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WORCESTERSHIRE DID YOU KNOW

The Royal Connection

Many of the plans surrounding the Royal Family are secret and even years afterwards they remain so. However it seems there was a plan, codenamed Rocking Horse, to move the family to Madresfield Court, a moated 12th century mansion in Worcestershire if the Germans had invaded the United Kingdom during the early years of WWII.

The mansion is near the River Severn which could have been used as an emergency escape route or, if more time was available, the family would have been moved north to Liverpool and then overseas to Canada. Hatley Park on Vancouver Island was rumoured as the destination.

Various members of the British army were assigned to the force protecting the Royals including about 120 Coldstream Guards and various troops driving special armoured vehicles and even Norton racing motorcycles.

Luckily no invasion happened and the Royal Family bravely remained in London for the whole of the war, including the blitz of 1940-41.

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Worcestershire Eats

What else could fill this space but bottles of Worcester Sauce. I have taken much of the information from the website of Lea and Perrins, the company who made the sauce back in 1837. The company was formed by two chemists, John Wheeley Lea and William Henry Perrins, who were asked by a local nobleman to make up a recipe for a sauce he had come across in India. They did and after tasting it found it totally inedible and placed it down in the cellar of their shop. Eighteen months later they discovered it had matured into a delicious sauce. They decided to put it on sale.

Soon it was being exported all over the world and, as usual, copycat sauces began to appear. Lea and Perrins then made sure that their iconic orange label had been added to all bottles to ensure they stood out from these copycat competitors. It is almost the same label today. Their factory in Worcester opened in 1897 and they still operate from there.

Obviously I can't tell you the actual mix of each ingredient but onions, garlic and anchovies are involved. I can tell you that the ingredients are matured in large barrels for eighteen months. Then they are put into a huge mixing vessel for further maturing and then the concentrated sauce is diluted and sterilised ready for bottling. As the sauce is now exported to over 130 countries around the world, this means different labels in different languages, which involves lots of careful planning before the bottles are ready to be exported.

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Worcestershire VIPs

Seven random people who were born in Worcestershire in the last 100 years:-
Harry Styles (Singer), Jan Pearson (Actor - Doctors and Holby City), Alistair McGowan (Impressionist and Actor), Fay Weldon (Novelist), Charles Dance (Actor), Jessica Varnish (Cyclist) and Nick Jenkins (Businessman and Dragon's Den).

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Richard Remembers

This is called Richard remembers so I'm going to take you back to a world young cricket fans will not believe. We are in the 1960s and before. Touring teams to England came for the whole summer and played five test matches (usually Trent Bridge or Edgbaston, Lords, Headingley, Old Trafford and the Oval) and the rest of the time played three-day matches against various counties. Now I don't want you lovers of a quick 20/20 game to feel short changed but some of these county matches were amazing. In 1948 the touring Australians, under Sir Donald Bradman, scored 721 runs in a six hour day of cricket, the highest score ever in a single day in a First-Class match. Essex bowled 129 overs (just over three 20/20 games) in the day. I'm guessing there were no drinks breaks, batsmen changing their gloves every other over nor long drawn out reviews, or not out reviews perhaps.

This, and the accompanying picture, comes about on the Worcestershire county page because traditionally that was the first county game the touring team played and the BBC, one of two channels available, often televised it. In 1961 it was my only chance to see my batting hero, Tom Graveney, as he had moved counties and, unlike today when players move everywhere, had to miss out on county cricket for a year to satisfy residency qualifications. He had moved from Gloucestershire to Worcestershire (see it is doubly relevant). On other occasions I remember this early season game being called off for flooding, see picture, as the New Road ground was prone to this.

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Owlbut's Birdwatch

This is one of the smallest birds. It is called the Wren. It has a short tail, short, round wings but quite long legs. It has a fine beak. It's main colour is brown. It is the most common breeding bird in the UK. It can be found in words, farmland and islands and is a regular visitor to most gardens. They eat insects and spiders.

The Wren is no more than 10cm long with a wingspan between 13 and 17cms. It weighs about 10 grams. The feathers are brown, cream and white and the legs brown and pink. The beak is short, thin and curved and greyish in colour but you can see that. Probably the easiest bird for you to spot as it can be found in cities, towns and villages.

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Two extra sections, "It Happened Here" and "Now That's Weird", will appear on 21 April 2025