ON Wednesday, January 23 the club met at its usual venue the Kings Court Hotel when a record number of members and visitors attended.

After our usual excellent lunch we were entertained by Eric Payne whose lighthearted talk about his ‘Life in Alcester’ was very well received particularly by those members who also grew up in the town. Eric was born in Bleachfield Street, one of seven children. The family lived in a small cottage with the toilet ‘up the garden’ and one can understand the difficulties this created.

Later they moved to a more spacious cottage where this problem was overcome. From there they moved to Alauna Avenue to a house with two toilets.

To those of us who are not ‘Alcester born’ it was fascinating to hear Eric talking about the various shops which no longer exist in their former state, but are mostly still part of the town under different names and trades.

We hope that Eric will visit us again and tell us more of his experiences through the years.

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday, February 26 when our speaker will be Graham Heeley talking about ‘A Once in a Lifetime Chance’.