Category Archives: war

Exbourne Road Poppies, St Nicolas Church Poppies, and events over the weekend

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November 1918
Exbourne Road,  a street of 31 houses in Abingdon, has 18 large poppies on display. Each poppy in a front window represents men from that house who signed up to answer the call of duty during WWI.
November 1918
From one house, six men / lads signed up.

From this small street, 34 men signed up; six were never to return; eight were wounded; and the rest returned having been through the hardship and horror of war.
November 1918
A cascade of poppies, one for each of Abingdon’s fallen in WWI, falls from the beams of St Nicolas church in the marketplace.  The Abingdon Crochet group from Masons created the poppies to commemorate the sacrifice.

Events over the weekend include:

Abingdon Roll of Honour read by various people – St Helen’s Church
Saturday, 10 November 2018 – 9:30am

Civic Bun Throw – County Hall and Abingdon Market Place
Saturday, 10 November 2018 – 2:00pm

Remembrance Concert – Abingdon Town Band – St Helen’s Church
Saturday, 10th November, 7:30pm-9:30pm

Remembrance Day Service – St Helen’s Church and Abingdon War Memorial
Sunday, 11th November, 10:00am-11:15am

Ringing out for peace – Abingdon Market Place
Sunday, 11th November, 7.00 pm

Beacon Lighting – County Hall
Sunday, 11th November, 7:00pm-8:00pm

Shop Windows Displays in Abingdon remember November 1918

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A lot of the shop windows in Abingdon town centre have poppies and WWI displays as we near the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI on November 11th 2018.
November 1918
Gemini Hair and Robert Stanley Opticians  are displaying large poppies.
November 1918
Fat Face has the Abingdon WWI Roll of Honour, showing men from Bridge Street who served together with pictures of them and their families.
November 1918
The Abingdon Flower Club has a double display in the Community Free Space. On one side are poppies and military symbols;
November 1918
and on the other side is a reminder of the women’s suffrage movement, that led to women over the age of 30 who owned property getting the vote in 1918, together with all men over the age of 21.

WW1 War Memorial Tour

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War Memorial Tour
On Saturday, 3rd November 2018 between 10:00 – 15:00 Mr Hemmings Traditional Abingdon  Morris Dancers will be visiting the war memorials of local villages remembering the end of WW1 in which many local Morris men made the ultimate sacrifice.
War Memorial Tour
Morris Dancing had a revival in the years before WWI but then according to Mr Hemmings web site there is no record of dancing during the war, and it was another twenty years until dancing in public became a regular event.  Joe Hemmings from 123 Ock Street, of the  Ock Street Morris Men,  was killed in action  at Contalmaison, France in February 1916.

Abingdon Poppy Festival

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Poppy Festival
Sea cadets
Poppy Festival
and Army cadets were in Abingdon today, with stalls on the Market Place, and selling poppies in the town centre.
Poppy Festival
The Mayor, Councillor Margaret Crick, and Ena Mitchell, a war widow now aged 100, were also there to support the event.
Poppy Festival
Clare, who organised the selling of poppies in Abingdon and the festival, is seen with Richard, from the MG Car Club, who invited along some red MGs.
Poppy Festival
That included a 1966 MG Magnette, specially decorated with silhouettes and poppies. The owners, Jeremy and Judith, from Aylesbury told me that the MG Magnette has done 55,000 miles in all that time.
Poppy Festival
The display case at Abingdon Library has a leaflet from the Signing of the Armistice in 1918.
Poppy Festival
2018 is the centenary of the end of World War I, and 5000 of the poppies sold this year in Abingdon have 1918-2018 printed on the leaves.