty Constitution".

"He had on a Quaker-like hat, a puritanical band, and a new broad-cloth strait-bodied coat, having a badge on the arm with these words round it: "The Gift of Squire B-------". Across his shoulder hung a beaver skin wallet marked "J.T" in brass. On his back were pasted three labels variously inscribed.

"We are told that the above motley creature was seen the next day in divers parts of the country endeavouring to ingratiate himself into the people's favour, but the dismal, un-Christian-like aspect he bore deterred them from having any intercourse with him."

Yet one more item from the Journal of 1753 also caught my eye: "Last Saturday night, a journeyman glove-cutter, having drunk too plentifully of some candidatious juice in a local hostelry, was suddenly taken speechless and fell to the ground and, notwithstanding the utmost care taken of him, died the next morning."