The brand new 2018 edition of the Abingdon-on-Thames Official Guide and Map plopped through the door today. It is full of useful information.

On Saturday I picked up a 1924 town guide from Oxfam. It contained a history of the town, with lots of black and white views of the town, most of which are still easy to recognise. The first few and last few pages were dedicated to adverts.

I would not recognise 131 Ock Street from the picture,with the open display of meat. (© William H Hooke. All Rights Reserved).

Back in 1940, after the fall of France, the UK was at risk of a German invasion. The River Ock seems to have been consolidated as a defense line to stop the ‘Blitzkrieg’. There is a pillbox one side of the river, over by the old path of the canal.

On the other side are a set of concrete dragons teeth – positioned to stop Hitler’s tanks if they try to dodge the River and the other water-filled channels. At this time of year, the vegetation has died back showing the green dragons teeth.

Behind the dragons teeth there is an area where willows lay. They too are covered in green at this time of year.

What might make a good film is this real life event from 1832 that was tried at Abingdon …

Dennis Collins was convicted of High Treason, at Abingdon County Hall in 1832. Collins threw two stones at the King at Ascot Races. The first stone missed, and the second grazed King William IV, after hitting his hat. The King retreated to safety for a short while before re-appearing to show all was well to the crowd at Ascot .

In the mean time Dennis Collins was apprehended and beaten up and taken to Reading Gaol, and then later to Abingdon Gaol for the trial.

The jury at the County Court at Abingdon decided that he was guilty but at the same time petitioned the King for clemency.

Collins had served in the Royal Navy. He lost his leg on active service and was pensioned off – valiantly. He exchanged his pension to become an in-pensioner at a home for ex servicemen. He did have a bit of a temper, and one day lost his temper over a small matter. The home was swept too often and that disturbed his peace, and he asked that it be swept only once a day. This led to an altercation, and Collins was thrown out and then lost his pension.

For six months he lived as best he could with little money. He was more miserable than he had ever been in his life, and wrote to the King asking that his pension be re-instated. The letter was sent to the admiralty to decide and they decided he could NOT have his pension back.

It was for that reason he threw the two stones at Ascot Race Course. He had done it as a protest to get his pension back, not to hurt the King. He was very sorry afterwards that one stone had hit the King.

A print of Collins exists and shows him with a wooden leg. A kind lady exchanged his old wooden leg and ex-sailor’s garb, for a new leg and more respectable attire.

The King was merciful, and the initial mandatory sentence for such treason (hanging and quartering) was changed to transportation for life, and so Collins was sent to Van Diemen’s Land at 70 years of age. A short residence in that colony ended his days when he died in the spring of the year 1834.

There is a log fire at the Old Anchor Inn, by the River Thames in Abingdon. Over the fireplace mantel are the words “DO NOT TOUCH The fire”.

As a child, one task I was sometimes allowed to undertake was to clear the grate of the previous night’s ashes, and then start the next day’s fire. This would either entail using white fire lighters, or the gas poker under a pile of coal.

On a number of occasions I remember watching as adults held a thin sheet of newspaper in front of the fireplace to draw up the flames. This was a more risky process, and on a couple of occasions I saw the flaming newspaper being sucked up the chimney. It could have caused a chimney fire but didn’t. We learned from our elders that fire had to be treated with respect.