THE Probus Club of Evesham is a warm and welcoming group of retired professional men who meet every Thursday morning at the Evesham Rowing Club. If you want to find out more about us, why don't you call into the Rowing Club at about 10am and meet us before our meeting begins? We would like to meet you.

Our most recent meeting began with the award of Honorary Life Membership to Derek Bunker, who has celebrated his 90th birthday.

This week's speaker was a Probus member from Cirencester, Malcolm Lewis,who came to tell us about his home town in a talk entitled Birmingham - City of Culture. There are some who would think that the juxtaposition of "Birmingham" and "culture" to be an oxymoron, but Malcolm soon dispelled any such idea.

We learned about the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival and about the American writer Washington Irving.

The Music Festival began in 1768 to raise money for the General Hospital. It was graced by first performances of works by Dvorak, Gounod and Sullivan. Mendelssohn visited several times and conducted the first performance Elijah in the newly-built Town Hall. And Edward Elgar's great choral masterpieces had their first performances there.

It came as a surprise to learn that Washington Irving's two most famous stories, Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, were written in Birmingham during an extended European visit. Other Birmingham writers included W. H. Auden, John Wyndham, Barbara Cartland and J.R.R.Tolkien.

The first Odeon opened not very far away, in Brierley Hill and Simon Rattle - with the CBSO - persuaded Birmingham City Council to build Symphony Hall, one of the finest concert halls in the world.

Malcolm provided a considerable list of entertainers - actors, singers and comedians who came from or lived in Birmingham and ended with the story of David Hughes.

Geoffrey Paddison, a tenor, was given the name David Hughes because it sounded Welsh. He became a popular variety singer. Malcolm told of Hughes' move into opera and how, in 1972, in London, on stage, singing the part of Pinkerton in Madam Butterfly, he fell ill. He insisted on performing the final scene before being rushed to hospital, where he died.

Jim Cox proposed a vote of thanks to Malcolm for a fascinating insight into a great city.

GRENVILLE BURROWS