THE meeting on November 4 began, in a packed room, with the story of the murder of Police Constable Davies in 1885, given by Ralph Richardson.

Ralph is a natural story teller and kept the audience in rapt attention for well over an hour, the only visual aid being a sketch of the route taken by PC Davies.

After tea/coffee and biscuits, and an opportunity for members to have further discussions with Ralph, our activities were discussed.

This is the last meeting of our successful 2013 season.

Established four years ago, the Redditch Local History Society has grown from strength to strength.

It now has the largest membership since it began and in 2013 and were present at more events and activities than ever before.

Planning for the 2014 season is already in progress, and the provisional programme of society talks/presentations was issued to the members and preparation of the third, and final, part of the History of Redditch, from 1964 to 2014, has begun.

Our membership has now increased to more than 40 and this means that we have outgrown our traditional home at Forge Mill Needle Museum and, although our next meeting, the first for the 2014 season, (February 3 at 2pm) will be at the museum, for future meetings we plan to move to a new venue.

For further details of the Local History Society please ring Tony Green at 01527 61434 or visit redditchhistorysociety.org.uk.