It doesn’t seem long since we were remembering the centenary of the start of WWI.

There was a moving ceremony with a reading of the names from the Abingdon (Borough) Roll of Service August 1914 – June 1919, and a candle-lit ceremony round the War Memorial.

At Abingdon Library there is an board telling of an on-going project telling A Soldier’s Tale through THE FIRST WORLD WAR, TOLD THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA AS IF IT WERE TODAY. The aim of the project is to capture the imagination of 13-18 year olds using a medium they know, understand and use.

Walter Carter, the soldier in the tale, is currently in a mental hospital undergoing treatment for shell shock.

Above are pictured a group of Carters from Abingdon who died during WWI. They each had their story, which was not fiction, and cost them their lives.

What a nice suprise it was today on arriving home from work to find a book of poems celebrating 25 years of the Unicorn School – addressed to me at the Abingdon Blog. It is full of poems and drawings and shows how much the children appreciate their small school, the friendliness, small classes, and to be in a place where they can enjoy learning, even if they have to get up so early to get there.

The Unicorn School is a school that helps children with dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalcula, speech and language.

Fifty years ago, my sister struggled at academic subjects from an early age, and I could not understand why she was always in the bottom set. It was only when she went to Redhill Technical College that a recently diagnosed condition, dyslexia, was suggested. She was always articulate, but lost the thread when trying to write those thoughts down, and writing was all that school examiners ever saw.

There has been quite a transformation at the car park entrance to St Helen and St Katharine School from 2011 to 2016.

First there was the building of new science centre, and this year a new sports centre has grown up.

Abingdon School, further along the Faringdon Road in Abingdon, has seen a similar transformation with the addition of a sports centre, and a new science centre.