At St Nicolas Church in Abingdon on Saturday the Alzheimer’s Society had a jumble and craft sale with refreshments, and a lot of information about dementia.

From the pulpit I got a better view of the pew-top stalls. Towards the alter were clothes, and along the church, cards, and craft work, bric-a-brac, games, and books.

One lady told me about the fidget quilts she makes to provide tactile fun and hand activities. She does not normally sell them but gives them to community hospitals and care homes.

One of my first jobs was at Dickens Ward in Netherne Psychiatric Hospital near Coulsdon. I have strong memories of some of the people living there. There was one chap who spent a lot of his time feeling the contours and buttons and legs of the chair where he sat. He had been an upholsterer before retirement, and before the dementia robbed him of the ability to remember anything but some old memories.

The Alzheimer’s Society also had a couple of stalls on the Market Place, as did the Vale House who are specialists in caring for people with dementia, and supporting their families – far more innovative and caring than Dickens Ward.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) is doing much work locally through our schools. As anybody who works in a school, or in a youth group, will know, child protection has been given far more attention in recent years.

Current NSPCC campaigns include keeping children safe online, preventing abuse, and rebuilding lives after abuse. The NSPCC also now runs childline.

Local NSPCC Volunteers were selling items in aid of NSPCC yesterday on the Market Place. The money raised will help child protection work to continue, locally and nationally. The national NSPCC website has more information.

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.