Thankyou Malcolm for this piece and the pictures,

Her Majesty The Queen has made few visits to Abingdon during her long reign but she did carry out a Royal Review of the Royal Air Force on the airfield exactly 50 years ago on 14th June 1968. The occasion was a celebratory one marking the 50th anniversary of the RAF and included a flying display with tactical demonstrations together with a mass flypast of fighters and bombers. An impressive static display comprised many aircraft representing types in service during the first 50 years.

The ’50’ formation took place the day of the Royal Review.

The day of the Royal Review was a closed event but the display was repeated the following day when the base was open to the public.

On the public day the Jet Provosts increased in number to form the Queen’s Cypher.

The Lockheed Hercules was new into RAF service in 1968 and is shown here carrying out an ultra low-level air delivery (ULLA) as part of the mock assault set-piece. The ULLA system was developed by the Air Transport Development Unit (ATDU) in conjunction with the Joint Air Transport Establishment (JATE), both units were based at RAF Abingdon at the time. I think the MoD has a liking for acronyms!

This year the Royal Review to mark the centenary of the RAF will take place at RAF Fairford on the first day of the Royal International Air Tattoo. Three days beforehand, on the 10th July, a mass flypast of one hundred aircraft will overfly The Mall and Buckingham Palace. Let’s hope the weather then is as good as it was in Abingdon in 1968!

Last picture is for anybody who grew up in the 60s showing the BBC1 schedule for 14th June 1968 taken from The Birmingham Post in British Newspaper Archive – All Rights Reserved. The Newcomers, the soap opera to rival ITVs Coronation Street, was on at 7.05pm.

Work on the old part of the Guildhall is progressing. The Roysse Court Gardens are being dug up

The major benefits of the revamp include:
* Accessible toilets on the ground floor.
* Muniments room for the town’s archives with easy access and reading room.
* Improved reception area.
* Re-paving Roysse Court Gardens, including removing steps on the south side.
* Platform lift to old magistrates court.

I don’t think the fate of the old staircase has been decided yet. It was to be modified to allow a lift to the upper storey but then people protested that the staircase was a town treasure.

Somebody has thrown their ‘Chronicle of the 20th Century‘ into the skip at the top of East St Helen Street, but today’s post looks back at the 20th Century. (Adverts taken from the Abingdon Herald from May 1978 with thanks. All Rights Reserved.)

In 1968 the Abingdon Congregational Church came to share worship in the same building as Trinity Methodist Church. They maintained their separate organisations for the next ten years then in 1978 a sharing agreements were signed and the two congregations united at Trinity Church. So this Sunday (on Trinity Sunday), Trinity are celebrating 40 years together.

I went to look in the library to see if this got mentioned in the May 1978 Abingdon Heralds (on microfilm). I could not find anything about that, but there was a story about the Abingdon Congregational Church building (now the Ask Restaurant). The headline was ‘Rival Plans for Old Church – Skateboards or Art and Crafts?‘ The VWHDC (Vale White Horse District Council) were to decide between competing schemes for the old church, either to become a centre for traditional crafts, or a specialist skateboard centre. I don’t think either happened.

Also of interest was the headline ‘One Way to Car Chaos‘. East and West St Helen Street, and St Helen’s Wharf bridge had just become One Way. This scheme had been months in the planning, but motorists, who lived in the new housing estates in South Abingdon, did not seem to know, and lots of them tried to go down East St Helen Street where a temporary barrier stopped them going home that way. The editorial said that it was like a return to the bad old days of Abingdon traffic chaos.

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).