Author Archives: Back Streeter

Some upcoming events in Abingdon towards the end of October

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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.

Abingdon Run-Away Fair

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The second, or Run-Away Michaelmas Fair was held on Abingdon Market Place this afternoon. It was a much smaller event than the main Michaelmas Fair last week. It comprised three roundabouts, an inflatable slide and two wagons serving fair food. The rides were all aimed at young children.

In days when hiring farm and domestic servants was more common, the Run-Away Fair followed the main Michaelmas Fair and gave servants the chance to seek a new position if the first did not work out. It was also an occasion for people from the surrounding countryside to come to Abingdon to make their Michaelmas purchases.

Michaelmas traditionally marked the change from summer to winter, when people put away their lighter clothes and brought out their warmer ones. The Run-Away fair gave them a chance to buy new clothing and other necessities in preparation for the colder months. (That is according to the Reading Mercury of Saturday, 20 October 1894)

Abingdon’s British Heart Foundation Announces Closing Date

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The British Heart Foundation shop in Bury Street, Abingdon, is holding a closing sale ahead of its final day on Saturday 21 November 2026, according to a poster in the window. The shop has been there for at least 23 years, according to a 2003 town centre map.

It is one of around 150 BHF shops and stores scheduled to close as part of a national restructuring programme. The closures are intended to make the charity’s retail operation financially sustainable. The money raised through its shops helps fund cardiovascular research.

The poster identifies the nearest remaining shop as the one in The Broadway, Didcot.

Abingdon Library – 50th Birthday

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The library mice have their own way of celebrating birthdays. For the 30th, they celebrated with crumbs from the children’s party and a chunk of cocktail cheese.

For the 50th, the few cupcakes had been eaten and every crumb swept away and there was no after work party because of cutbacks.

But one of the mice noticed a child’s drawing of a mouse balancing books and wishing the library a Happy 50th Birthday.

‘That’s how we should celebrate,’ it said.

‘Let’s find ALL the books with fifty in the title,’ suggested another mouse.

They headed for the large James Patterson section.

‘I’m sure I saw one here once,’ said the mouse. ‘It was called Fifty-Fifty.’

Another, very squeaky mouse asked, ‘What about E. L. James?’

Nobody was listening. She ran off.

Meanwhile, a mouse with a more authoritative voice called the others over to the returns trolley. A cheese-coloured cover had caught her eye. The book was called The Periodic Table: A Field Guide to the Elements.

If you’d seen how quickly they pushed it onto the floor, you might have thought it really was a field guide to cheese. The chemistry book fell open at a page that said:

‘Sodium – Atomic Number 11. Special Trick: Reacts violently with water.’

‘I don’t like that.’

They turned the page.

‘Magnesium – Atomic Number 12. Special Trick: Burns with a brilliant white flame.’

‘Oh dear! Oh dear!’

Their little hearts beating faster, they turned the pages until they found what they had been looking for.

‘Tin – Atomic Number 50. Special Trick: Good for holding food.’

‘Perfect!’ they said as one.

They left the book where it lay and ran past the very squeaky mouse, who was still staring at the spine of GREY – the only E. L. James title on the shelves.

The mice disappeared through the secret tunnel to Poundland. Being library mice, they knew how to open tins and hide the evidence. The spaghetti in cheese sauce went down well, but the tinned sponge pudding was even better.

They agreed it made a thoroughly satisfying ending.