Most years the annual Christian Aid walk clashes with the Boundary Walk (see yesterday’s article), but not this year. A lot of the Christian Aid participants were presumably in church on New Year’s Day and so the walk was put back to Bank Holiday Monday.

The walk started at St Michael’s Church at 10 am. Route leaflets with maps cost £1.  So that money, together with donations, and sponsorship helped raise funds for Christian Aid.

The route headed from St Michael’s through Albert Park, and then through some residential areas before hitting a country path that led over Lodge Hill to Radley College.

Here are two walkers passing near the famous Radley Oak, a tree of unknown age but said to have been rejected by ship builders during the Napoleonic Wars because it was misshapen. In the centre of this picture is a man often seen in the Oxfam Shop. He was one of the founding members of Oxfam, Abingdon over 40 years ago and still does the accounts, and helps in the shop.

The walkers stopped for a coffee break at Radley Church Hall then returned to Abingdon via Radley Lakes and along the sustrans cycle path. Bank Holiday Monday is likely to be the sunniest day of the week, and there were lots of other people out walking, cycling and running. The sustrans Route 5 cycle path was the busiest I have seen it.  Cycles could not move for walkers at times.