There are a variety of events as we move towards the second half of October. I’ll begin with 3 events where people emailed me details.

Abingdon Swingtime, an 18-piece big band featuring vocalists, will be playing classic big band tunes from the Glenn Miller, Count Basie and Duke Ellington era. The band played at last year’s Poppy Ball.

Eddy Smythe will tell the story of his father, John Smythe, who came to the UK from Sierra Leone to join the RAF during the Second World War. He became an officer but was shot down over Germany during a bombing raid and spent 18 months in a prisoner-of-war camp. After liberation, he was seconded to the Colonial Office, where he played a crucial role in the beginnings of the Windrush Generation. He later trained as a barrister and became Attorney General of his home country.

Mental health charity Restore is running a free 10-week series of crafting and mental health and wellbeing sessions, starting on 20 October. The sessions are intended to reach and support people in the Caldecott area.

Then there are those posters and banners I’ve seen advertised around town. Make Music Abingdon have another music event at the Loose Cannon Taproom on 15th October.

The Abingdon Traditional Craft Fair cannot be in the Abbey Buildings this year and so instead from the 23rd to 25th October they will be at St Helen and St Katherine School. See https://www.abingdoncraftfair.org.uk/.

The Abingdon Drama Club are also displaced while the Abbey Building’s work is underway. And their Play 1984 will be in Sutton Courtney Parish Church. The author of 1984, George Orwell, is buried in the church yard.

Abingdon Artist have their Autumn Exhibition at Christ Church Barn at the end of the month.

Abingdon Operatic Society will be staging the musical COME FROM AWAY at the end of the month. Come From Away tells the true story of 7,000 air passengers who were stranded in the wake of 9/11. Grounded in the tiny town of Gander, Newfoundland, when US airspace closed.