Cllr Allah Ditta, Worcester’s 792nd mayor, reflects on his year in office

ROLLER-COASTERS don’t come more up and down than this year…

So says Worcester’s out-going mayor Cllr Allah Ditta, reflecting on his second term of office that officially ends next week.

“It’s been a year of fire, flood and pestilence with the world now an entirely different place to the one we lived in even a matter of months ago – and nobody saw it coming.

“But we’re on our way back: you wait and see,” he said.

Despite the enforced setbacks that have seen the cancellation of several high-profile events long considered crucial features of the mayor’s traditional role, he added that he remains as hopeful for the future as he was at the outset of his year, and that the anticipated return to normality will see the city pick up from where it left off.

“When the coronavirus pandemic first emerged, I said that it’s only by working together that we will overcome it.  And overcome it we shall – just as we overcame the floods and the fires and the earthquakes that marked the start of the year.

“They were sent to try us, and we came through, and now this – and we’ll come through once more, because that’s what we do,” he said as he prepares to make way for a newcomer to take over the mayor’s 156-year old badge and chain of office.

Among the brighter notes: the first-hand observation of what he terms ‘the amazing degree of talent possessed by youngsters in the City and beyond’;

his boundless respect for all volunteers in dozens of worthy Worcester organisations; his open-door policy that has led to a record number of international visitors to the Parlour;

bridging ‘imagined differences’ between Muslims and Christians:  "It’s the similarities that matter, not the differences"; the opening of a new school: the North Worcester Primary Academy; Worcester’s collective effort in raising £500,000 for Oscar Saxelby-Lee’s life-saving treatment;

and attending dozens of concerts and events, celebrating the city’s vibrant arts and cultural scene.

The mayor has also attended more than 50 weddings this year – although he admits that his elation has been tempered with sadness by some other events.

They include the disastrous Kashmir earthquake that was centred on Sahang, the Kikree village where his wife Naseem had previously lived, accounting for the loss of many relations. 

And nearer home, the passing of several more people he was privileged to regard as friends: among them, fellow councillors Stuart Denlegh-Maxwell and former mayor Ray Turner; King’s School head Matthew Armstrong aged 48; ever-smiling Guildhall attendant Len Carless at 93; Lin Henderson, mayoress of Stourport; and one of his ward members, Saeed Begum - aged 109.

He added that no observations on the current situation can be considered in the least meaningful without an expression of gratitude and admiration for the doctors, nurses and staff of the NHS.

“Their efforts this past few months put anything I’ve done completely in the shade and if this year is to be marked with any saving graces, the full recognition of their worth outweighs any other cause.”