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Worcester beacon

O

ocker

proper brummie kid
Hello to the group. I have only one photo of my father which i thought was taken c1930 in Epsom Surrey as he was born and orphaned there in 1920. I have recently discovered that he spent time at St Peters Home for children in Malvern from 1928. I now think this photo may have been taken at the Worcester Beacon. I live in Australia so i cannot visit the area. It shows scouts and orphans plus adults the night before the lighting of the bonfire. In the background is what looks like people standing at the beacon. Would anyone be able to advise if it looks like Worcester Beacon keeping in mind the landscape has probably changed. Thank you to anyone who had the time to read this post.
 

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ocker said:
Hello to the group. I have only one photo of my father which i thought was taken c1930 in Epsom Surrey as he was born and orphaned there in 1920. I have recently discovered that he spent time at St Peters Home for children in Malvern from 1928. I now think this photo may have been taken at the Worcester Beacon. I live in Australia so i cannot visit the area. It shows scouts and orphans plus adults the night before the lighting of the bonfire. In the background is what looks like people standing at the beacon. Would anyone be able to advise if it looks like Worcester Beacon keeping in mind the landscape has probably changed. Thank you to anyone who had the time to read this post.
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I can't answer your question I'm sorry, but I've taken the liberty to clean up your photo. I hope that you don't mind
image-57 - Copy.jpg
 
Pedro42 said:
Pedrocut said:
1935 was the King’s Jubilee and 50 beacons were lit by the Scouts, 400 feet apart, on the Hills. Could this have been the occasion ?
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Quite possibly the Kings Jubilee
I can't answer your question I'm sorry, but I've taken the liberty to clean up your photo. I hope that you don't mind
View attachment 221295
Click to expand...
Thank you very much for improving the photo. I appreciate your help. Regards Carl.
 
Definitely Worcester beacon. We lived in Malvern for a number of years, and went up there often. Incidentally, St Peters was in Cowleigh Road, Malvern if you want to use your favourite map program to get some localisation context.
Julie was walking our dog up there, (a long time ago now), and met and had a long interesting chat with Nigel Kennedy, the violinist, who was out for a stroll.
Andrew.
 
Maybe completely irrelevant, but there is one mention of a Cecil Lawrence Goddard in the Newspaper Archives.

West Country County Times, 15 December 1939…fined 10 shillings for riding cycle with unscreened light. (Probably due to war time blackout)
 
Just to stitch up the references for you, so any map should find it.

52,12327° N, 2,33883° W is the old St Peter's Children's Home, Malvern.

52,10500° N, 2,33903° W is the Worcester Beacon.

Andrew.
 
hi carl you most likely know this but at the age of 1 year and 2 months your dad was still in the workhouse at epsom union workhouse dorking road epsom..the record says both parents dead..info is from the 1921 census..again not sure if you have your dad on the 1939 eve of war register but if you dont he was working in service as a kitchen boy in chantonbury sussex

lyn
 
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Hello Ocker! - I haven't said that for a few years now. I don't think we are related and I can't help much more with your enquiry here but I'm interested in your user name. I was born in a back-to-back house in Irving St, Brum in 1949 and brought up in Icknield Port Road, Brum, but have lived and worked in Malvern for the past fifty-odd years - and haven't climbed the Beacon since Friday! - it's just up the road from here. My cousin John Sewell, also from Irving St, emigrated to Oz (Perth) after he retired. He was always known as Ocker - we never knew why - we just accepted it. Sadly he went down with dementia but died from a heart attack last August. In his fading years the family tried to get the bottom of the story of his nickname - he'd forgotten too. Another Oz distant cousin of mine in NSW knows it only as a slightly derogatory Oz term for a man who lived a rough, outdoor life. My own research here could only find it as a possible nickname for someone who worked for the big Midlands canal company called Fellows Morton & Clayton - perhaps because their main operating depot was at Ocker Hill canal basin over Tipton/Wednesbury way, west of Brum. John's grandfather and father were canal workers. Carl - if you do need any more Malvern input/research/photos etc - just ask - Bill
 
As a child I often climbed up to Worcester Beacon, with my sister, we had an aunt who lived in Gordon Terrace on the southern end of the Malverns, Aunt Minnie lived in a two up two down house and had a huge mountain ash tree in her garden.
On climbing the nearest hill we could see the beacon, just a little further on, and If you looked down, you could watch the steam trains puffing clouds of white smoke as they made their way from Malvern Station, past Malvern Wells Station and disappear under the hills on the way to Ledbury. From the top of the hills the countryside in Worcestershire was a sort of yellow green, but if you turned towards Herefordshire it was a blue green.
 
As soon as I seer the hills, I get Elgar's Allegro for Strings in my head. Possibly linked to Ken Russell's film on Elgar which you can get on YouTube.
 
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