On the Market Place on Saturday was the Save the Children Stall.

It is also Christian Aid week and there was also a Christian Aid stall. They were asking people to write on a clothes line what they felt they would most need if they arrived in a foreign country as a refugee.

It is 60 years since the first ever such week, and there are still a band of people delivering and collecting Christian Aid envelopes, door to door – not as many as there used to be.

On the Christian Aid website, I see that Emily, aged eight, from Abingon Baptist Church, designed her own Christian Aid envelope and helped do the door to door collection.

Age UK are moving their Oxfordshire HQ from St Edmund’s House. The owners have permission to change the building from offices to dwellings.

St Edmund’s House will become six flats with four parking places. The parking area still has a sign from the days of John Spratley & Partners, the architects.

Age Uk are moving to Abingdon Science Park down Barton Lane.

I will miss the annual Age UK jumble sale, and walking past their window and browsing what they had on offer: internet classes; spreading the cost of funerals; advise about care and support; and the generation games activity programme.

Next to the Abingdon-on-Thames Fire Station there is a ‘Field of Hope’ dedicated to Marie Curie Cancer Care with daffodils planted in memory of people who lost their battle with cancer.

Next door, the Cross Keys, on Ock Street, has been turned into private flats. Work on the conversion is nearly completed, and an estate agent’s boards show that some of the properties have been ‘Sold’.

Thanks to Jo for this …

Oxfam will be celebrating their 30th (Pearl!) Anniversary at the current premises in Stert Street later this month. Looking back at the history of Oxfam’s ‘Odyssey’ in Abingdon (there have been 3 bases in the past 47 years).

1969 – High Street – an old branch of Boots the Chemist
1971 – 19 Stert Street – previously a butcher
1986 – 30-32 Stert Street. Beforehand it had been The Extraordinary trading Company, and originally Langford’s Coal and Corn Merchants (as the great signage above the shop façade shows).

They would like memories either of Oxfam in Abingdon or their premises. Pictured is Roger Baker who has been with the shop since 1969, and 2 other ‘Pearl’ volunteers who have been with the shop for 30 years.