100 years ago

The great traveller and brilliant lecturer Mr W Herbert Garrison FRGS FRCI, whom the "Standard" considers one of the finest platform speakers of the day, will lecture at the Assembly Rooms on May 6, on subjects in which we are all deeply interested at the present time, volcanoes and earthquakes. These lectures will be illustrated by a hundred marvellous lantern pictures, secured at great cost and some of them at great risk. Vesuvius and its eruptions and the destruction of San Francisco are to be discussed and the lecture should prove of absorbing interest. Malvern News, April 28, 1906.

Miss M W Cooke, daughter of Mr C W Rudcliffe Cooke of Hellens, describes in a letter to her father the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. She writes: "I have had the most wildly exciting time you can possibly imagine. We were the very last people to go up before the eruption. When half-way up, the guide would not let us go any further. We were quite angry, but he told us to wait a few seconds. In a minute or two came a loud explosion and a shower of glowing stones was shot into the air. So then, we saw that it was really unsafe." Ledbury Free Press, May 1, 1906.

50 years ago

For some years now, Malvern Urban District Council and their housing committee have had as one of their aims the provision of old people's bungalows incorporating a club room and a warden service. On Wednesday afternoon, before a representative gathering, this aim became a reality when the club room on the council's old people's housing site in Worcester Road, Malvern Link, was officially opened by Alderman R R Adam, chairman of the Worcestershire County Council. Malvern Gazette, April 27, 1956.

The activity in Knapp Lane and The Homend during the last week or so, with large holes being dug into the pavement and road, is all part of the scheme to put Ledbury on a gas main. At first, the gas will come from Malvern and, later on, from Worcester. Ledbury Reporter, May 4, 1956.

25 years ago

The full extent of the damage from the weekend's blizzard may not be known for some time. The most obvious sign of damage was to trees, with about a dozen felled in and around Malvern, and hundreds of them losing branches under the weight of the wet snow. Gangs with chainsaws had to be sent out to clear the roads where trunks or limbs had fallen. Another problem was power cuts, with some areas suffering black-outs of more than 24 hours. Malvern Gazette, April 29, 1981.

Ledbury's tired old community minibus broke down again on Monday morning. Once again, helpers at Ledbury Day Centre had to do a lot of pushing and heaving and indulge in some rather unconventional mechanics, to get the 11-year-old vehicle to splutter into life. Ledbury Reporter, April 30, 1981.