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WORCESTER REUNION 2002 - Battle of Britain Book Signing55 years after joining the Apprentices Ager (2), Blake (1), Du Feu (2), Jones (2), and Wardrop (2) arrived at the Giffard Hotel on the Friday. We agreed times to go for dinner and breakfast so that we would meet together as a group and not just be passing individuals. At 11am on Saturday we all went on a walking tour of the city. Robert, our guide, wasn't ex-RAF, but had a brother and other relatives with RAF commissions. He himself was 54, so had been born while we were at Cranwell. As we set off we met Bill and Dilys H who couldn't Dilys's hip problem. At the Guildhall there was a book promotion-and signing related to Johnny Johnson and the Worcester Spitfire. Robert asked if we might come back later and have a few words with the old pilots and author who were signing. Andy W did that, meeting Lady Bader and several B-of-B pilots. He also spoke to the sculptor modeling Johnny Johnson for the Hendon Museum. The tour took in a number of smells, as we were first into a crowded coffee shop to look at a death mask, and gathered outside a pasty shop where Lee & Perrins first made Worcester Sauce. Sir Marcus Sandys, an early Govenor of Bengal, brought back the original recipe from India in 1823, and asked them to make it up. They did not like it and put the excess in the cellar where it matured, became tasty, and sold well under their own name. The church that composer Edward Elgar attended was a red brick building without windows, as it was Catholic, and Protestants would have smashed the windows. Worcester has many timber-framed buildings still used for many various purposes. Along Friar Street we posed a number of times for members to take group photos outside the buildings. At one point, a passing gent was accosted to take about six pictures of the whole group. We dropped into a shop which sells implements for left-handers. The remains of the city walls are minimal due to the Civil War and locals reusing the materials. Many sites were pointed out to us, especially those relating to the Battle of Worcester and Worcester Porcelain. We ended by the Severn riverside where flood levels have been marked in the stones for a couple of hundred years, then we returned along Copenhagen Street which was renamed after the bombardment of 1801 during the Napoleonic Wars. It was previously called Cooken Street because scolds (bossy women) were carried along it on the cucking stool to be ducked in the river Severn. The centre of the town is called "The Cross", although there isn't one there now, the spot is paved with concentric stone circle.
Personally I then had a good cheese salad and a pint outside a pub in Friar Street. Just along from there The Museum of Local Life had quite a bit about city life in wartime. Since there was little local bombing it contrasted greatly with similar exhibitions in heavily bombed cities. However, one home for infants had been evacuated from Birmingham to nearby, and a stray bomb killed five nurses and several babies. Saturday evening started with the Wardrops inviting us to a reception at 6.30 in Room 416. Actually it was a "suite" which meant it was larger and partitioned into two, so we all crammed in. Bob Fowler had arrived, and as we gathered for a leisurely dinner, John & Greta Peppercorn appeared, so we totaled 14. After dinner, I acted as warm-up by reciting the monologue "Voluntary Ladies", and then we had a musical quiz with Alan playing a number of tunes on his bassoon for us to identify. We got the odd tune but couldn't remember the titles. After seeing the others depart, I stayed on over Sunday. At 10 am I took a free hotel newspaper down to the river to sit in the warm sunshine. The rowing clubs were busy training, mostly young ladies' fours. At 11 am the first boat trip was leaving so I went on it. Not many sights, mainly gardens, trees, and of course the ducks and swans on the river. Oh yes! There is a one-sided suspension bridge for pedestrians. Getting back about noon, I ambled along to the Royal Worcester Museum, Stan Mc would have loved it. I was amused by some of the animals, and classical persons on earlier pots, where the artist obviously hadn't seen a live lion or tiger, and the goddesses looked like country farm girls. I learned that "Cobbering" meant adding red/green/gold to make old blue & white ware more attractive for sale; "Redecoration" is adding richer painting to a simpler piece; "Replacement" is making a genuine new piece to match earlier existing sets. The porcelain factory also made: camber pots, spittoons, pastile burners, false teeth, soap dishes, laboratory wares, etc. "Lithophanes" are thin sheets with semi-relief pictures which only show when lit from behind. These were used for nightlight's. It wasn't far to The Commandery", which looks like a modest timber-framed building standing close beside a busy canal lock. In the 6th Century it started as The Chapel of St Gudwal, and in 1085 it became The Hospital of St Wulstan when he was Bishop of Worcester. It was used as the Royalist HQ, and is now the main museum centre recording all to do with the Civil War. It is quite extensive within. The garden contains a rough wooden horse for mounted practice with weapons, a gallows, heavy cartwheels, supply carts, and portable 5 x 5 ft barricades with firing slit. While I was there, members of the public could dress as King or Queen to have a photograph taken. In the great hall were a canon and other accoutrements. One interesting arrangement was a courtroom with wax figures, and taped voices conducting the trial of King Charles 1 - you could sit, listen, and reach your own verdict. Apparently the idea of Royalist Cavaliers being dressed in a flurry of frills and feathers, while the Puritan Roundheads were all plain with pudding-basin haircuts is cinematic convention to distinguish the two sides. In fact, musketeers and pikemen of both sides would likely be dressed much the same. Well, there you are. All those present seemed to have enjoyed the weekend. Comments made - "everything is so compact & close at hand" - "City Tour was well worthwhile" - "we must come back again to see more" - "an enjoyable weekend".
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