All Hallows is a religious festival where the dead are remembered on the night before All Saints Day. Before then, it could have been a pre-Christian festival. Halloween has become a time for dressing up, spooky parties and trick-and-treating.

It is also a chance for people in Abingdon to get creative with wool, wood, and pumpkins.

The postbox on the  Market place has been decorated with a spooky topper.

The Blue Boar has been made to resemble a House of Horrors with wood from Oxford Wood Recycling.

Pumpkins of different sizes and colours are there on display for people to get creative at Fabulous flowers.

Ashley sent me a picture of six bats at St Helen’s Wharf at the weekend, all crocheted from wool.

When I went to St Helen’s Wharf there were only three.

‘Crochet bats cannot fly! Not when they are made of wool. Not when they are attached to the railings with cable ties.’

‘Holy crocheted bats, Batman! Only a criminal could callously cut the cable tie and take the bats.’

‘Yes, Robin! It does sound batty, but my bat sensor has picked up the trail of the criminal mastermind in question.’

The moment came so suddenly, so unexpectedly. We all knew she was unwell, suffering ‘mobility problems’ which, of course, no one dies of. Then the dread announcement; ‘The Queen is dead, long live the King’. With the ascendancy of Charles III, the ‘New Elizabethan Age’ passed and we became Caroleans.

I experienced both curiosity and sadness as did most of us as we waited for the mayoral party to assemble in front of the County Hall to read the Proclamation. Sadness at the death of a popular Queen and a feeling that a large and familiar element of our lives had been taken from us. Curiosity because as a student of history and having read of earlier proclamations reaching far back into medieval history, I was keen to be part of this historic occasion.

I thought of the countless different scenes on this spot, the days of long wigs and buckled shoes, of horses and carriages in the streets, of Puritan blacks and whites. Perhaps townspeople many years into the future would think of us in the same way.

I felt also a sense of my life being bracketed by such occasions. In June 1953 I was 6 and living in Aldershot. I can just recall being aware of the Coronation on the radio and seeing pictures in the newspapers -no telly for us yet. Images of the golden coach carrying the new Queen, of Queen Salote of Tonga defying the rain in her open carriage, the lines of red-coated soldiers in their very shiny boots.

How many recall the street parties, the free Coronation mugs and sweets, with the grown-ups all going to the Palais de Danse, always referred to as ‘the Pally’, in the evening for a ‘Coronation Knees-up’?

Now 70 years later here was Charles succeeding his mother, and soon in the same golden coach, those same streets will be lined again with soldiers and cheering crowds.

Now the mayoral party has arrived, the Town Council in 18th Century cloaks and bicorn hats, the mayor in his official regalia. Then the Proclamation was read, and the National Anthem was sung – most remembering to replace ‘gracious Queen with ‘gracious King’. Then three cheers for King Charles III… and it was over.

(Thank you to Bob for the piece and Michael for the picture. Both found while catching up on emails.)

On Thursday 8th September 2022, people heard at lunchtime that doctors at Balmoral were concerned about the Queen’s health. They turned on the TV News and commentators were speculating until early evening and then Huw Edwards made the announcement, ‘A few moments ago Buckingham Palace announced the death of Queen Elizabeth the second …‘

The flag above the County Hall was at half-mast, and the tenor bell at St Helen’s and at St Nicolas’ tolled for an hour from noon on Friday, and in parish churches throughout the nation. This was part of the London Bridge is Down protocol – a series of events planned following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Most were at the national level, but some happened at district and parish levels.

On Sunday, the Mayor of Abingdon, councillors, MP Layla Moran, and Deputy Lord Lieutenant, Felicity Dick, met on Abingdon Market Place, and the Mayor announced that the new monarch was King Charles III. People sang ‘God save the King’.

The Town Council opened a book of condolence, as did the County Council through libraries such as Abingdon Library. Some churches had books of condolence.

Many people from Abingdon went to London to join the Queen’s lying in state queue at Westminster Hall. After a wait of from five to fifteen hours, they arrived, dazed and tired, in view of the Queen’s coffin. The coffin was covered with a flag and the imperial crown. There, people bowed or made the sign of the cross or saluted.

Back in Abingdon, most of the churches had special services. On Sunday, the eve of the funeral, St Helen’s held a Civic Evensong. The Deputy Lord Lieutenant and an officer from Dalton Barracks read passages from the bible. The Mayor gave a short address saying how the Queen enjoyed services like evensong. In it the choir sang Magnificat and Nunc dimittis. In the Magnificat, Mary accepts as a young woman to be the mother of Jesus and a life of service to God. In the Nunc dimittis, Simeon, an old man, after a lifetime of service to God and after seeing Jesus, says ‘Now let your servant depart in peace.’ The Mayor said it was similar to the start and end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and the promise she made to a life of faith and love and service, a promise she kept to the end. The service ended with God Save the King.

On Monday, the roads around Abingdon were quiet, and for the hour before the funeral in London, the tenor bell at St Helen’s and at St Nicolas’ tolled for an hour. Bells tolled in parishes throughout the land.

Some people went in person to be near the funeral procession, some joined to watch in a public place as happened at Peachcroft Christian Centre, and some watched on TV with family or friends or alone. The processions and crowds were huge. There was a regal church service at Westminster Abbey and a more intimate service at Windsor. After all the pomp, that service ended with the orb, sceptre, and crown being taken from the coffin and placed on the altar, and a slender stick, called the Queen’s wand of office, was broken. The coffin sunk slowly from public view.

Soon afterwards more traffic could be heard on the roads.