A SERIES of events to mark the centenary of Florence Nightingale’s death is being held in and around Romsey this month.

The first is the Florence Nightingale Memorial Concert at Romsey Abbey next Saturday, March 13, at 7.30pm.

Hampshire Music Service is behind the concert tribute to Britain’s most famous nurse, who lived at Wellow’s Embley Park and was laid to rest in the village church in August, 1910.

The music service commissioned a quartet trumpet piece entitled A Fanfare for Florence to open the concert. The music was written by Winchester-based composer, Kenneth Downie, and the four trumpeters will be strategically placed around the abbey when the piece is played.

About 250 performers from schools in the area, along with Hampshire County Youth Band and Hampshire County Youth String Orchestra, will be taking part in the concert.

Hampshire’s deputy leader, Roy Perry, who lives at Wellow, presented the concert’s conductor, Carl Clausen, with £300 from the Test Valley Arts Foundation, of which he’s chairman, to enable the music service to commission the fanfare.

Romsey-based Chester House Productions are staging Florence – The Story of Florence Nightingale at Romsey Library on March 17, at 7.30pm. The play looks at Florence’s family life, her nursing work, Scutari and the Crimean War.

To book a ticket, priced £3, call 01794 513341.

That same evening, Florence Nightingale: what she was and what she was not – 100 years later is the title of a lecture by Professor Lynn Macdonald at the Hampshire Collegiate School at Embley Park.

Prof Macdonald, from Canada, is a world authority on Wellow’s most famous resident. The event starts at 7pm and anyone interested in attending is asked to contact the school’s head of history, Dr Russ Foster.

Dr Foster has just had an article entitled Florence Nightingale Icon and Iconoclast, which sifts myth from reality, published in History Review, a national academic journal aimed at sixth formers and undergraduates.

Dr Foster can be contact by email at <&bh"mailto:russ.foster@church-schools.com">russ.foster@church-schools.com<&eh>, or by phone, on 01794 512206.

A new library at Wellow Primary School bearing Florence Nightingale’s name was due to be opened yesterday (Thursday) by Hampshire Collegiate School’s principal, Mr Hector MacDonald.