Today marked the start of this year’s annual Poppy Appeal in Abingdon and at 10 am poppy bikers delivered a giant poppy to the Market Place.

It was raining and a piper was playing at 11 am as people emerged from the rugby semi final match which England won.

There was a group of poppy stalls on the Market Place. Clare who organises the Abingdon poppy collection on behalf of the Royal British Legion (RBL) had personally put 16,000 paper poppies and 600 crosses in boxes this year. Scouts were running a cake stall with cakes decorated with poppies and biscuits with scout fleur-de-lis. There was also a stall with craft poppies.

Sea Cadets had a treasure hunt, and trays of poppies to be sold.

The army cadets were selling poppies from trays round town.

The Sue Ryder shop has a display of poppies in the window.

It is two weeks until Remembrance Sunday on 10 November 2019. Poppies will be on sale until then. The funds raised helps the work of the Royal British Legion in supporting service men and women who are still alive and whose lives have been changed by war.

Ride and Stride was happening all around, and beyond, Abingdon today. It was a chance to visit and go inside some unique historic churches – including eleven in Abingdon. It was also a chance to see the beautiful countryside around Abingdon and some lovely village churches; and get exercise while raising money for the Oxfordshire Historic Churches Trust.

All Saints Methodist Church, in Abingdon, may not look very historic.

but they have reason to thank the Oxfordshire Historic Churches Trust for a grant towards their recent refurbishment. So they had a notice thanking striders.

In Dry Sandford you will find St Helen’s Church in the parish of St Helen Without. They need to raise money to repair their roof. After a lightening strike in 1961 the roof was incorrectly repaired and they now need £500,000 to repair it properly – a huge amount for them. You can read more at http://www.sthelensdrysandford.org. I expect they will be asking the Oxfordshire Historic Churches Trust to help.

Save the Children has had 100 years of fund raising, caring and campaigning for underprivileged children and the Abingdon volunteers were in the town centre yesterday.

Yesterday morning, in Abingdon, volunteers moved their stall underneath the County Hall as it was raining. They had a tombola and were selling plants and cakes and had second hand goods. Their quiz is also on sale for £2.

In 2019, among many other causes, Save the Children are helping children return to school following the damage of Typhoon Tembin in the Philippines.

Back in 1919, Europe was still being blockaded and that meant children were starving and there were not enough medical supplies. The founders campaigned to make people aware of the blockade. They then set up a fund to get supplies to the children.

You can find more about Save the Children’s history here. (Thankyou to the British Newspaper Archives for the advert from the Bucks Examiner of  30th May 1919).