At St Nicolas Church this week there is an exhibition of African Peacemakers. It comprises large photographic portraits, and a quote, and biography of the person.

The photographer says “My suggestion is that for you to look at the faces for a considerable amount of time. I believe if you do so for long enough you should see parts of yourself looking back at you.”

One of the peace makers is quoted as saying
‘My mother was very disappointed in me
seeing me doing this reintegration.
She said “What are you doing?
These are the people who tortured you.
These are the people who raped your sister.
These are the people who burnt your house.
And you know them.
What are you doing?
You are a disgrace.”

Thank God I did what my conviction asked me to do.’

The exhibition is put on by the Quakers.

At Abingdon County Hall Museum, there is a one week exhibition (until Nov 1st) of artwork by students from the Unicorn School in Abingdon – a specialist school for students with dyslexia. It is called ‘Opening Daws’ and coincides with Dyslexia Awareness Week (DAW).

It shows artwork, sculpture and descriptive works that look at what it is like learning and creating when you have dyslexia.

Watching the presentation, in the exhibition, you get a real sense of the difficulties students with dyslexia have. It is not one condition but a lot of different conditions where people find it difficult to read writing on a page – some perceptual, some problems of processing.

In the room next door in the attic, there is a new display of Abingdon artifacts – so well worth a visit, if you are able to climb stairs.

At the Community Free Space (previously known as the Community Shop), in Bury Street, there is a picture exhibition about Victorian Abingdon. It will be open for a week.

As always people are fascinated to look at old photographs of Abingdon, and this time there is also a large scale map of Abingdon in Victorian times. The displays were created by Elizabeth Drury who co-authored the Abingdon Past and Present books.

Also instrumental was Hester, who arranged the rota of volunteers and did the admin.

Meanwhile, a group of cyclists came through town today, on their way from Didcot, on a 100-mile  ride, raising money for good causes. Causes were: Prostate Cancer UK, Helen and Douglas House, and the Oxford Centre for Enablement at Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre.

Dragon Boat Racing tomorrow – one of the biggest events in the Abingdon Calendar.

Today was Summer Solstice and the longest day. The Sun is powered by nuclear fusion reactions in which lighter elements, like hydrogen, release energy to form heavier elements, like helium.

A new exhibition, at Abingdon County Hall Museum, takes you behind the scenes, to learn about the history of research at Culham to try to set off fusion reactions here on earth, and  revolutionise electricity generation. The exhibition runs until 18 October 2015 in the Attic Gallery at the museum – see Star Power.

This year marks the 50th Anniversary of fusion reseach at Culham, and the exhibition tells the story of the Culham site, from wartime days as a naval airfield (HMS Hornbill) through to the many fusion machines that have been built over the years including the European JET project.

Up to now the energy needed to start the fusion reaction is more than the energy generated. But the next generation of even bigger fusion machines could bring star power down to earth.

P.S. The Culham researchers, in the big white building next to the A415 in Culham, have free Open Evenings most months, which can be booked at http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/visits.aspx.