Malvern Civic Society’s programme of talks in 2025 began on Friday 10 January with “Malvern in the Great War” by Faith Renger. Faith is a well-known local historian who has been Director of the Malvern Museum for over 40 years, and a popular speaker at MCS events. As usual her talk was meticulously prepared with plentiful contemporary illustrations, and provided a fascinating and detailed account of how the town coped with life during the war years between 1914 and 1918, drawing on press coverage and other material in the Museum.
She featured the different ways in which townsfolk were able to do their bit for the cause, from collecting horse chestnuts for use in manufacturing cordite for the arms industry, to refraining from football, merrymaking and feeding bread to the ducks in the park! There was also evidence of hostility towards young men who were reluctant to volunteer for military service, usually directed by those who were not at risk of such service. And the town also hosted over 500 Belgian refugees who were welcomed in houses and homes around the town – a parallel to the Ukrainians currently taking refuge here.
For anyone interested in this fascinating period, several books are available from the Malvern Museum, packed with information from articles in local newspapers at the time.