There are three large yellow cranes on the Abingdon School grounds. Contractors have demolished the Amey Theatre Conservatory and are using one crane to erect a new building known as Beech Court Pavilion alongside the Amey Theatre.
The other cranes are busy with other rebuild projects.
Abingdon School is set on extensive grounds in the centre of Abingdon and is conscious of being part of a larger community. Their Community Services web page at https://www.abingdon.org.uk/other-half/service-activities/the-role-of-community-service-at-abingdon/ explains more.
The Trinity Table Top sale was held on Saturday and raised £979 (and counting) towards church funds. It also brought people together. There was a Carswell P.T.A stall, Abingdon Baptist stall, and guides stall, among others.
Margaret Horton had an art stall and brought her picture of the venue, Conduit Centre (Trinity church hall).
35 Ock Street provided the home for Baptist ministers between 1720 and 1968. It now provides an open space with a cafe and usually has a small exhibition by a local artist. This week there are painting by Judith Payne.
This Morland sign is on Bridge Street in Reading, close to St Mary’s church and the old centre of Reading.
There is a web page showing Morland pubs at http://breweryhistory.com/wiki/index.php?title=List_of_Morland_&_Co_Ltd_Pubs. It shows that Morland was once the size of an Anglo-Saxon kingdom with pubs from Leicester to Southampton and from Somerset to Surrey. The Be at One cocktail Bar was then called the Cross Keys.
You may remember I published a book called ‘Ten Poems about Abingdon’ last year. There are copies in Abingdon Library, and still, a few are left for sale at The Book Store and Abingdon Museum. The books sell at £5, and the profits, about £4.25 a copy, go to The Abingdon Bridge young people’s charity. (The book was dedicated to Pauline Sykes, who leads the Abingdon Share a Poem group.)
There are other poetry groups in Abingdon and some excellent poets. I know of the U3A poetry group and the Quaker poetry group.
There are also the Ock Poets who meet in Abingdon Library and are eleven months old. They began in March 2022. They are a group who write poetry, have a monthly talk and a themed exercise and share their poems. The next one is tomorrow, but it is best to email the address on the poster first.
Here is an example of a poem by an Abingdon Poet called The Sea by Justin Gosling. Justin passed away last November, and I hope his family won’t mind me sharing this reading. (All Rights Reserved.) He read it in the Abingdon Share a Poem group. It can be found in his poetry book The Jackdaw in the Jacaranda, which can probably be ordered from local bookshops and is definitely available online.
