Many thanks to Graham for a follow up to his article, “The Pit”, that generated so much interest. This time he sends something quite different – extracts from an Abingdon Rag Mag called Murk.

The first edition is from 1962 where the writers predict what The Rag Procession in 1968 will look like.

The third edition of Murk is from 1964.

The fourth edition is from 1965. Graham says a lot of the jokes would create offence in this politically correct era. Here are a few carefully selected …

Also of interest are the adverts …

I assume the Rag Mags are from the newly formed Abingdon College, but Culham College was still going strong in the 1960s so I could be wrong.

Thanks to James for this…

The local round of Youth Speaks, a national public speaking competition for schools, sponsored and organised by Abingdon Rotary Club, took place last Friday at Steventon Village Hall.

Four Abingdon schools took part, Abingdon, Larkmead, Our Lady’s and St Helen and St Katherine. Three of these schools fielded both an intermediate and a senior team, with Abingdon School fielding just a senior team.

Each team consisted of three speakers, an introducer, a main speaker and a summariser. Topics were varied, including the search for aliens, dementia, body building and the limits to our knowledge.

The winners of the intermediate category were Larkmead whose team gave a very amusing presentation on the subject of body language, with many demonstrations.

The senior category was won by the team from St Helen and St Katherine. They gave a most informative and moving presentation on the subject of female health issues in the third world.

Abingdon Rotary Club President, Chris Ronaldson, awarded the prizes, and the winning teams will take part in the next round which takes place in Witney on the 28th January.

In the windows of Abingdon Library are some over sized medals, made from old vinyl records – put there as part of this summer’s reading challenge.

The badly scratched records were donated by Oxfam in Abingdon, and the artwork added by students at Larkmead school, to encourage children to come into the library and take part in this summer’s reading challenge.

Read six books from the library during the summer holidays, and become a Record Breaker!

This evening the Fitzharrys Art Show at Abingdon Community Shop was opened by Deputy Mayor Cllr Alice Badcock, and sister.

I am sorry to have missed the opening but got a quick look after hours.

The exhibition is only on for three days so go along if you can.

The staff video to say goodbye to Year 11 students, after all their hard work on GCSEs, has recently been gaining a lot of attention, with over 12,000 YouTube views, and also stories in the Herald and Oxford Mail and interest from Meridian News.

Sports Day is tomorrow (9th July), and the annual talent show (10th July). So a busy end of term.