100 years ago.

Although fine weather favoured Madresfield Agricultural Show on Thursday of last week, and the exhibition from the stock-breeder's point of view was quite up to the standard of its predecessors, there was a heavy falling off in the attendance compared with the previous year. But this was naturally to be expected at a s time when the country was embarking on the most terrible conflict in which England has probably ever been engaged. To have abandoned the show would have involved the Society in a heavy loss, and upset the arrangements which were completed before the actual outbreak of hostilities. the only course left to the committee was to go on with the show, but they were frank enough to inform the public some days previously that the popular attractions hitherto associated with the event - the band performances and the dancing - would be eliminated from the programme.

Malvern Gazette, August 14, 1914.

50 years ago.

Malvern Public Library is on the even of considerable modernisation and development - if the librarian, (Mr Norman Parker) has his way. At a special meeting of the Library Committee on October 21, a meeting to which members of the UDC will be invited, Mr Parker will show the members Mr Parker will show the members through all departments, display films of what other libraries are doing and answer questions about a £15,700 scheme which was first before the council last year. Readers at the library have doubled in the last six to ten years, and are likely to increase still more when Boots library branch closes in September. That will leave the town with only its public library and a small circulating library. A spokesman of Boots Pure Drug Company this week told the Gazette that they regretted the necessity of closing their library department, but that the numbers of subscribers had in recent years dropped by more than 50 per cent.

Malvern Gazette, August 14, 1964.

25 years ago.

The long-awaited opening of the new Malvern Splash, which was to have been in time for the August Bank Holiday, hung in the balance this week, as contractors race to complete the new pool in Priory Park. Malvern Hills District Council's secretary and solicitor Mr Paul Graham said on Wednesday that work was still proceeding in the endeavour to ensure that the pool would open for the holiday weekend. He said: "There is still an outside chance, but we will not be making a final inspection until next Thursday afternoon." He added that there was no question of opening the pool if all the major items were not satisfactorily completed , and they were leaving the inspection to the latest possible moment to give the contractors as long as possible. Mr Ron Moore, director of the Leeds-based Clifford Barnett company, which is building the pool and will be operating it, said: "Our contract is for completion by October 1, But if we cab get the last bank holiday weekend in, it will give us good momentum at the start."

Malvern Gazette, August 18, 1989.