Mike Pryce

AS one of the best, and certainly most popular, press photographers in this newspaper’s long history, Jonathan Barry was used to going to funerals. But few who knew him could ever have imagined going to his. Yet there they were, as many as social distancing restrictions would allow, gathered inside and outside Wyre Forest Crematorium at Stourport on Severn on a winter’s day to say goodbye to a husband, father, relative, friend, work colleague and all round good bloke.

 IT ended as police hope every siege will end, with everything calm and no-one hurt. Especially as on a sunny spring morning in April, 1996 at the centre of it all was a four month old baby.

YOUNG people in Worcestershire interested in South Asian dance styles have until Friday to take part in on-line auditions for an advanced training programme.

LOOKING the other day for things they did in the summer way back when, I happened across the very popular pastime of river steamer day trips up and down the Severn. They were all the rage in Victorian and Edwardian times and even continue today in a much reduced form.

A BLUE plaque to honour rock star Jim Capaldi, one of Evesham’s most famous musical sons, has been unveiled on the wall of the town’s Public Hall, where he made some of his earliest appearances in the 1960s.

YOU might have thought that if you’re banged up abroad in some filthy prison and itching to get home, the last thing you would do is irritate the authorities. Disrespect doesn’t go down too well in some countries, especially those in the middle of a bloody civil war when tempers are short and tolerance levels zero.

SET deep in the heart of the Worcestershire countryside, about eight miles west of Worcester, Lovely Cottage was well named. Black and white and thatched, with eyebrow windows, it could grace the cover of any chocolate box. But what went on there one summer’s evening in 1986 was anything but lovely.

WHEN the trial of Jenny Kenyon began at Worcester Crown Court on July 2, 1974, national crime reporters packed the press benches for what had been flagged up as “one of Britain’s most sinister killings.” The opening address by silver tongued prosecuting counsel Stephen Brown QC, an old boy of Malvern College and later an Appeal Court judge, did not disappoint.

LOCAL legend George Cowley has finally gone to meet his maker and the letters page of the Heavenly Times won't be short of material now.

IT was a salutary lesson for any wannabe spy: don’t go molesting teenage girls. Because Geoffrey Prime’s lust for young women led West Mercia detectives straight to his door and must have had his paymasters in the Kremlin wondering just how they managed to recruit such a fool.