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Great Western Railway (GWR) services in Hereford and Worcester will be affected by essential engineering work next week.

Ensuring the safe and reliable operation of the railway, Network Rail plans to replace the tracks between Worcester Shrub Hill and Evesham stations.

As a result, GWR trains will be affected between Evesham and Hereford as well as between Cheltenham Spa and Worcester Foregate Street from Monday 22 to Friday 26 April:

Trains will still run between London Paddington and Evesham via Oxford

Trains between Bristol Temple Meads and Worcester will terminate at Gloucester, with other train services running between Gloucester and Cheltenham Spa

CrossCountry will still operate train services between Gloucester, Cheltenham Spa, Ashchurch for Tewkesbury and Worcestershire Parkway

West Midlands Railway will still operate train services between Worcester Foregate Street and Hereford

Replacement buses will operate between Worcester Foregate Street and Evesham or Cheltenham Spa

All parking bays will be suspended in the car park at Evesham station from midnight on Thursday 18 to midnight on Friday 26 April

Kempsey Times

Powick Times

Upton Times

Engineering works to affect trains in the Worcester area next week


England cricketing legend Allan Lamb will be the guest speaker at a dinner in
Worcester later this year. The dinner will be part of Worcestershire fast bowler Joe Leach’s Testimonial Season and will also support grass roots cricket projects in South Africa.
The dinner, which is kindly sponsored by The Lamb & Flag Worcester, takes place at Worcestershire County Cricket Club on Friday 28th June and along with Joe Leach and Lamby the evening will feature:
- 

A 3 course dinner
- Live music
- An auction
- Competitions, inc Lamb or
Mutton Dressed as Lamb.


The evening will be compered by BBC H&W’s Frank Watson with tickets costing just £60 per person.


Tickets can be obtained by contacting Mark - Email:
ma004g2691@gmail.com or
tel: 07506 747619


Allan Lamb, also known as Lamby – had an impressive international cricketing career. Spanning the decade 1982-92, Allan’s cricketing career included 79 test matches for England and 128 one day internationals. He captained England three times against the West Indies and Australia, and captained Northampton CC from 1989 to 1994. Allan scored 4654 test runs with 14 centuries and 33502 first class runs, scoring 89 first class hundreds.
He won the accolade ‘Cricketer of the Year’ in 1980. As well as having a famous
sporting image, Allan is a popular persona and is indisputably witty and
entertaining. One thing is for certain there is no shortage of stories of his journey to sporting greatness. With an abundance of good humour and his unquenchable drive to live life to the full, this passionate business leader
brings a completely fresh perspective.



An Evening with Allen lamb


Lift and divide herbaceous plants.
Plant alpine and herbaceous plants.
Lightly mow over the lawn.
Prepare sites for new lawns.
Prune rose bushes soon if not already done.
Plant onion, garlic and shallot sets.
Start Begonia and Gloxinia tubers into growth indoors.
Buy seedlings or baby bedding plants to grow on at home.



Support all tall growing herbaceous plants from early in the season. Try growing some ornamental vegetables in the flower garden, e.g. red leafed
lettuce and runner beans.
Prune Blueberries.
Sow hardy annual flowers like Eschscholzia, Godetia, Clary, Mignonette etc. direct in the garden borders.
Treat moss, scarify and aerate lawns as well as feeding the grass, you can now get moss killers that digest dead moss, so no raking or use traditional Lawn Sand.
Prune late summer flowering shrubs, like Buddleia and Caryopteris, as well as
Hydrangea paniculate varieties and Hydrangea arborescensc Annabelle.
Prune down hard shrubs with coloured stems like Cornus, as well as hardy Fuchsias.
Trim over winter flowering heathers cutting to the base of the flower clusters.
Buy and plant pots of herbs.
Sow seeds of hardy herbs in the garden, like parsley.
Plant seed potatoes – but beware of frost once the shoots emerge from the soil.
Vegetable seeds to sow now include: broad beans, lettuce, leeks, parsnips, peas, radish, salad onions, spinach, Swiss chard and spinach beet.
Sow summer bedding under glass: dahlias, impatiens, petunias, phlox drummondii, salvias, asters, tagetes, mesembryanthemums, alyssum,
nicotiana, marigolds and zinnias.
Plant lilies outdoors in borders and tubs.
Lay out growing bags in the greenhouse to warm up the compost before planting.
Sow fruit and vegetable plants for growing on in a heated greenhouse, e.g. tomatoes, aubergines, peppers, cucumbers, etc. or you could decide to buy
plants later.



Plant less robust hardy evergreen shrubs e.g. Hebe and Ceanothus.
Lay turf or sow lawn seed.
Start feeding pond fish more frequently as the water temperature rises.
Vegetables to sow now include: Brussels sprouts, red cabbage, summer cabbage and summer cauliflower.
Dwarf French beans can be sown under cloches.
Watch out for the build up of pests and diseases.
Treat pots against vine weevil attacks using Bug Clear Vine Weevil Killer. It protects your plants for three months.
An organic answer is a half inch deep layer of horticultural grit over the compost surface to deter egg laying.
Marginal plants in ponds can be divided if overcrowded, but watch out for frog spawn.



You can’t race the seasons and seeds do not have to be sown exactly when the packet tells you. My advice with outdoor sowings is watch the weather
not the calendar, as seed sown later when conditions are right usually catches up and surpasses crops put in earlier that had to suffer during bad weather.



March gardening tips - Reg moule

Local musicians and choir aiming high for Air Ambulance Charity

A full orchestra and choir are set to stage a special performance in aid of the Midlands Air Ambulance Charity in Pershore Abbey at 7.30 pm on Saturday 13th April.
The programme will feature a live performance of In Paradisum, an original requiem by Andrew Hemming (Musical Director of popular Pershore Operatic and Dramatic Society) along with music by American composer Keith Jarrett played by award winning local concert pianist Marcel Zidani.
Andrew told us that the Air Ambulance Charity is close to his heart. “My Grandad Harry, who lost his son Stephen after a car crash before I was born,
often wondered would Stephen’s chances of survival have improved had the air ambulance been operating then?
Raising cash to help avoid other families having to ask that question seemed appropriate, especially as the concert date will mark the third anniversary
of Harry’s death. ” Grateful to the musicians and singers volunteering their time and talent to this fundraiser, Andrew added, “Thanks to their interpretive
artistry, the evening’s music promises to match the majesty of its setting. Together, we aim to raise enough cash for one of our Air Ambulance’s life-saving missions, but that’s down to people’s support. Please get your ticket and – together – we’ll keep our Air Ambulance funded and flying for all.”


Tickets are on sale at
Blue in Broad Street,
Pershore Town Hall, or
online at Ticket Source.
www.ticketsource.co.uk/
whats-on/pershore/pershoreabbey-church-walk/inparadisum/2024-04-13/19:30/



Requiem Concert


We are saving food from waste and giving it out for free. We are open most days for at least an hour at the Pershore Baptist Church in Broad Street, Pershore. Volunteers collect food from supermarkets, vegetables, fruit, bread, cakes and some foods to be frozen. Volunteers sort andstack the food and encourage
visitors to the Cupboard to take a basket of items which they can use. Less waste going to Landfill!
Donations of food and money from many sources enable us to also provide and buy food and toiletry basics for people and families who need more help and for those in crisis. We are also providing items for children at local schools. Just come and talk to us in confidence and we will do our best to help and guide you to more help available. Please tell friends and neighbours about us. New volunteers are welcome to get involved with collecting and sorting food and welcoming  visitors to Pershore Community Cupboard.


Email:communitycupboard2@
gmail.com
or send a message to our
Facebook page.


Best wishes from Pershore
Community Cupboard Volunteers
Opening Hours
Monday . . . 2:30pm - 4:00pm
Tuesday . . . 9:30am - 11:00am
Wednesday 5:00pm - 6:30pm
Thursday . . 2:30pm - 4:00pm
Friday . . . . 9:30am - 11:00am
Saturday . . 9:30am - 11:00am
Sunday . . . Closed




Pershore Community Cupboard

Kings Worcester- One of Top Sporting Schools in the country

King’s Worcester has been named in the top 1% of sporting schools in the country this week. This impressive ranking sees King’s sitting alongside some of the country’s top sporting independent and state schools,
such as Millfield, Epsom College, and Repton School. The School has jumped 98 places in the last 12 months and this Top 30 ranking puts King’s in the top 1% as well as being the only school in Worcester to appear in the Top 165. The list, independently created by School Sport Magazine, is compiled from 20 different
sports and over 120 different events. Weighting is given to success in a range of sports rather than a particular sport, and to those sports with more schools competing. To be listed, schools must have reached the later stages of at least two, three or four national competitions. Foundation Director of Sport,
Jonny Mason commented, “This is fantastic news for sport at King’s. We’ve had busy and successful few years recently, and the hard work that both the Sports Department and the pupils have put in has really paid off. We are so fortunate, as a day school, to be able to offer such a wide range of sports and to compete in these at national level. Consistently playing at such a standard takes skill,
resilience, and determination.”
Headmaster Gareth Doodes added, “Sport has always been incredibly strong here at King’s and it’s wonderful to be recognised for this and to be up there with the best sports schools in the country. We are fortunate to have an enviable, finely honed, and impressive sports programme, with dedicated and
professional experts guiding the pupils to achieve their very best and more, both collectively and individually. The opportunity for our pupils to play at national level is something that most of us could only have dreamed of as a child.”
This news for King’s follows hot on the heels of their recent Top 10 national ranking for academic performance, as the School was named in the prestigious Sunday Times’ Parent Power 2024 Schools Guide as one of the Top Ten Independent Secondary Schools in the West Midlands.
Ranked for their academic excellence against some of the county’s 900 secondary schools, King’s appears in seventh position, alongside
King’s High Warwick, King Edward VI High School, Birmingham, and Solihull
School. This is a testament to the rounded education and inclusive ethos of the King’s Foundation of Schools.



Kings Worcester - One of Top 30 Sporting Schools in the Country

The Adventure Continues
Moving from home to uni used to feel like a seismic shift. There’s a point about half an hour into the journey to Oxford when the road bends around the foot (fin?) of Fish Hill, climbs its I-know-it-looks-tempting but-don’t-do-more-than-thirty mph slope, and swings round so that you can peer through the passenger seat window and catch one last glimpse of home.
One last glimpse of home waiting below, and my legs would wobble and my heart would jitter like a needle on a seismograph and, well, it wasn’t much fun. Suddenly, I’d hopped from one world and another had risen up around
me: yellow-stone arches looming, bicycles zooming, pigeons plume-ing. I remember my first meal in the dinner hall at college when the sweetcorn
was trembling off my fork before I could eat it. Not so much any more – otherwise, dinner would be getting pretty cold by now.
Having just entered my fifth term, the move has thankfully lost its magnitude. Driving into Oxford (breathing in as we skirt around the edge of the zero emission zone) is almost like watching a ‘Previously …’ segment on your favourite TV show. It’s a compound of sights and smells and memories – and I have to remind myself that, yes, I have nearly completed half of my course already.
Slowly but surely, I have been assembling a bulging, unwieldy timeline in my head of over a thousand years of history, literature and thinking, continuing to prop it up with new research and ideas, texts and authors. I’m currently reading from a ‘Complete Works of Chaucer’ so hefty that it should probably be registered as an offensive weapon. For those who don’t know, reading
Chaucer is pretty difficult even if you’ve only got one page of him (and not enough to wedge a door or buffer a small tank) because he writes in what we
now call ‘Middle English’. It’s an ancestor to our current language today and – to give you a February-related example of what it looks like – here’s how Chaucer describes Valentine’s Day in Parliament of Fowls (1382):
‘For this was on Seynt Valentynes day / Whan every
foul cometh there to chese his make …’
‘For this was on Saint Valentine’s day / When every
bird comes there to choose his match …’
It’s basically like that. You read three words compatible with modern English and then you hit a weird one – so it can become quite a hurdle race after several hundred lines. Incidentally, fellow reader, I have been known to speak
Middle English after a few pints at The Pickled Plum.
In the first year, our accommodation was ours for only the eight weeks of term.
At the end of week eight, we all had to leave without a trace and play the fun game of figuring out how we were possibly able to fit so much stuff into one suitcase before. This time around, the accommodation is ours for a nine-month stint. This means I could leave some bigger things in my room over Christmas. So, when I arrived and unlocked my bedroom door, I was reunited with an old friend. Fry was waiting for me – and I had a new Tesco voucher to make sure he would be properly fed on a diet of whatever beige potato product caught my eye
in the freezer aisle. I’m no air fryer artisan, but I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of this business. Most recently, I’ve had a blast from the past and
bought those smiling potato faces they used to serve at Wacky Warehouse, Bungo’s Barn and all good children’s establishments. I’ll tell you what, I know it sounds silly but if you’re feeling a little gloomy, I would definitely prescribe a
hearty dose of optimistic food.
With those in mind, I think I’ll head down for dinner. I’ll think of you back at home, fellow reader, as I welcome the new term! It’s nice to be able to properly appreciate both worlds now. Not sure what veg I’ll do yet, but I leave you in the knowledge that it won’t tremble off my fork.






Gregorys World


The present conflicts Ukraine and the Middle have shown they can severe effects on prices availability of many imported
goods, including basic specialist foods; it would not the end of the world for us in
the UK if import of, Saffron or Kobe Beef difficult, but import of wheat or other grains used quite literally, thousands of
basic foodstuffs consumed millions every day become a matter of national importance.
A debate is between farmers (through their
representative and the Government about best new support aimed primarily at support environmental objectives, can
be squared with the objective of food Some of the fields here awkwardly shaped and and quite frankly a pain work on with modern machines, no matter sophisticated they may be, I (along with many other
farmers) am thinking ofplanting them with trees (move strongly supported in the
SFI). Since we import 80% of the timber used the UK it might be argued that
this is a good move, but would take my fields, potentially many thousands of
other fields having agricultural soil out of production for perhaps 50 years
(or possibly even Taking less productive land of growing food crops perhaps a way in which major difference of interest
might be addressed. spokesman for the Commission recently: “We don’t want to
plant trees on good land; food security is vital; we can’t stop that happening if
a farmer chooses to do so.”
The National Trust announced that it wants to some 50% of its land holding the UK (some 620,000 into environmental However, since much of land is good agricultural and tenanted by farmers (ie
used for food production), a move could result in downturn in home-produced
grain measured in millions of tonnes.
Hopefully all the conflicts interest between (and possibly environmental degradation attempting to maintain production present in the schemes being introduced will
be resolved eventually, but present upset over the delay in setting right the Post
Office scandal over accounting software does fill me with confidence. Or perhaps lessons will have learned? But I am reminded a well known saying: “The
only thing we learn history is that we don’t from history.”
The photograph is a ‘shot’ from the farmhouse (looking out directly West), but
showing surface flooding (largely subsided) from saturation of the soil following exceptionally rainfall in October-November, December. That is the the field is still stubble from 2023 harvested crop, and not yet been planted with crop for 2024 harvest.



Farming-Mike Page


For those new to this area, Croome Court is a National Trust property about 4 miles from Pershore towards the Malverns.
It was the home of the Earls of Coventry until World War 2 when the 10th Earl was killed, in France, as the Worcestershire Regiment covered the Allied Army’s retreat
to Dunkirk in late May, early June 1940.
Croome Court became nationally famous in the 18th Century when the 6th Earl, George William Coventry, inherited the property
and brought in Lancelot Brown (later to be known as Capability Brown) to enlarge and to ‘modernise’ the old house in which he had grown up. Later, talent-spotting again, he brought the Scot, Robert Adam to
design interiors. The results produced by these three very talented men attracted the
attention not only of other wealthy
landowners (who copied what had been done at Croome) but also the King, George III. When he was in Cheltenham,
taking the waters, he came with the Queen and the Princesses to spend a day looking at what had been done.
When, after the War, the family could no longer afford to keep the Court and its estate, it was offered to the National Trust.
Unfortunately, that organisation was not interested so the remarkable contents, house and land had to be sold. Today, after
about fifty years in other hands, the Court, some of the estate, and part of the original contents are being looked after by the
National Trust and the Croome Estate Trust.
Thousands of people visit this property each year. It is fascinating and impressive and worth going to see at any time but over
Christmas not only has the Court been splendidly decorated but the ladies who, each week make brilliant flower arrangements, have really gone to town. Some of the decorations, made by Croome
staff and volunteers are shown in the accompanying picture as well as some of the works of our talented flower team.



Croome court


Colour of the Year – Peach Fuzz
Every year Pantone creates a ‘Colour of the Year’ and this year it’s “Peach Fuzz”.
This shade has been chosen as it captures our desire to nurture ourselves and others. It’s a velvety gentle peach tone whose
all-embracing spirit enriches mind, body, and soul.
This can be easily incorporated into our flower borders and pots, and here’s my suggestions on plants to use and also what to coordinate with them.
Peach-coloured flowers are a great way to add a pop of colour to your garden. They are soft, warm, and inviting, and can create a beautiful contrast against purple foliage. Here are three of the best peach-coloured
flowering plants that are available here in the UK:
Salvia ‘Peach Parfait’
Salvias are one of my favourite perennials to include in any border due to the variety of
colours available and they are just so reliable (in my opinion!) as they’re semi-evergreen, bushy and are loved by pollinators. This particular variety has a
gorgeous purple stem, grows to around 90cm tall, and will continually flower from June until first frosts. Ideal for any sunny border or container. Using the colour of the purple stem, it will go well with a purple leaved plant such as the evergreen Pittosporum ‘Tom Thumb’ and a dark purple flowering Verbena (which is also
long flowering). Plant them individually in containers of different sizes and group them
together to make a colourful display on your patio.
The Salvia is available from
Hayloft Plants- Salvia Peach Parfait
Digitalis Dalmatian Peach
Foxgloves are one of my favourite flowers, especially when they’re planted in swathes
under a white-stemmed silver birch tree such as the Jacqmontii. Foxgloves come in many colours but this ‘Peach’ variety
is semi-evergreen and biennial which means they bloom during their second year before setting seed. It grows to around 90cm tall.
Rosa Dannahue
With so many beautiful pastel roses to choose from, this new variety called Dannahue is an apricot beauty! Named after
Danny Clarke, aka ‘The Black Gardener’. It’s a repeat flowering English Shrub rose which grows to around 110cm tall, so its gorgeous for a border or container. Obviously it’s
scented and adored by bees!
What’s not to love about this beauty?
This would look gorgeous with Verbena bonariensis as it grows to around 1.5m tall and then underplant it with Geranium
‘Rozanne’ which flowers from June to October. All loved by pollinators and the
sunshine!
These are just a few of the many peach-coloured flowering plants that are available in the UK.
Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced gardener, there’s a peach-coloured plant out there that’s perfect for you.



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