Mayor of Worcester Blog

Last weekend it was Chinese New Year celebrations in Worcester. Well over a thousand people attended – it was a truly spectacular occasion. There was a dragon dance, food, Chinese tea drinking, music and lots of entertainment for children of all ages and it was all free to access.

I have to confess that despite this having run for over twenty years, to my shame, this was my first visit. Why was that? Maybe I thought CNY was just for Chinese people – looking at the crowd around me this was evidently not true. If you have not been before, maybe put a marker in your diary for next year.

The celebrations were hosted by the Museum of Royal Worcester – thank you for so generously opening your doors for everyone to see the amazing collection of fine china on display. All things oriental and the love of fine chinaware was becoming ever more popular in the eighteenth century. Glove making and the wool industry were in decline and so it was that a new industry was created in the city with the creation of the porcelain works that became the world-famous Royal Worcester Porcelain works.

There’s a fascinating history to how the factory was started. Step forward Dr John Wall, born in Powick in 1708 as the only son of Mr John Wall a former Mayor of Worcester. Dr John Wall was an incredibly talented man, he studied at Worcester College in Oxford in 1726, developed a love for fine art, became a consulting doctor in 1739 and – as if he was not busy enough – in 1751 managed to persuade a consortium of 13 local businessmen to invest in the risky task of starting a new factory. For more info see the Royal Worcester Porcelain website: www.museumofroyalworcester.org

It’s clear that the UK’s cultural ties with China are long standing and enduring – not least our mutual love of tea drinking and fine china.

 

In the captivating world of cinema, a concerning trend persists: the low representation of strong leading women both on screen and in roles behind the camera. Despite strides in gender equality, female filmmakers still face significant hurdles entering the industry.

Societal norms and institutional biases perpetuate the stereotype that filmmaking is a male-dominated field. This discourages aspiring female filmmakers and limits their opportunities. Moreover, the industry’s reliance on established networks and nepotism further excludes women.

The consequences are profound. When women are sidelined, storytelling suffers, and diverse perspectives are marginalized. However, there’s hope. Step forward Lily Portman. Lily visited me for a coffee in the Mayor’s Parlour to tell me about her project to make a short comedy horror film called Brave Birds. Unfamiliar with the genre? Perhaps think Shaun Of The Dead but a whole lot more edgy that in her words is ‘a truly ridiculous horror comedy that tackles misogyny and feathers!’

The film industry is a massive part of the world economy. The UK has some great London centric film businesses, but the West Midlands film industry is still relatively small so it’s little wonder that people like Lily are still punching up to get through that glass ceiling. The creative film industry is important intrinsically for art’s sake but it’s also a massive business opportunity for some of our young local Worcester residents. It would be great to see Lily, currently crowdfunding money, make her director debut become a reality. For more information see her website:  lilymaeportman.com

 

For my next fundraising event as Mayor of Worcester, the Mayoress and I will be hosting a Charity Fashion Show at the Guildhall on Thursday 14 March, in aid of my chosen charity Age UK Worcester and Malvern Hills.

Alongside Age UK, I am working with students from Christopher Whitehead Language College, Nunnery Wood High School and Heart of Worcestershire College to make this a sustainability-themed fashion show, It will feature up-cycled clothes and accessories that will be produced and modelled by the students.

The clothes have been donated by staff and parents from the participating schools, and also by local businesses and their employees. The students will re-imagine the items to create a variety of outfits for different occasions – and to help them, they have been given free access to Age UK’s charity shops so that they can choose items to accessorise their collections.

The event will be held in the Guildhall’s spectacular Assembly Room. It will include a drinks reception with canapés, a two-course dinner and entertainment from a string quartet, plus performances by some of the very talented students.

Following the fashion show itself, each outfit will be offered at auction for guests to bid on and there will be a further auction and raffle of items that  have been very kindly donated by local residents and businesses to raise further funds for Age UK.

I would like to thank everyone who has already generously contributed to this event.

For further information about the Charity Fashion Show and to obtain tickets, please email civicoffice@worcester.gov.uk.

It’s so easy, perhaps natural, to want to turn away from uncomfortable issues but as the Harvard philosopher Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

This week, together with the Worcestershire Interfaith Forum, I hosted the annual International Holocaust Memorial Day event at the Guildhall.

The theme of this year’s Memorial Day was the ‘Fragility of Freedom’, summed up by these lines from an entry in Anne Frank’s Diary, reflecting on May 1940 when the Germans arrived in the Netherlands: “That is when the trouble started for the Jews. Our freedom was severely restricted by a series of anti-Jewish decrees.”

This year the keynote speaker was Mr Michael Bibring, a second-generation Holocaust survivor. Michael’s father Harry left Vienna for Britain on the Kindertransport as a 13-year-old, along with his sister. The plan was for their parents to later join them, but that never happened, with his father dying of a heart attack in 1940 and his mother being deported to the death camp at Sobibór in Poland in 1942.

I found Michael to be an inspirational speaker – he laid out very clearly that the Holocaust did not start with the gas chambers, it started with decrees, that Jews had to mark themselves out by wearing a yellow star, that their children had to go to different schools. Over time the decrees went further prohibiting them from using the municipal swimming pool and the imposition of a nighttime curfew, and so on, creating an increasingly intolerable hostile environment that led to the ghettos and once they had the gas chambers ready, the mass murder of the Jews, gay men, gypsies and those with disabilities.

But how did that happen, why did people go along with this? The truth is that those decrees were built on even earlier dehumanising language and ‘othering’. So here is, perhaps an uncomfortable, challenge for all of us. Will you refuse to turn away, will you remember what happened in the Holocaust and will you call out people when you hear them using dehumanising language?