THIS WEEK IN 1961:

WORCESTER’S riverside is to have a new look if a city council project costing £24,000 goes ahead. Some councillors feel the scheme is about 50 years overdue. It involves the proposed creation of riverside gardens between the rear of the technical college and the river and would see a considerable extension of the St Andrew’s Gardens, the conversion of a cellar into a tea room and the layout of a new £7,550 car park.

Alderman William Bird told the council: “This is possibly one of the most important sites in the city for the beautification of the riverside and it is essential that adequate treatment should be given to the land.”

Councillor Joe Williams said: “We are about 50 years behind times in tidying up the riverside and I don’t think we should be having these improvements if the technical college wasn’t being built.”

THIS WEEK IN 1971:

THE Governors of the King’s School, Worceste, have decided that as from next September they are prepared to admit for the first time to the Sixth Form a limited number of girls. They make it clear, however, that this is not intended as the first stage in a move towards coeducation, and they would not wish to do anything to weaken the sixth forms of the local girls’ schools. Only day girls will be admitted in the first instance.

THIS WEEK IN 1981:

FROM Crowquill’s Jottings column of Berrow’s Worcester Journal: “I was amused to learn that the new county council chairman Mrs Joan Hadley intends to do away with what has become a famous bed at County Hall.

“It is a foldaway bedstead in the chairman’s office which has provoked so much comment and controversy since the Nunnery Wood ‘palace’ was officially opened. It first came to light publicly when journalists were given a tour of the HQ on the eve of its opening.

“The fact that it is a very modest affair and had a purpose which was quite reasonable – to provide a night’s rest for the hardworked chairman if he or she worked late and didn’t want to go to an expensive hotel – was largely overlooked by my press colleagues.

“It was treated as an unnecessary feature of this enormously expensive building. However, I can quite understand Mrs Hadley’s aversion to spending a night in the empty vastness of the place.

Even her predecessor didn’t use it.”

THIS WEEK IN 1991:

AFTER a successful 27 years with Worcestershire County Cricket Club, first as a player and then as coach, Basil D’Oliveira is to retire at the end of the summer.

Dolly, who finished playing in 1980 and has been coach at New Road since, said: “It’s been my life and I treasure every moment of it but now’s the time to take things a little easier – the old legs aren’t what they used to be.”

Dolly, from the back streets of Cape Town, South Africa, was a late starter in the world of first class cricket. He joined Worcestershire in 1964 and was chosen for the England Test team at the age of 31, going on to win 44 caps, averaging 40 runs for his adopted country, and for his county he scored 14,120 runs at an average of 38.16 and took 445 wickets at 24.95.

For his services to cricket he was awarded the OBE in 1968.