Petal doubling makes flowers more showy, but often at the cost of the ‘doubled’ flowers being less interesting to pollinating insects. The additional petals may be modified stamens so less pollen is produced. Compare a wild rose to a garden rose and you’ll see what I mean.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Click images to enlarge
These autumn leaves are on a purple Cotinus coggygria bush, common name ‘smokebush’. Like many trees and shrubs at this time of year, Cotinus leaves change colour in autumn before falling to the ground. The shrub will produce fresh, new leaves in the spring. But look more closely and you may see something else.
The leaves in the image have developed interveinal patches of necrotic tissue, making the plant even more striking in autumn. I had never noticed this condition before moving to Cirencester, but there’s a Cotinus in the grounds of the Stratton House Hotel and Spa that does this annually. The shrub seems healthy in the spring and summer. For a week or two at the end of October this patterned necrosis makes the autumn leaves look even more spectacular.
Irregularities of this kind are common in both animate and inanimate natural systems and not infrequently appear as deliberate ‘enhancements’. Here are one or two notable examples:
Leaf variegation – Gardeners and plant breeders select and propagate from stable variegations. Normally plants with variegation grow more slowly because the efficiency of photosynthesis is compromised.
Petal doubling – This make flowers more showy, but often at the cost of the ‘doubled’ flowers being less interesting to pollinating insects. The additional petals may be modified stamens so less pollen is produced. Compare a wild rose to a garden rose and you’ll see what I mean. How often do you see bees working garden roses?
Variations in animal characteristics – amongst cats and dogs (and also budgerigars, canaries, parrots and chickens you’ll see size and shape changes as well as behavioural, colour and pattern modifications. Compare a Jack Russell with a retriever or a blue budgie with a green one and you’ll find plenty of differences to ponder.
Frost hardiness in plants. Frost sensitive species cannot survive winter in temperate or arctic conditions, so hardiness is a prized feature of many garden plants, and plant breeders pay attention to things like this. A Dahlia or Chrysanthemum that can flower for an extra week or two in the autumn may be worth a higher price, for example.
Fruit colour and flavour components. These days strawberries are much larger than when I was child, and they are often red inside, not just on the outer surface.
Many variations of this kind are deliberately selected for by plant and animal breeders.
Certain other changes have been caused deliberately, even in humans. Lower lip enlargement, neck ringing to generate extended neck length, foot binding, and forms of male and female circumcision have been required for a variety of religious and cultural reasons. Hair styling, removal, or transplantation, piercing of ears, noses and other body parts are common, and don’t forget tattooing. And in plants; pruning, clipping, or bonsai are widely employed.
In the world of rock and stone, coloured and uncoloured crystals may be prized as jewels and fetch fantastic prices. I wrote about an example of this, a geode I spotted in an ordinary, traditional, Cotswold dry stone wall.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome!
The abbey’s construction was a huge project continuing throughout the 12th century. To fund the ambitious project, Henry I and his successors, Henry II and Richard I, granted the abbey revenues and privileges, such as exemption from tolls, access to commerce, and timber and stone for construction.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Click images to enlarge
In medieval times there was an Augustinian Abbey in Cirencester. Like so many abbeys and monasteries in the United Kingdom it was dissolved during the reign of King Henry VIII and afterwards demolished. The outline of the walls is marked in the Abbey Grounds with small, square paving slabs, and a few of the column bases are visible too, but that is all that remains above ground where the Abbey once stood. There are some additional carved stones and other items in the Corinium Museum.
The photo shows a Lego model of the Abbey, currently on display in the Parish Church. You can see a Lego tree in the garden within the cloisters, and part of the nave of the Abbey church. The model is complete with its tower although this doesn’t appear in the main photo, but it’s there in the image below.
Construction and history
The Abbey and tower
Some of the political and practical history of the founding and later dissolution of the abbey are well described in blog articles published by the Corinium Museum. These articles, and the Wikipedia article are well worth reading. They are linked below.
Long before the Abbey was built the land where it later stood was part of the Roman City of Corinium Dobunnorum; the River Churn (in those times named Kern, Kerin or Corin) had been divided into two, one part outside the city walls as a defensive feature, the other part within the city as a source of water for drinking, washing, for industry, building and so forth. The Saxons, moving West into the still Romano-British part of what is now South-West England, took control of the area, but had no use for a derelict Roman city. However, there was a Roman church building in the area where the abbey would later be founded, and a Saxon church was built over the Roman church.
Early in the 12th century, King Henry I founded St Mary’s Abbey, building the chancel on the site of the Roman and Saxon churches. About 1130, Abbot Serlo arrived with a community of canons to set up residence .
The abbey’s construction was a massive project continuing throughout the 12th century. To fund the ambitious undertaking, Henry I and his successors, Henry II and Richard I, granted the abbey revenues and privileges, such as exemption from tolls, access to commerce, and timber and stone for construction. Henry II allowed the abbey the revenues and control of the town (or ‘vill’) of Cirencester around 1155, initiating centuries of friction with the local townspeople. The abbey church was consecrated in 1176 in the presence of King Henry II and several bishops, but building work on the cloisters, refectory, dormitories, and the abbot’s house continued for many more years.
The result of all this effort was the most wealthy and influential Augustinian abbey in the Kingdom. The abbey flourished through its ownership of very large estates in the Cotswolds and an important role in the very profitable medieval wool trade.
Dissolution
The townspeople repeatedly asked the Crown to grant them a borough charter, but this was consistently and strongly opposed by the abbots. In the end, Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries ended with the destruction of the abbey and the confiscation of much of its wealth and property. A Royal Commisioner, Robert Southwell arrived in the town on 19th December 1539 to receive the surrender from the last abbot, John Blake. There was no resistance, and the abbot and monks received pensions, but the buildings were torn down and everything of value was sold off.
Religion or faith?
As with so many JHM articles, as I write I am deeply struck by the huge gulf between religion (usually a very worldly affair as in the history of Cirencester Abbey) and faith (with its basis not so much in what we think as in who we are and how we live.) The distinction is essential if we are to live full lives, discovering who Jesus is and why he matters so much.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome!
Entering the long gone wooden gate you would have seen the potting shed on the left and beds edged with lightweight breeze blocks and filled with crushed clinker on the right. This was the standing area for the Alpine plants propagated at Watermoor. (1940)
July 2025 (3 months before publishing this article)
Click pics to enlarge
Book cover
I was invited to share some material from my short book ‘Jesus, Disciple, Misson, Church’ (JDMC) with the Small Group I meet with on Tuesday evenings. This is a discussion group belonging to Cirencester Baptist Church (CBC). On 1st July we worked through the first two sections of the introduction, ‘Working together in six ways’. And the following week we worked through the third and fourth parts. Everyone seemed to think this was a useful exercise and I found it most encouraging.
Most weeks, Donna and I visited our neighbour, George, in Dursley Hospital. We also took Donna’s Mum, Isobel, for a four-day break at a Warners Hotel near Hereford (Holme Lacy House Hotel). And we bought a second-hand electric car which we’re calling ‘Erik’. All our cars get a name, and because this one is a Nissan Leaf the connection is ‘Leif Erikson‘.
Thames
We went for a walk along the Thames near Lechlade, starting from Buscot Weir. It was a pleasant stroll on a really nice day. Not an adventure or a long walk, but a lovely ramble. The river meanders a lot here, and so does the footpath as it stays close to the river all the way.
JHM: I wrote on the apostolic gift; and an old house in Cirencester. World events: Israeli aircraft struck the Presidential Palace and the General Staff headquarters in Syria; and a strong earthquake off the coast of Kamchatka, triggered tsunami warnings in Japan and Hawaii.
One day, walking into Cirencester along the busy Gloucester Road, we spotted this cinnabar moth having a rest on the footpath. It had no idea how much danger it was in. We might easily have stepped on it, so we moved it on and it fluttered around and settled on a nearby lime tree where it would be safe.
This was the moth’s second danger recently. It seems to have brushed against a spider’s web. The grey mass behind its head looks like tangled, sticky spider silk, so perhaps two lucky escapes in one day.
The Old Prison
We took Donna’s Mum out for coffee and a light meal at The Old Prison at Northleach. And we met Paul and Vanessa at Frampton on Severn for a circular walk. Their two black Labradors, Marple and Maizi are too old to join in these days, but they’re OK to be left sleeping at home for a few hours.
And at the end of the month we took Isobel to a hospital appointment in Gloucester and while she was waiting Donna and I visited Gloucester Docks nearby.
I had my flu and COVID jab early this month. We drove to Nottingham for Roger Owen’s 80th birthday party, Roger and Carolyn are good friends from our time in St Neots. There were many old friends from the Small Group that they ran and it was fun to meet everyone again.
It was disppointing to hear that the Internet Archive went down because of a denial of service attack. Why would anybody do that? it soon returned for searches, but it was a few weeks before data could be uploaded again. Our gas heating boiler failed towards the end of the month and would have cost almost £1000 to repair so we decided to buy a heat pump instead as there’s still a good government grant available.
Rafflesia in flower
Beth and Paz came down for an overnight visit, lovely to see them as always. At the end of the month we spent a day in Oxford, and, the Oxford Botanic Garden had a Rafflesia in flower ‘Stinking corpse flower’, though thankfully it was not in its stinking phase. The only other time I’ve seen one of these was during a forest walk in Thailand.
JHM: I wrote about the Spelga Dam in the Mountains of Mourne; and the need to go out and deep as Jesus did. World events: Iran attacked Israel with ballistic missiles; and The Europa Clipper spacecraft was launched to investigate Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter.
I started walking regularly with two friends, Al and Phil, in part this was an exercise (no pun intended) to help Al improve his fitness. On 19th we walked near Miserden in pouring rain and muddy conditions, but thoroughly enjoyed it.
Mop fair
The annual Mop fair came to Cirencester as it does every October, the streets in and around the Market Place are filled with rides, stalls, people, noise and colour as well as the familiar and evocative aroma of diesel generators, candy floss and close-packed crowds. I remember Mop as a child when warmth from the thousands of incandescent light bulbs was tangible. The name ‘Mop’ goes back to the days long ago when it was the annual hiring fair. It would have been the time and place to engage domestic servants or staff for businesses; and people would have gathered to look for work.
Donna’s Uncle Ken died this month after a long battle with Parkinsons. This left Donna’s Mum with only two remaining close family members, her daughter (Donna) and her son (Paul).
Paul and Vanessa went to Bath for a weekend break so we drove down to Weston-super-Mare with Isobel to look after the two dogs. Maizi and Marple were young in 2020 and were very ambitious in picking up sticks to carry home. As they aged later in their lives they chose smaller and smaller sticks, eventually seeming perfectly happy with a short twig.
Walking with Phil and Judith
We drove to Bibury and met our friends Phil and Judith for a short walk. We followed a stone track to Oxhill Wood, then turned right to come out near Bibury Court Hotel. Afterwards we had coffee and a bite to eat at the tent restaurant by the trout farm. COVID is getting more manageable, for example the possibility of walking with friends and eating out in well ventilated places. Businesses are beginning to explore way of working with the remaining restrictions in place.
There was a heavy hailstorm on 28th October, some of the hailstones were the largest I’ve ever seen.
Peter and Dadka were living in our spare bedroom, sharing our kitchen and shower. They were both Slovakian and had been struggling financially and in other ways as well. But things brightened for them a bit as Peter had just obtained a job driving a ready-mix cement wagon. It was hard work, but it was a secure job and reasonably well paid too. Hopefully it seemed their financial position might start to improve and they could look for a bed-sit or a small flat of their own.
East Anglia Regiment
On 20th October, the East Anglia Regiment visited St Neots to receive the freedom of the town; the band and a small group of soldiers marched with rifles and fixed bayonets from Huntingdon Street and along the High Street into the Market Square for the ceremony. I took some photos on my phone and there was cheering and clapping from the townsfolk.
JHM: I posted an article on Stone Ivy. World events: A series of suicide bombings killed at least 100 people at a peace rally in Ankara, Turkey; and Hurricane Patricia became the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere.
Donna and I went along to some of the meetings at The Father’s Heart Conference at the King’s Arms Church in Bedford. There were some good things, but overall I didn’t find it particularly useful. It reminded me once more about the difficulties faced by ‘big’ church and the events that people get excited about. But life is not so much about big events as it is about the humbler things in life. All sorts of things fit this humbler category, including the very tiny garden snail moving along a matchstick in the photo with a £2 coin for scale. Click the image for a larger view, so amazing!
Meeting friends at Cornerstone
At the third Cornerstone Directors Meeting, there was a lot of talk about high costs and food wastage, and about staff requirements. Paul was rather defensive, promising that several requirements were in the pipeline but not yet fully achieved. Most of us felt everything was a bit out of control.
I helped some friends from New Zealand move house in Southgate, London. They’ve been in the UK for quite some time now and plan to return soon, some older, grown up, children live in New Zealand but a younger son and daughter are here in the UK.
We visited Southwold on the Suffolk coast. It’s a lovely little town and our friends Ken and Gayna had a house not far away in the village of Yoxford (though they lived at the time in Perry, not very far from St Neots). Athough Southwold is a delightful little seaside town with some lovely features, I always feel a little disoriented on the east coast; being western born and bred I expect the sun to set over the sea, not rise over it in the mornings!
Intranet site archives
At Unilever Colworth, I was busy archiving all the Web Team’s servers as everything was being migrated to new systems that we would not be managing ourselves. It seemed a good precaution to capture everything on long term storage first, so if there were any issues we could easily repair them. I don’t think we ever needed those archive disks.
We dropped in to see my Mum and Dad on our way to visit Beth and Paz who were living in Axbridge at the time. Paz and I went out to look around Shapwick Heath National Nature Reserve where there’s a replica section of the Sweet Track and some Iron Age buildings.
Iron Age roundhouse
An Iron Age roundhouse was easy to build but very effective in Britain’s wet, temperate climate. A series of stout poles inserted into the soil supported the walls and roof, the walls were woven from willow or hazel and then plastered with mud and straw, and smoke from the central firepit escaped through the thatch (you can see this in the photo, click the thumbnail for a clearer view).
World events: Mass demonstrations in Belgrade led to Slobodan Milošević‘s resignation; and an Intercity 225 express train derailed in Hatfield, killing four and injuring many others.
Judy was facing several issues. She was clearly retaining fluids and her feet were swollen and puffy. She was receiving great care from her GP at Yatton Surgery (today, Mendip Vale Medical Practice). I was beginning to feel she needed someone around more of the time so was planning to ask for more time away from work. Our 25th wedding anniversary fell on 3rd so we had visits from both sets of parents. Paul, Jenny, Tony and Faith came to visit too and we talked about Alan and Dorothy joining us on 6th to pray for Judy and anoint her with oil. In the end they didn’t appear, but did so at a later date.
On 12th, Judy began taking small doses of morphine to help her sleep more comfortably and there were signs of her liver struggling a bit, blood albumin levels were low as a result.
Things were difficult in the LARS Computing Section too. We were overworked, needing to get Windows 95 out to the users and working correctly with the NT server. The Institute of Arable Crops Research (IACR), of which Long Ashton Research Station (LARS) was a part, wanted to take control of our computing facilities; but LARS was also the Department of Agriculture of Bristol University, and they were offering us a different route for our networking needs.
World events: The discovery was announced of the planet 51 Pegasi b, the first confirmed extrasolar planet around an ordinary main-sequence star; and O. J. Simpson was found not guilty of double murder in a criminal trial.
Mum and Dad drove to Yatton to visit us for the day, bringing four nieces and nephews with them (Gavin, Rebecca, Dan and Rosie). We went with them to Bristol’s Museum of Transport and enjoyed a good look around, inside and out. The weather was reasonable too and it was a great day out together.
Cleaning the run
But life is not all museum visits with friends and family, there are always chores to be done as well. Debbie and Beth were always very good about this aspect of having pets. We all did our bit; Guinea pigs (Debbie and Beth), hamsters (Beth), cockatiel (Beth), budgies (Judy and me), cat – mostly feeding and grooming (Judy, Debbie, Beth). In the second photo Beth is cleaning out the guinea pig run.
World events: Tim Berners-Lee began building the World Wide Web; and the first McDonald’s restaurant in Mainland China opened in Shenzhen.
The event of the month, if not of the entire year, was Princess Anne’s visit to Long Ashton Research Station (LARS) to officially open the new Hirst Laboratory. I had an office in this building as Microcomputing Manager towards the end of my time at LARS. The photo shows an equerry or some other functionary, Princess Anne, and Professor Hirst, the retired Director after whom the Lab was named. His replacement, Professor Treharne, was out of the shot further to the right.
Part of the crowd
The second photo shows onlookers, a mix of LARS staff and their families as well as some people from the village. Debbie and Beth are in this shot too.
World events: The cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked in the Mediterranean by Palestinian terrorists; and NASA’s Space Shuttle Atlantis flew for the first time.
Mum and Dad bought a painting by Adrian Hill, these days it hangs in Beth and Paz’s home in York; unfortunately I don’t have a good photo of it to use here, but I do have a copy of the receipt so I can say that they bought it in October 1980 in Chedworth and this is the business card of the supplier.
I have very little material for this month. Judy and I were living at 22 Rectory Drive, Yatton. Debbie was five and Beth was two. Judy was at home with the girls on weekdays and I was researching pollen and pollen tube growth at Long Ashton Research Station. As I recall, we had no car at this stage and I was cycling or motor cycling to work during the week.
World events:Jim Callaghan announced his resignation as leader of the Labour Party; and the most recent atmospheric nuclear weapons test to date was conducted by China.
We visited Mum and Dad in Cirencester a little after our fifth wedding anniversary and I took a little time out to walk around the town with my camera. This is the front of the old Cirencester Workhouse, no longer in use at that time, of course. Today it’s used as the District Council offices. The photo dates to 26th October 1975 and is one of a stereo pair.
Judy and Mary
Our next door neighbours in the end-of-terrace house next to us were Mike and Mary Low, In the photo Judy and Mary are looking through some photos together.
Our wedding went well on 3rd October; I regret not being able to share a photo or two, I have them safely somewhere but I’m quite unable to locate them at present.
I can share a funny story from that day, however. We had avoided getting our car ‘decorated’ by our college friends by parking it some distance away and getting Judy’s Dad to drive us to the car after the reception. So we were already heading off for our honeymoon well before anyone was able to locate the car. With confetti down our necks and scattered all around, it seemed like a good idea to pop in to Churnside in Cirencester, let ourselves in (everyone was still in Cheltenham), get rid of the confetti, and then continue to Bournemouth where we planned to stay for a week. Unfortunately I forgot to pick up my car keys as we left the house.
I borrowed a ladder from Brian Bennett at Bennett’s Garage just a few steps along the road, got back into the house through my bedroom window, picked up the keys, returned the ladder, and we were back on the road in short order.
There was no need to book in advance in those days. We simply drove into Bournemouth until we spotted a guest house we liked the look of with a ‘Vacancies’ sign displayed. We went in, they showed us a room and gave us a price, we asked what their best price would be if we took the room for a week, and that was it. Simple! It wouldn’t work today, would it?
Corfe Castle
We explored Bournemouth fairly thoroughly, visited the famous Beaulieu car museum, spent a day on the Isle of Wight (Judy took the photo above while I was driving our car onto the ferry), and looked at Corfe Castle.
I had a message during the week to phone Long Ashton Research Station and they offered me a job in the willow department; starting on the following Monday, that was an enormous relief. So after our honeymoon, we drove to Bristol (visiting Salisbury and Avebury on the way) and visited Long Ashton on the Sunday evening. I rang the bell of the house where I’d lived with a bunch of other students during my industrial sandwich period in 1969. My old landlady opened the door and gave me a big smile when she saw who it was, but she also told me that they’d stopped taking guests. However, she kindly offered to give us a room for a few days while we looked for a bedsit in Bristol. Another big relief!
I began my first full-time job on Monday morning, while Judy took the car into Bristol to start looking for a bedsit. After drawing a series of blanks, an agency in Park Street said they had a suitable place up on the Downs, it was a big, three story house on Linden Road, number 59 I think. It was two rooms on the first floor with a bathroom and loo shared with a similar pair of rooms on the same floor. It was vacant so we took it and were able to move over from Long Ashton right away. I still remember the landlord, a Mr Bird; he came to collect the rent once a week. We had a furnished bedroom and sitting room, a big cupboard that opened out to reveal a tiny kitchen, a car, and I had a monthly salary. We felt great, and excited for the future.
Within a few days Judy had found a temporary job working at one of the Broadmead department stores, either Lewis’s or Jones’s. They needed extra staff over Christmas and the New Year period. The extra income made a big difference to our finances and we began saving, knowing that we would need a deposit for a mortgage eventually. During the next few weeks she began looking for a job as a newly graduated biochemist and soon found work as a lab assistant at Bristol University Biochemisty Department in Woodland Road to start in the spring term. Dr Tanner (Mike Tanner) was studying one of the proteins in the human erythrocyte membrane.
World events: A Khmer Republic was proclaimed in Cambodia, escalating the Civil War ; and the Soviet Union launched the Zond 8 lunar probe.
I was in the lower sixth form at Cirencester Grammar School (CGS) and it was interesting to make a start on Chemistry, Physics, and Biology A levels. I had not been able to cover Biology at O level so had some catching up to do, Physics became more mathematical than I’d expected, and Organic Chemistry was way harder than the inorganic studies at O level. But my teachers were good, especially ‘Pop’ Green who taught us Biology. He stood no nonsense, but he was a lot of fun and very helpful to anyone who wanted to learn and showed a real interest in the subject. I took these photos in 1966, but everything looked just the same in 1965.
My sister Cindy turned 14-years-old at the beginning of the month, Ruth and Rachael were 9 and 8 respectively, and I was already 17 and taking my first steps in learning to drive. It was easy in those days, I applied for a provisional driving licence and received it quite quickly, then we put L plates on the car and Dad took me out to the disused Chedworth Airfield to learn the first steps of clutch, accelerator, footbrake and steering and once he felt I was safe enough, he took me on quiet roads to get used to traffic. Meanwhile I studied the Highway Code to learn the theory aspects, the meanings of various road signs, stopping distances and their relationship to road speed and so forth.
CGS Sports Field
Judy and I continued to grow closer and spent a lot of time in free periods talking about every imaginable topic, in cold weather we would lean on one of the radiators in the Wooden Corridor to stay warm while we talked. We didn’t hold the same views on everything, but that just made it more interesting. I was also reading about science, buying the monthly magazine ‘Science Journal’ which was a UK publication similar in many ways to the American magazine ‘Scientific American’. I was very interested in electronics and the early computers, also the American and Russian space programs as well as European efforts to build a launcher. The European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) was trying to cobble together the British Blue Streak ballistic missile, the French Coralie as the second stage, and a smaller German vehicle as the third stage to reach low Earth orbit (LEO). This programme proved unsuccessful.
Judy introduced me to classical music, something that had passed me by before we met. When I was younger, Dad was into jazz, particularly the piano solos of Jelly Roll Morton, Earl Hines and most of all, those of Fats Waller. He played many of them rather well on the upright piano we had at home. And Mum liked much of the popular music of the day, especially anything by Danny Kaye. But neither of them had been into classical stuff. Judy and I both enjoyed some of the popular groups (not ‘bands’ in the 1960s) of our own day. I was very much into The Shadows and, to be perfectly honest, I still am.
World events: Fidel Castro announced that Che Guevara had resigned and left Cuba; and the 7 Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross and Red Crescent were adopted at the XX International Conference in Vienna, Austria.
This was the start of my second year at Cirencester Grammar School, my sisters were younger than me and still at junior school. The exercise book was from my first year, carries the Grammar School Crest, and the book’s been initialled by my maths teacher to show it’s full; the school office issued new books, but only if they’d been initialled by a teacher. Click the image for a closer look.
The exercise books were coloured to indicate the subject, this one is green for maths, rough books were dark blue, geography was orange, history was a dark maroon and so on.
World events:Nigeria became independent from the United Kingdom and the 99th member of the UN; and a large rocket exploded on the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, killing at least 92 staff of the Soviet space program.
My sister, Cindy, turned four at the beginning of the month, and at seven-years-old I had already begun my third year at Junior school. We were advancing to more challenging tasks, taking dictation was one of these and although the vocabulary remained simple, there were potential pitfalls. I remember being puzzled when having been careful to use a capital E for a person’s name, it was crossed out as being wrong. The sentence was something like, ‘The fair was coming to town and he had thought of little Else all day.’ Surely if her name was ‘Else’ she deserved a capital?
Jill’s message
The images show the front and back of a postcard from my cousin (also my godmother), Jill. She was grown up, about 18 or so at this time, and was teaching English to the daughter of a French family in Morocco. They were visiting Paris and she thoughtfully sent me the postcard. (Click the images to enlarge them.) (I have no images from October, the card is probably from August.)
World events:Sun Myung Moon was released from prison in South Korea; and 70-mm film was introduced for cinema projection, with the release of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical, Oklahoma!.
This photo is from the Facebook ‘Old Ciren’ group (it’s definitely October and must be a year not far from 1950). Local people, especially children and young adults, look forward to the fair and certainly have a good time. As you can see, Mop takes over the entire Market Place. My memories of Mop as a child include the sound of diesel generators, warmth from the many light bulbs in use, the mixture of smells (diesel fumes, candy floss, fried onions and so on, the noise of the crowds and the shouts of the people managing the attractions (Roll up, roll up).
I probably didn’t witness Mop in 1950, I was only 2¼ years old, but I might have been carried down or taken in the pram by Mum and Dad.
World events: China began the process of annexing Tibet, beginning by invading across the Jinsha River and seizing the border town of Chamdo; and the USA’s FCC issued the first license to broadcast television in colour.
Mike received inoculations and then visited Bombay (Mumbai) with some friends and was emphatically unimpressed. He met a sergeant he’d known from his time at Ballinderry in Northern Ireland. The toing and froing of letters with Lilias and with Dad’s family in Cirencester continued, and he had photos taken at a booth in the bazaar and sent one to Lilias.
On 10th he had a bad headache, felt rotten on 11th, and reported sick on 12th. By 14th he was feeling normal apart from some mouth ulcers that persisted for several days. He left hospital on 18th despite a temperature of 100 F (37.8 C).
Santa Cruz
On the 19th he was given work as a lorry driver – Driver Mechanical Transport (DMT). Then on 21st he was posted to Santa Cruz, a nearby RAF airfield where he met someone he knew from Ashton Keynes as well as someone from Stroud and a man from Sampson’s Nurseries! He was seeing films at the station cinema, and practising cricket while waiting to start his new role. His first driving practice was taking a 3-ton Chevrolet around the airfield perimeter track on a meals run. By the end of the month he was driving quite regularly and teaching himself to change down to a lower gear correctly.
So that was a fairly slow-paced start to Dad’s RAF service in India, and a strange way to employ an experienced radar operator!
There’s not enough information to write something for every month in the 1940s. Dad’s diaries start in January 1943, so for January 1940 to December 1942 I’ll write about things I know, or draw on dated photos and documents. Sometimes I might use a photo or document with a guessed date.
Continuing the nursery theme, this time I’ll describe Watermoor Nursery. When I was growing up Watermoor was the place where Dad spent most of his time, he was the foreman at Watermoor during those years, before taking on responsibility for all of the nurseries in due course. What do I remember about Watermoor in those days? I suspect it had changed very little from 1940 until the 1950s when I first remember it.
Perhaps the first thing to say is that before Cirencester’s ring road was built in the 1980s, Watermoor Road used to continue along what is now Watermoor End, heading south-east towards Cricklade and, eventually Swindon and Marlborough. This was the line of the old Roman Ermin Street. If you visit Watermoor End and walk right down to the Ring Road (Bristol Road at this point) you’ll notice the old pub on the right at the end stands at a strange angle (it’s marked on the map as ‘The Horse & Drill’). Cricklade Road, now the other side of Bristol Road, continues along the line of the Roman Road and you can follow it, straight as a die, past Tesco Extra and on beyond Tesco where it’s fenced off. It’s still a footpath so walk through the fence and continue. All of this was once known as the Swindon Road. You can see the details on the map.
Returning to that old pub at an odd angle, it was built to respect the line of Watermoor Road, a junction to the right off what is now Watermoor End. You can follow the old Watermoor Road from the southern side of Bristol Road, and when you reach Rose Way on your left you are more or less at the old entrance to what was once Watermoor Nursery. Entering the long-gone wooden gate you would have seen the potting shed on the left and beds edged with lightweight breeze blocks and filled with crushed clinker on the right. This was the standing area for the Alpine plants propagated at Watermoor. The main track ran ahead from the gate to the Swindon Road gate at the far end. Both sides of this track (especially the left hand side) were filled with row after row of herbaceous perennials which would be lifted and split in the winter months, packed in moist soil and straw for insulation, wrapped in sacking, and sold as bare-rooted plants to be collected from the nursery or despatched by road, rail or post to distant customers, or delivered by van along with other plants, cut flowers, wreaths, seeds, garden sundries and chemicals in Cirencester and the local villages, often by my Dad.
On the left of the track, at the Swindon Road end, was the carter’s cottage. Up until the end of the Second World War a horse and cart were used for local deliveries. The Horse was stabled at Tower Street Nursery. There was a story that the carter sometimes stopped at a pub for refreshment on his long delivery round, and that if he drank too much he would doze off afterwards while driving, but the horse knew the customary route and would plod along without any need for guidance. Companies like Tesla and Waymo are trying to perfect vehicles than can drive themselves, perhaps they just need a well-trained horse! I suppose you’d need a different horse for each route, so that might be an insurmountable issue. The carter’s cottage was still there when I moved back to Cirencester in 2016; it’s since been demolished to make way for several new houses. The carter’s vegetable garden made it a reasonable-sized building plot. You can see the cottage and its garden on the map, in the northern corner of the nursery.
I remember Miss Brown (Rosemary, I think) who was Dad’s assistant at Watermoor. And in the calm, warm days of summer time I remember thousands of butterflies making the most of the flowers on the herbaceous stock plants. The air seemed to shimmer with them – large and small tortoiseshells, painted ladies, red admirals, peacocks and much, much more. In the summer, our house always had vases of flowers, cut at Watermoor and brought home by Dad.
You can view the map in full online, the area was surveyed and mapped by Ordnance Survey between 1892 and 1947.
Siddington in 2021
World events: Adolf Hitler made a Berlin Sportpalast speech declaring that Germany would make retaliatory night air raids on British cities and threatening invasion; the Blitz began on 7th September and although tough for civilians and ruinous to cities, it probably saved the RAF from collapse and an invasion of Britain never became feasible.
Anything that appears in this section will have some connection with the 1930’s but may extend beyond the decade to follow a meaningful topic more fully.
This time I thought I might take a more general look at the Jefferies family living in Cirencester in the 1930s. The family hub was ‘Churnside’, an Edwardian semi-detatched property at 37 Victoria Road. My grandparentswere Mr and Mrs Edward Arthur Jefferies, my grandmother was born Norah Monger and had two sisters. They had the house built, probably shortly before they were married, living in the right hand part and renting out the left half. I remember Mrs Morgan who lived there when I was a child, and later Mr and Mrs Handy and their family. I believe the house was built on land once belonging to Cirencester Abbey which owned a good deal of agricultural land around the town. It might later have been owned by the Chestermaster family and/or the Bathurst estate before being sold for town expansion. Before New Road was built (later renamed Victoria Road) the land was probably used as grazing for sheep, cattle, and perhaps horses. It was low lying land with the River Churn running along the eastern edge (hence the name ‘Churnside’). When Purley Road was built in the 1920s or ’30s, the fact that ‘Churnside’ was beside the River Churn became a great deal less obvious, but the name stuck. As far as I know, this semi-detached pair of homes was one of the first properties built on this side of New Road. My grandfather, Ted or the Guv’ner, and my grandmother Nor, were quite well off. I remember they had a black Wolsley car and a chauffer, Cooper, to drive it. They also had a live-in maid to help with the household chores and not only did they have a reasonably large garden, but also a further plot, the ‘Lower Garden’ in Purley Road was purchased for use as tennis courts and later, during World War 2, a chicken run and then finally a fruit and vegetable garden. I remember helping Grandpa feed the chickens. That gives you some idea of the Jefferies family and their lifestyle in the 1930s.
Cleaning the office
The business hub was at 2 Castle Street, now the Vodafone shop in the Market Place. The phone number was Cirencester 2 (Cirencester 1 was the Post Office, also in Castle Street), with private extensions to each of the nurseries. At this time the post office was happy to provide external extensions like this for any business that asked for them. When I was a child there was a small automatic exchange in the company’s main office. Previously, one of the office staff would have connected the extensions manually. The building housed a florist’s and garden shop downstairs with storage below in the cellar, there were offices upstairs, and on the second storey the landscape design department with enormous garden plans rolled up or pinned out on drawing boards. I don’t have a photo of the shop in the 1930s, but this one shows it being cleaned in the summer of 1962.
Dad was born in 1926, almost an afterthought following his older brothers born in 1907, 1910 and 1912. During the second world war John and Robert (Bob) joined the army while Richard (Dick) signed up for the navy. All three joined as officers. Mike signed up for the RAF as soon as he was old enough (in 1944). So towards the end of the 1930s running the family business fell entirely to my grandfather.
World events (October 1935): The Turkish government abolished all Masonic lodges in the country. (October 1930): The British airship R101, the world’s largest flying craft, crashed in France en route to India, 48 lives were lost.
As with the 1930s material, everything in this section will have a connection of some kind with these two decades.
Probably few people reading this will know that there was another branch of the Jefferies family, also running a nursery business, but in Lancashire. As far as I’m aware there was no connection between the two businesses, but there is a family connection.
John Edward Jefferies was born in October 1886 and ran his nursery business in the Stockport area. His second son, also John Jefferies continued running the business though the rest of the family went into teaching, the British Gas accounts department, and research (first with Glaxo-Welcome and later at Salford University’s Chemistry Department.
The John Jefferies of Somerford Keynes and later, Cirencester, had a brother. His name was Bradford Jefferies and he was a few years older than John. Bradford had two sons also called Bradford, though one died in infancy. The surviving Bradford’s uncle was therefore the John Jefferies from Cirencester. With me so far? It is a bit convoluted.
This Bradford Jefferies had several children, and one of them (Edward) is the one who ran a nursery business near Stockport. He married and their children were born in the 1920s, one of these, John Anthony Jefferies, continued to run the business . The business was still going in 2022 but I can’t find a recent website for them. They do have an entry on Facebook, however, and various listings on other business directories, though nothing seems to be being updated. I left a message on the Facebook page and had a reply from a member of staff so the company survives. It’s lasted a good deal longer its Cirencester equivalent.
World events(October 1925): John Logie Baird successfully transmitted the first television pictures with a greyscale image. (October 1920): The Polish army captured the Soviet cities of Tarnopol, Dubno, Minsk and Dryssa. (October 1915): In WW1 France, Russia and Italy declared war on Bulgaria. (October 1910):Infra-red photographs were first published. (October 1900): Quantum mechanics began when Max Planck put forward his law of black-body radiation.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome!
Walking through the Corinium Museum is not just a walk through history; it is a pilgrimage into the very nature of human experience. These mosaics remind me that we are connected to the past not just by shared geography, but by shared themes of life, art, and the simple beauty of the world around us.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Walking in Cirencester
Orpheus
Almost every day, I walk over history in Cirencester. My feet tread on pavements, asphalt, and concrete, a modern tapestry built over layers of forgotten lives. But in Cirencester, the past isn’t merely buried beneath; it is visible to view, laid out in small, colourful cubes of stone or painted wall plaster. At the Corinium Museum, the mosaics of Roman Corinium offer more than just archaeological wonder; they invite a journey into the heart and mind of a world long gone.
Corinium
The Roman town of Corinium Dobunnorum was one of the most important settlements in Britain, second only to Londinium. This prosperity is captured in the magnificent mosaic floors that once adorned the villas and townhouses of its elite. As I stand before them, they cease to be mere objects of a museum. Instead, they become stories frozen in time, each tiny tessera a word in a sentence, each panel a vibrant, geometric chapter.
Sometimes we see things indirectly, and our brains are capable of retrieving far more information than you might at first think. It’s true of all our senses – hearing, touch, taste, smell and all the rest. The senses provide information but the brain makes much more of it all.
The hare
The hare
There is the famous Hare mosaic, found in Beeches Road and now a quiet emblem of our town. The artistry captivates the mind: a small hare caught in a moment of simple, vulnerable life, feeding amongst the foliage. When I look at it, I feel a curious resonance. We are so used to seeing animals in art as symbols of strength or the spoils of the hunt. Yet here is a humble creature, a snapshot of everyday nature from the fourth century. It reminds me that even in a grand Roman villa, the small, quiet moments of life were still observed and valued. It’s a message that travels two millennia, from one human heart to another.
The seasons
The Seasons mosaic presents another journey entirely. Here, Greek myth and a Roman love of the seasons mingle in intricate detail. But what strikes me is the continuity of it all. The cycle of winter pruning, spring planting, summer harvesting, and autumn gathering was as central to life then as the changing seasons are to us today. The mosaic is a reminder that some rhythms of existence are eternal, transcending the rise and fall of empires. It connects us to a shared human experience of time, of labour, and of nature’s relentless, beautiful cycle.
Orpheus
Perhaps the most poignant is the Orpheus mosaic (image at the top of the article), which once decorated a grand house just outside the town. In the centre, Orpheus charms wild animals with his music. This isn’t a scene of violent conquest, but of tranquil harmony, of nature tamed by art. In our own divided and turbulent world, the image speaks to a timeless desire for unity and peace. The mosaic suggests that art has the power to bring disparate parts of the world together, if only for a moment.
Walking through the Corinium Museum is not just a walk through history; it is a pilgrimage into the very nature of human experience. These mosaics remind me that we are connected to the past not just by shared geography, but by shared themes of life, art, and the simple beauty of the world around us. And as I step back out onto the modern pavement of Cirencester, I can imagine the ancient tesserae still underfoot, a solid reminder of the stories that lie beneath.
I didn’t write this article
OK, it’s confession time. I asked Google’s AI to write this article for me. I’ve made a few minor tweaks and edits, but that’s all. The prompt I provided wasn’t complex either. Here it is:
Write an article for ‘Journeys of Heart and Mind’ on Corinium mosaics. Follow the style and structure of existing articles.
Those twenty words resulted in this article. All you need to do is visit gemini.google.com and write a request like that, and the AI will write an answer for you. You don’t have to install anything or pay for anything, just type the request and press ‘Enter’. Give it a try! Type in ‘Write ten verses in the style of Wordsworth about laptops’ and see what comes out.
In some ways I think the AI did a better job than I would have done, but if I’d written it, it would have been me – and this isn’t! Where AI can help is to do some of the necessary research and perhaps create a first draft. But beyond that, my advice is to keep it human.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome!
By the end of the month they were in a Bombay transit camp and able to visit the city, armed now with Rupees in place of the sterling cash they’d handed in aboard the ship. (1945)
June 2025 (3 months before publishing this article)
Click pics to enlarge
Jim and Kevin
We had a visit from our friends Jim and Kevin from St Neots. They were on their way to a meeting in Swindon and needed to pass nearby, so decided to travel early and visit us for lunch. We enjoyed the food at The Greyound in Siddington, sitting out in their garden.
Donna’s laptop failed, it booted into the BIOS but didn’t list the hard drive as present, so I assumed it was a corrupt BIOS or some faulty memory. It turned out to be a faulty memory chip soldered on the motherboard so it couldn’t be repaired and she had to replace it. She bought a Lenovo with an Intel Core i5 chip and is very pleased with it.
The flower show
We visited Avebury and checked out some EVs in Swindon on the way home, and we spent a day at Blenheim Palace to see the flower show and the Churchill Museum.
On the last day of the month we bought a 2-year-old Nissan Leaf EV from Cinch in Bristol. So we’ve finally gone electric! We weren’t able to drive away with it, but we paid the money and got the paperwork under way for collection a few days later.
Donna dropped me off at the Daneway Inn and I walked the canal from the Daneway tunnel portal to the locks at Siddington, and then back along the Cirencester arm and home. Including some diversions to see other parts of the canal, I walked about 15 miles in all.
The political situation in the world remained very strange. I was trying to come to terms with the dreadful (and very unpresidential) outburst in the White House against Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy; but on the good side, it seemed that European nations including the UK were becoming more alert to the dangers posed by Russia under President Putin and at last we were preparing to defend ourselves should that become necessary.
Colombia
Our grandson, Aidan, set out on a South American adventure and was on the north coast of Columbia by the end of the month. He flew to New York and spent a few days there, then a second flight took him to Bogota and he bussed north to the Colombian Caribbean coast where he took this photo. Much more of the continent lies ahead for him to explore.
The crazy tangle of roots after removal from our drains
Our drains started making gurgling noises and there was a bad smell in the upstairs bathroom, when I lifted an inspection cover on the patio, I found it was full of roots, but after removing them the problems were immediately resolved with even more gurgling.
Visiting Anglesey Abbey
We visited St Neots to see friends and explored Anglesey Abbey, one of our favourite National Trust sites in the area.
For the first half of the month we were in Weston-Super-Mare. We spent a fair proportion of the time in Grove Park as that’s where the dogs expect to go for exercise and a sniff around each day. Donna was delighted to see Mrs Sqirrel finishing off a banana, close up and quite unafraid. I was able to capture this photo.
With Tony and Faith
We met Tony and Faith in Clarence Park and it was great to chat with them. Dan is in Cambridge these days working as a Fellow at one of the colleges. They are such good friends from a much earlier part of my life so it was a real treat to see them again.
I collected Paul and Vanessa from the railway station in Weston following their Croatian holiday. And back in Stratton, our builder came to look at the job in advance of work starting to insert additional lintels above the existing concrete ones.
My friend Phil and I walked from South Cerney along the route of the Thames and Severn Canal and back along the old railway line. It was an enjoyable walk in good weather and with interesting conversation along the way for good measure. A thoroughly enjoyable day.
Coffee in Stroud
Confirmed cases of COVID-19 were still rising, this continued to be an alarming pandemic. On 20th we took Isobel over to Stroud, introducing her to Minchinhampton and Rodborough Commons and the ‘Lock Keeper’s Cafe’ on the canal in Stroud.
Donna and I gave Isobel a Chromebook for her birthday. These desktop devices are cheap and very easy to use but they have limited lifetimes as the Google software becomes more and more demanding. But still, we think it will be far more usable for Isobel than Windows which she’s been struggling with; it’s just too complex, but the Chromebook is simple and easy by comparison.
JHM: I posted a very amusing COVID-19 risk assessment chart; and described an encounter with an elephant hawk moth caterpillar. World events: At 93, Benedict XVI became the longest-lived Pope; and the number of COVID cases worldwide passed 25 million.
Sara’s birthday party was on 5th September this year. She had friends round to the Village Hall in Thorganby where Debbie had arranged for a series of animals to be brought in for stroking, handling and so forth by the children. This was followed by hand washing and the party food and cake with candles.
VHS to DVD
I was copying my old VHS cassettes with family videos on them to DVD to save the contents for future use. Once I had the DVDs it was easy to create ISO files from them to store with all my other family history material. The photo shows the current state of this work on 3rd September.
World events:Elizabeth II had been on the throne for 63 years and 217 days, becoming the longest-reigning British monarch in history; and Gravitational waves were detected for the first time.
We held two Cornerstone Directors Meetings in September, mainly to review the launch and consider what would be needed for the continuing catering and outreach. The meetings did not go smoothly and it became clear that the manager, Paul (who had also provided the funding for the launch) had ideas of his own that didn’t chime well with the rest of us. It was a worrying start to what we’d hoped would be a successful and long term presence of a Christian bookshop and cafe in St Neots. I began taking photos for advertising purposes (see above).
I visited Thorganby for Sara’s birthday, but unfortunately have no photos of the occasion. Jim, Sean and I began meeting with our friend David from New Zealand (working in London). We met in a pub in Watton-at-Stone.
We went on a cruise holiday with Donna’s Mum and Dad aboard the Thomson ‘Emerald’. Initially we flew to Corfu and joined the cruise from there. We left Corfu after nightfall and woke up in Brindisi, Italy. The following day was stormy and rough so we skipped our planned stop at Ravenna and reached Trieste, a truly beautiful city.
Inside a Roman building
The next stop was Venice, and then Split on the Adriatic coast. The Roman Emperor Diocletian built a palace here and the central part of the city is built inside the old palace walls. Several Roman buildings remain partially or completely intact. Next was Dubrovnik and then back to Corfu where we met our old friends Geoff and Dawn before flying back to the UK.
Mum’s arteritis seemed to be coming under control at last. She had been on regular doses of steroids to save her eyesight but now the dose levels were being slowly and cautiously reduced.
Back at work at Unilever, I was helping renew the Colworth Travel website, previously a Lotus Notes system.
World events: Israel demolished multiple settlements and withrew its army from the Gaza strip; and controversial drawings of Muhammad were printed in a Danish newspaper.
We finished redecorating our lounge in September, in a relaxing, cool, pale green colour. Now all that remained was to bring the furniture back in from what used to be the dining room. The decorating took a long time because I restored the surface of the walls first by filling scratches and holes, then hand sanding the filler. After painting it looked as good as if we’d replastered the entire room.
A group of us from Unilever Colworth travelled to Amsterdam to meet colleagues from the Vlaardingen lab and staff from Info.nl, the computing company developing the replacement for WebForum for us (probably to be called Research onLine).
Roman Londinium
At the end of the month I visited the Museum of London where Roman Londinium was illustrated by reconstructions and models. The photo shows a Roman ship at the quayside in the Roman town.
World events: The Nokia 3310 mobile phone was released; and Microsoft released the Windows Me operating system.
Judy worked hard on collating and indexing her collection of photos. The meetings with Tony, Faith, Paul and Jenny were going well by this time. on 16th the six of us ate at Tony and Faith’s, and at Paul and Jenny’s on 22nd. We hosted sometimes as well. and afterwards we always had an outstanding meeting.
Lynmouth
We met Cindy and Paul at Dyrham Park on 17th and ate cream teas in the Orangery; Judy’s NHS loan wheelchair arrived on 20th and we used it to give her an outing to Lynmouth for a stroll a few days later.
It was getting steadily more difficult to treat Judy’s pain so her GP put her on an improved pain management routine; it seemed to work really well for which we were both very grateful.
I was working at Long Ashton Research Station (LARS) in a PC support role and was just starting to look at networking Windows 95 using the Microsoft networking software instead of Trumpet Winsock. LARS was sounding enthusiastic about hosting my Microscopy web pages on the LARS web server.
World events: The Italian ex-Prime Minister, Giulio Andreotti, went on trial accused of Mafia connections; while The Washington Post and The New York Times published the Unabomber Manifesto.
We visited the Bristol Kite Fiesta at Ashton Gate, but it was not a good day for kites as there was insufficient wind to display them well. Everyone did their very best, but it was not quite the spectacle it might have been. Nonetheless we enjoyed our day out in the sunshine and bought a few items, Debbie bought a two-line kite.
Garden party
We also visited Cirencester to spend time with my Mum and Dad, and Bibury, where Cindy and Paul had a big garden party. Fortunately the weather was kind, if it had been wet their house would have been massively overcrowded, I think.
World events: Presidents Bush and Gorbachev meet in Helsinki to discuss the Persian Gulf crisis; and the two German states and the Four Powers signed the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany in Moscow, paving the way for German reunification.
With our holiday over, we began working on the house and garden at Stowey Road after our move from Rectory drive in August. In the photo I’m adjusting the levels where there was a dip in the back grass. There used to be a rhyne here (the local word for a drainage ditch) and the ground had subsided over time.
Walking to school
Debbie and Beth started back at junior school, just a short walk across the road for both of them. Beth was in her first year at junior school while Debbie was already in her fourth year, moving on to secondary school at Backwell in September 1986.
World events: The wreck of the Titanic was located; and a powerful earthquake struck Mexico City killing and injuring tens of thousands of people.
Here are Debbie and Beth riding on the beach donkeys at Weston-super-Mare. Grandad is leading the donkeys. In the background you can see the Beach Hotel and, on the right, part of the grand pier.
Beth, Nana and Debbie
Beth was nearly 2½-years-old and Debbie 5½. Judy was just about to begin a teaching career having earned her qualification before Debbie was born while we were still living in our flat in St Andrew’s, Bristol. I was working at Long Ashton Research Station on fruit crop pollination, and with the Open University summer school behind me, getting back to working through the next topics and submitting assignments.
World events: The Gotthard Road Tunnel opened in Switzerland as the world’s longest highway tunnel, at 16.3 kilometres; and Iraq ordered its army to ‘deliver a fatal blow on Iranian military targets’, starting the Iran–Iraq War.
We visited Mum and Dad in Cirencester during September and went out with them for a walk at the gravel pits near South Cerney. The very poor photo is a still from some 8mm cine taken by Dad while Mum was looking after Debbie. Judy and I were walking along the bank of one of the lakes.
In addition to moving into a new house, we were also beginning to explore the village a bit, find out where to buy bread, groceries, decorating supplies and so forth, get to know our neighbours, and generally get to grips with our new surroundings. We began going along to Horsecastle Chapel at the other end of the village on Sunday mornings and get to know people there, and we began to think seriously about getting baptised.
Judy elected to stay at home to look after Debbie while I carried on working at Long Ashton, despite a promotion to Scientific Officer (SO) we were now less well off and with a monthly mortgage payment to find.
I was beginning to work more completely with Ray Williams’ Pollination Team consisting of Ruth, Myfanwy (Miv), and Val. My old boss Ken and I moved with the others into the Pollination House. Our old offices in the Wallace Lab were taken over by the Electron Microscopy Group under Dr Thomas.
Pete and Cindy went for a boat trip on the Thames, the photo shows Dad and Rachael taking photos just before they drove off from Churnside.
We were both starting to think seriously about what we would do once we were married, the date for that was 3rd October so very rapidly approaching. There were still a few remaining arrangements to make and we spent a little time on that. But our education was over and we had a BSc each. I’d written to Long Ashton Research Station (LARS) to ask if there were any posts available or likely to become available soon, and I drove down for an interview with Ken Stott who ran the Willow department. He was doing some research on growing willow and poplar as sources of biofuel for electricity generation and was looking for a new member of staff to help with girth and height measurements over a period of years to estimate the growth rates under different systems of management. It sounded promising but it would be a few weeks longer before I would hear the result. I’d done a three month industrial sandwich at LARS as part of my degree course, so they already knew me and I hoped that might help. And of course I was also keeping an eye on job openings with the Ministry of Agriculture and other horticultural businesses and organisations, but had found nothing promising so far.
Judy meanwhile was waiting to see when and where I would find work so that she could hunt for something in the same geographical area. She would take anything she could get at first, just a shop job or something like that. We couldn’t even begin looking for a bedsit or small flat until we knew where we’d be based. We’d decided to spend a week in Bournemouth for our honeymoon but couldn’t plan beyond that. Added to that, our savings were very limited.
World events:Jimi Hendrix gave his last public performance, two days before his death; and US President Nixon visited the UK and other European states.
In September my grandparents and Aunt Annabelle were visiting from Ireland. The photo list shows that Dad took some photos at the time. Click the image to read the detail. They visited Blenheim Palace and Coventry Cathedral during their visit.
Following our August adventures in Scotland, the Explorers’ Club held an evening meeting at the Grammar School for parents and other family members to hear all the details. Part of the preparation for this was to draw some very large maps to show the journeys and walks we had done with coastlines, mountain peaks and towns marked clearly. The way this had always been done in the past was to mark a grid of squares on the paper and then copy any lines or shapes we required from the grid squares on the ordnance survey maps of the area. This was time consuming, so I photographed the OS maps on transparency film and we projected the slides onto the large sheets to get more accurate maps with far less time and effort. Mr Castle who led the Explorers’ Club could immediately see the sense of this so the new method was adopted.
I became a bronze prefect at the beginning of term, and part of that role with two other prefects was checking the register every morning for a third form class upstairs in the Red Brick Building. Once the teacher arrived for their first lesson our work for the day was over and we could get along to our own first lesson or, if it was a free period, work in the prefects’ common room. One of the other prefects was Judith Hill, we really liked one another and just over five years later we were married, but that’s the story of how we first met. I have to add that the third years were incredibly hard to manage – and Judy was far better at it than I was. The third team member was Hilary Howell, one of Judy’s best friends and the daughter of my Physics teacher.
I was in the Upper Sixth while Judy was Lower Sixth, but it turned out that we were in the same Zoology classes. Because the Grammar School was only three-form entry (about 90 pupils per year) and because only 30% or so stayed on for sixth form and biology was not a popular A level choice, the A level biology classes were very small, maybe five or six pupils a year. As a result, half the syllabus was taught to Upper and Lower Sixth one year and the other half the following year as this was more efficient use of staff time. So Judy and I were learning the same topics and doing the same practicals in 1965/66. I’d already covered the other half of the syllabus in 1964/65 and Judy would cover that part in 1966/67. It was a bit complicated but it worked well and brought the class size up to ten or twelve.
When it came to practicals, we were asked to choose a partner to work with and I was quick to pair up with Judy since we already knew one another and got on well together. And it was the rat dissection that cemented our relationship, bringing us close physically (essential if you’re sharing a rat – they’re not very large and you need to examine them close up to make drawings and so forth) and bringing us closer as friends as well (doing something practical together always has that effect). So that rat has a lot to answer for! Two daughters in due course as it happens.
(Debbie, Beth, if you’re reading this, a small part of the reason you exist was a yellow-stained rat preserved in formalin! I enjoyed writing that, a hugely amusing sentence to have composed. It’ll keep me chuckling all evening, I dare say.)
World events: The Pakistan Navy destroyed the Indian port of Dwarka; and Pakistani Forces achieved a decisive victory at the Battle of Chawinda, halting an Indian advance and stabilising the front.
Mum and Dad had a visit from Jim Fuller and his wife from Boston in the USA. Jim and Mum were distant relatives. Mum, Dad, Cindy, Ruth and Rachael went out with the Fullers to visit Bibury and some other places in the Cotswolds though I had to go to school (which I was not happy about). But Jim Fuller had an 8 mm cine camera and took some interesting sequences with it. The photo is a still from the film, Jim was behind the camera but you can see Figum the cat, Rachael, Dad, Mum, Cindy, Ruth and Mrs Fuller.
Maths book
The image at left shows a page from my maths exercise book from about September in 1960 (exact date unknown). I was just starting in the 2nd Form at the time.
World events: Two American cryptologists defected to the Soviet Union; and OPEC was founded by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
My third year at Junior school began in September, I was at Querns School and I think I was in Miss Millington’s class. I was a bit scared of Miss Millington, partly because she had a northern accent and I was only used to hearing three accents, local Gloucestershire, County Tyrone (my Mum and my Irish grandparents) and a slightly more upper class English from some of my fellow pupils and also an aunt or uncle here and there. So the short northern ‘a’, and the ‘oo’ in book sounded weird to me. (And weird always seemed a bit alarming.) I often thought of Miss Millington as ‘Barrel buttons’ because she sometimes wore an off-white cardigan that had black buttons like those on a duffle coat, they looked like miniature barrels to me.
This photo is from the Facebook ‘Old Ciren’ group. The Cirencester Town Station building is a Brunel design and still exists (the building’s listed), though stripped of its canopy. A small section of platform remains. The photo is listed on Old Ciren as 1950 but it may not have been taken in September.
I well remember travelling on this branch line, sometimes with my grandmother just for fun to Kemble and back to see the mainline trains hurtling through, sometimes to change to catch the Cheltenham Flyer on its way to London, Paddington with stops at Swindon and Reading.
Of course, in September 1950 I was too young to understand any of this, but I would have been running about and chatting freely with Mum and Dad and no doubt loved to see trains. I had a little clockwork engine that didn’t need rails, it just ran about on the floor until it bumped into the furniture or the skirting board.
World events: The Turing Test was published as ‘the imitation game’; and The comic strip Peanuts was first published in US newspapers.
On 6th Mike left Blackpool and boarded his ship, the RMS Orbita, in Liverpool, they sailed at 11:15 on 7th, and saw the Welsh and Irish coasts. Mike wrote a long letter to Lilias and there was a musical evening on board.
The 9th took them through the Bay of Biscay and they spotted Portuguese fishing vessels along the way. On the next day they saw Lisbon, a sailing ship, and some porpoises, passing Tangiers and Gibraltar into the Mediterranean on 11th. There were various jobs to do including standing guard duty on the officer’s stairway. They started wearing Khaki Drill Uniform on 12th.
The ship passed between Malta and Sicily and they saw both. They stopped at Port Said and then entered the Suez Canal, and at Suez the ship took on fresh supplies and water. By 21st they were sleeping on deck because of the ‘dreadful heat’. By the 23rd they were into the Indian Ocean, finally reaching Bombay (Mumbai) on 28th and by the end of the month they were in a Bombay transit camp and able to visit the city, armed now with Rupees in place of the sterling cash they’d handed in aboard the ship.
There’s not enough information to write something for every month in the 1940s. Dad’s diaries start in January 1943, so for January 1940 to December 1942 I’ll write about things I know, or draw on dated photos and documents. Sometimes I might use a photo or document with a guessed date.
Somerford map
This time I’m going to write about Somerford Nursery. This was in the village of Somerford Keynes and was originally part of the land farmed by the Jefferies family (or perhaps the Gregory’s). But when I first remember it, Somerford Nursery was a piece of land of nearly 18¾ acres (around 7.6 ha) with a house and garden for the foreman. I don’t think all of this land was in use all of the time, some was rented out for grazing, or a hay crop was taken. The foreman I remember best was Roger De Moor, Belgian, always helpful and friendly, and clearly good at propagating and growing nursery stock. The nursery was devoted to ornamental trees and shrubs; Dad was the business’s main nursery manager, overseeing six nurseries, at first helping his brother, Bob, but eventually taking over more or less completely. He did an almost daily round, visiting each nursery in turn, moving plants and other items from one to another as required. Sometimes he would take me along for the ride.
The nursery was accessed along a short track on the east side of the road through the village, with a five-barred farm gate at the end. And then it opened out with beds edged with cinder blocks and filled with potted plants. The foreman’s house was a little to the right and trees and shrubs growing in rows were over towards the left. There were several wells and pumps, mostly already disused by the time I was at school but essential to the business before the Second World War.
You can view the map in full online, the area was surveyed and mapped by Ordnance Survey between 1892 and 1914.
World events: Adolf Hitler made a Berlin Sportpalast speech declaring that Germany would make retaliatory night air raids on British cities and threatening invasion; the Blitz began on 7th September and although tough for civilians and ruinous to cities, it probably saved the RAF from collapse and an invasion of Britain never became feasible.
Anything that appears in this section will have some connection with the 1930’s but may extend beyond the decade to follow a meaningful topic more fully.
On leave, 1939
My grandfather, Edward Arthur Jefferies, governed and managed the family business following the death of his uncle, William John Jefferies in 1929. He managed the business on his own for some time, but as his three eldest sons became involved in different aspects of the business he decided to make them all directors. So in 1939 they officially began sharing the management with their father. As all three of the brothers joined the armed forces during the Second World War, it would have fallen to my grandfather to continue taking most business decisions on his own, but after that the brothers would have been able to devote more time to affairs in Cirencester (the photo shows Richard with his wife Millicent in London in 1939). The brothers had different roles, John took charge of the garden design and landscaping department. Richard managed the seeds business, and Robert looked after the day to day management of the various nurseries. Meanwhile Dad was only thirteen and was still at school in Rendcomb.
World events (September 1935): Sir Malcolm Campbell became the first person to drive an automobile at 300 miles per hour. (September 1930): In the 1930 German federal election: the National Socialists won 18.3% of the votes, making them the second largest party.
As with the 1930s material, everything in this section will have a connection of some kind with these two decades.
OBITUARY: WILTS & GLOUCESTER STANDARD SATURDAY 16TH JULY 1904
DEATH OF MR JOHN JEFFERIES
‘We record with much regret the death, which took place early this (Friday) morning, after a few weeks illness, at his residence, Minerva Villas, The Avenue, of Mr John Jefferies, one of the oldest, and most valued of Cirencester’s inhabitants. Mr Jefferies, who had reached the ripe age of 86 years, was one of the leading horticulturists and nurserymen of his day. Born at Somerford Keynes, in the neighbouring county of Wilts, he became, when quite a young man, manager to the late Mr Gregory, seedsman and nurseryman, of Cirencester, whose father established the business more than a century ago. In 1850 Mr Jefferies acquired the business from Mr Gregory. At that time the nurseries were far different to what they are now, and included a large area between Victoria-road and Watermoor-road, held of the Abbey estate, and now built over, and also a considerable extent of ground including what is now the garden of Cirencester House and surrounding land. When occupation of this land was resumed by a former Earl Bathurst, and when the Nursery property belonging to the Abbey estate was sold for building purposes, Mr Jefferies purchased what afterwards became the Tower-street nursery, and established extensive nurseries at Somerford Keynes, Siddington, Watermoor and London-road. Joined and aided by his sons, the business rapidly extended. till it became one of the foremost firms in the kingdom, its reputation for the growth of forest and ornamental trees, the celebrated Cotswold roses, and other specialities, being high and widespread. Twelve years ago, Mr Jefferies retired from active business pursuits, and his eldest son, Mr William John Jefferies, to whose energy and ability the success of the establishment was largely due, continued the firm under its old style of “John Jefferies & Son.” The opening up and planting of the Avenue as a pleasant through thoroughfare to Watermoor-road was primarily due to Mr Jefferies’s liberality and public spirit. Personally, the deceased gentleman was one of the most genial and amiable of men. as he was one of the most unassuming and unaffected, and his loss will be keenly felt by his large family circle and many friends. Up to the beginning of the slight indisposition which developed into what proved to be his last illness, his four-score-and-six years sat lightly on him, he took a keen and lively interest in current affairs, while the placid and cheery disposition that always characterised him remained unperturbed till the end, when, in the fulness of time, his long, useful and honourable life was peacefully laid down, and he entered into his well-won rest.’ (Phew – they were mighty wordy in those days!)
World events (September 1900) The 1900 Galveston hurricane killed around 8,000 people. (September 1905)Albert Einstein submitted the paper in which he put forward the equation E = mc2. (September 1910) The Vatican introduced a compulsory oath against modernism for priests at ordination (September 1915): The first military tank was tested by the British Army.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome!
From my longer perspective today at seventy-seven years old I can see that what seemed a minor difference between me and the Open Door elders is in truth a yawning gulf. It’s not just that I took a misstep, but that the entire edifice of following Jesus (Church almost everywhere and throughout history) took an enormous misstep.
Donna and I were married in 1998 and Tony was my best man; Donna’s best friend, Jane, was her chief bridesmaid. Donna had taken a new job with Unilever Research at their research site a little north of Bedford. She bought a cottage in the village of Tilbrook and when we were married I moved into the cottage with her and Unilever offered me a job on their intranet web team, initially to create a website that could be duplicated for each of their research sites – two in the UK, one in the USA and one in the Netherlands.
Donna was keen to find a church in the nearby town of St Neots, or if necessary in Bedford.
We soon found the cottage was far too small, and moved to a four-bedroom property in Eaton Ford, part of St Neots. The internet had barely hit its stride in the late ’90s, so it wasn’t nearly as easy to find a church (or anything else) as it would be today.
One weekend before we were married, I was visiting Donna , and on the Sunday I said, ‘Come on , let’s drive into St Neots and see what we can find’. She said, ‘No, you’ll never find anything that way’. But we jumped into the car and I prayed very briefly to be shown where to go – and off we went. We drove through the middle of the town and out towards Eynesbury but saw nothing of interest, then I turned right and down a couple of streets and coming to a secondary school we spotted an A-board welcoming people to ‘Open Door Church’. We followed the sign, parked the car, and made our way into ‘Ernulf School’ and there we were – Open Door Church! It turned out to be a lively, welcoming place, just what Donna was looking for. Over the next week or so she got to know some of the people and was invited to join a cell group run by Rob and Jean and a couple from France who were planning to return home in a few weeks time. And that was that! By the time I was working at Unilever and had moved into the cottage full time, Donna was well-established at Open Door, the French couple had moved back to France, and Rob and Jean were running the cell group on their own. They quickly became good friends, we even had a holiday in Scotland with them one year.
A wrong step
How easily we do this! Wanting to support Donna, I was happy to go along to the Sunday meetings at Open Door and, far more to my taste, join in with the weekly cell meetings every Wednesday or Thursday. But there was a fly in the church ointment. It was expected that people taking part regularly would ‘join’ the church and sign the membership book. This also involved promising to give your allegiance to Open Door. That was something I found hard – a step too far, a very big ask. My allegiance was to Jesus and him alone. But I did want to support Donna in her new membership of Open Door and it seemed to be something couples were expected to do together. So I put my doubts to one side and signed up – that was a major wrong step!
Trying to right the wrong
What’s the best thing to do if you take a wrong turning? Usually the best thing is to retrace your steps to the point of the mistake and take a different path. As the weeks went by it became clearer and clearer to me that I was in a bad place. I had agreed to be guided by the leaders of Open Door Church but knew that my only guidance should come through Jesus and his Spirit working in me and in my brothers and sisters.
So I wrote to the elders, explaining my mistake and asking to be released from membership and the promise of allegiance I had made. Nothing like this had happened before and they really had no idea what to do. They invited me to visit the lead elder’s (Tony’s) house, and when I went along he had also invited another elder, Brian. They asked me to explain what I meant. I told them, as gently as I could, that in my view all followers of Jesus should follow him alone. I added that this did not mean I wanted to leave Open Door. The reaction surprised me, almost as if I had decided to follow Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism. They were cold, even a bit frosty, and it was very clear that they felt I was rejecting their authority in some rather dangerous way. It was as if they felt that following Jesus implied following the elders. I was left feeling, ‘Hang on, this is my life in which I can follow anyone I wish, and I’ve chosen Jesus. Do you think he will lead me to cause problems for you?’
They wanted to talk again the following week, and this time told me that they’d heard my point of view and now wanted me to hear the conditions under which I might continue to come to Open Door meetings. The main point was that they wanted to be assured that if I said or did anything in a meeting that they objected to, and they asked me to stop, that I would do so. And so, on those terms, I was allowed to continue to meet with them on Sunday mornings and for weekday cell group meetings.
Meeting again with other friends
Although I continued to meet at Open Door for some time, I felt unable to contribute freely on Sunday mornings. Sometimes I would share something prophetic, or a vision, but I didn’t want to upset Tony or the elders so I was always quite careful. And now and again I’d sing in the Spirit and others would join in, or I’d speak in a tongue and someone would interpret and that always felt safe enough because the interpretation was not through me! Or I’d dance, usually near the back of the room.
Rob and Jean, however, were personal friends and also seemed to have no issues over anything I said or did either on Sundays or at cell group sessions, but rather welcomed the input. Over the years the group leaders were changed repeatedly but I was still allowed the same freedom almost all of the time we lived in St Neots.
Meeting at home
All of this left me feeling that life in St Neots was poorer in some ways than life in Yatton. I missed my friends, but above all I missed the spiritual depth and intensity of meeting completely freely, guided by the Holy Spirit alone and allowing him to speak to each one through the way he was using all the others. I missed the kind of community I’d experienced in Yatton. I knew it didn’t depend on particular people being involved, but instead, what it required was that all those present intended to rely only on Jesus. ‘I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me’ (Philippians 4:13) and ‘Without Christ I can do nothing’ (John 15:5).
Where was I to find these people? I can’t be sure of the details at this point – who was involved first or how we got started. But my sister Rachael was involved very early on, as were various St Neots friends, my friends Jody and Peter from Unilever, and eventually many more from a wide area in Cambridgeshire, Northhamptonshire and Bedfordshire.
For eleven years I kept a list of meetings and now I can refer to that list to pick out the first time we met at each new location, and that will give a feeling for how the meetings spread and grew. There were rarely more than 10 people at a meeting, but I knew how these small gatherings worked (from long experience in Yatton). There were no rules, but we encouraged everyone to feel free to contribute in any way providing they felt it was from the Spirit and aligned with the way Jesus would contribute. So there was usually a sense of openness and freedom. Almost always there would be tongues with interpretation, Bible readings or at least a few quotes, prayer for guidance and for any needs expressed by those present, prophecy, and plenty of peaceful silence for thought and processing of what others had contributed. The meetings were never boring, and more often than not we could identify a theme that had come together little by little as we met. Most times we’d begin with coffee and a chat.
Dec 2002 – Eaton Ford
May 2006 – Rugby
Nov 2006 – Eaton Socon
Mar 2007 – Great Doddington
Feb 2008 – Little Paxton
May 2010 – Brampton
Jun 2010 – Hinchingbrooke
Jul 2010 – Letchworth
Jul 2010 – Eynesbury
Aug 2010 – Cornerstone, St Neots
Sep 2010 – Watton-at-Stone
Oct 2010 – Corby
Feb 2011 – Offord d’Arcy
Apr 2011 – Moggerhanger
Apr 2011 – Costa, St Neots
Nov 2011 – Earls Barton
May 2012 – Oundle
As you can see, things got under way slowly but spread in an accelerating manner. And in addition to these meetings all around the area, some of us were involved in other things, we had larger celebration meetings when we’d invite other friends along and there’d be music, singing, dancing and the praise and worship would be free and enthusisastic. For me these little meetings were encouraging and exciting – just as in Yatton there was a feeling that Father was pouring his nature and character out amongst us. Jesus was with us.
Donna meanwhile continued with Open Door and the cell group meetings (later renamed Small Group). I drifted away from Open Door’s Sunday meetings as I found it difficult to contribute and disagreed with a fair proportion of the teaching on offer. There was far more freedom in the Small Group environment.
The Eatons
Some time in the past, St Neots Evangelical Church had planted an offshoot called ‘The Eatons’ in Eaton Ford and Eaton Socon (once Bedfordshire villages but by this time absorbed as districts of the growing town of St Neots). Over time, the number of people meeting each week had fallen significantly and only a handful remained. I don’t recall how I heard about this situation, but I felt the Holy Spirit nudging me to go along one Sunday morning to meet them, and specifically to encourage them.
So I began to meet with them every Sunday morning and they were encouraged. I explained why I was there, and that encouraged them too. A turning point for me was that some of the members would go into another room to pray with whoever had been chosen to speak that morning. Sometimes there would be a visiting speaker, other times it would be one or two of the group. One day, only one person, Jim, went out to pray so I followed him out and joined in the prayer. He was touched by this I think, and we struck up a friendship which has lasted right up to the present day.
The Eatons reminded me very much of Zetland Road Church and Horsecastle Chapel (see part 2 of this series), they were just the same kind of traditional, independent, evangelical gathering. The Eatons had made a bargain with Jesus, they had ‘laid out a fleece’. They had stated that if two or three new families joined them by the end of the current year they would continue, but if not they would close down the meetings and wrap up the finances and the organisation. They counted my appearance as a step in the right direction, but I explained gently that I was not a permanent feature but had been told to come and encourage them. I was even invited to speak to them one Sunday morning which I did, though I’m not a great public speaker – far from it! I don’t recall what I spoke about but it was politely and kindly received. In due course The Eatons did close down but I had made some new friends. Not just Jim and his wife Pam, but some others too including Sean. Jim and Sean became involved in some of the home meetings mentioned earlier.
A longer perspective
From my longer perspective today at seventy-seven years old I can see that what seemed a minor difference between me and the Open Door elders is in truth a yawning gulf. It’s not just that I took a misstep, but that the entire edifice of following Jesus (Church almost everywhere and throughout history) took an enormous misstep at some point in its past development. Do we follow Jesus and Jesus alone? Or do we follow people who have structured what began as a simple community into a series of organisations that often disagree with one another on the details of what to think, what to believe, and how to behave?
The change may have been kickstarted by the Roman Empire making Christianity the official religion of the Empire in the 300s CE. Or it may go back even before that. But whatever the origins, it’s a misinterpretation and misrepresentation of what Jesus and the early church intended and practised. That all are equal under one head (Jesus), that all are filled with and empowered by his Spirit, and structures of stone or of management are not required or permitted. Church is community, a structure of children, women and men organised and motivated by the Same Holy Spirit and following only one master – Jesus!
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome!
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Click to enlarge
There’s a long stretch of dry stone Cotswold wall along the western edge of the Gloucester Road between Cirencester and Stratton. Walking along the footpath one day I was surprised to see the crystalline inclusions featured in this photo. The crystals look to me like a form of quartz (six-sided columns with six-faced prisms at both ends).
This might be part of a geode fractured open while quarrying the stone. There’s a small chance that the other side of the geode exists elsewhere in the same wall or in some other structure built around the same time. It seems that quartz geodes are not unusual in Oolitic limestone deposits. When they are stained purple purple the crystals are known as amethyst. The formation in the photo shows no hint of colour at all. The deposit must have formed from a particularly pure solution of quartz.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome!
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Click to enlarge
The land now occupied by Watermoor House and St Michael’s Park may once have been common land. But early large scale Ordnance Survey maps mark a much larger area, including that now occupied by the house and park, as a large nursery. It might have been owned at one time by Richard Gregory who was a Cirencester nurseryman in the 1790s.
The business (and probably the land) passed into the hands of John Jefferies at least by the early 1800s, and it seems that Randolph Mullings, a local solicitor, bought a substantial piece of it in order to build a large house in its own grounds. The details remain unknown, but Gregory, Jefferies and Mullings were known to one another, and Jefferies worked as a manager for Gregory on the nurseries. Gregory lost much of his money by providing surety for a friend’s loan, and Mullings advised Jefferies to continue managing the business and wait to see how things would work out.
Having acquired part of the land, Mullings engaged the architect William Jay to design the building; Watermoor House was constructed to Jay’s plan around 1827 in the Greek Revival style; and the garden and park were added to complete the property. The house is now grade II listed.
At some point Watermoor House became a private school until it closed in the 1950s or 60s. It may have had some other function following this, but today it is a residential care home.
I’ve cobbled this tale together from limited sources that may or may not be reliable. There are also many gaps. It would be good if the story could be properly researched by someone with the time and skills to undertake it.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome!
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Click to enlarge
At the top of the image you can see the rears of buildings on Cecily Hill in Cirencester. Their gardens contain the trunks and foliage of mature trees just beyond the wall. The wall separates those gardens from the water channel and may have been built specifically for that purpose. Some of the tree branches have grown across the top of the wall.
Near the base of the wall is a distinct line, brown below and much paler above. I think the brown part of the wall is often underwater. The water flow is strongly seasonal, high in wintertime and much, much lower in the summer. The River Churn divides at the Gloucester Road bridge, only a kilometre from this point. The major branch follows the outside of the Roman city wall and usually continues to flow all year round. But the branch in the photo is fed from the outflow of the long, narrow, supply pound for Barton Mill and this in turn is fed from the main flow of the River Churn. The water flows in the town are complex, this section is often known as Gumstool Brook, but it might also be regarded as a diverted part of the Churn.
The pipework at the bottom of this wall was there in the 1950s and 60s when I was a child. Most of it was hidden then by a low wall topped with flagstones, but today much of the structure has fallen away exposing the glazed pipes. Out of the photo a little further to the left, the water disappears underground, running south of Coxwell Street and reappearing at the surface further west in the Abbey Grounds.
It’s good to know that the Town Council and the Friends of Gumstool Brook are looking into ways of improving the flow of this watercourse by adjusting the sluice management rules. We might see the water flowing properly all summer in 2026.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome!
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Click to enlarge
This lovely old aeroplane is a Sopwith Pup, as used by the Royal Flying Corp during the First World War. Sopwith was a major British aircraft manufacturer of the day. This aircraft is still flying from time to time in England where it’s based at Old Warden Airfield, itself a survivor of the First World War. This particular aircraft was built after the war and modified back to the fighter configuration.
In the photo the engine is being tested after maintenance, so a couple of side panels have been removed for inspection. The propeller was spinning, you can see the motion blur in the image.
Here’s the same aircraft in action.
Design and construction
Based on a smaller, earlier aircraft, Sopwith designed the larger Pup as a fighter in 1915 with the first prototype appearing in 1916. Both the navy and the army (the Royal Flying Corp was part of the army) ordered numbers of the planes and they served well until superseded and transferred for training purposes as newer, more effective fighting planes rapidly evolved.
This aircraft was much lighter than its German counterparts. It could take off and land on grass surfaces, in quite short distances. The Pup was very manoeuvrable, had a tight turning circle, and a high service ceiling for those times.
The Pups were replaced with Sopwith Camels during 1917.
Old Warden Aerodrome
Old Warden was a First World War air station, as already mentioned. It lies just north of Shefford and south-east of Bedford. Today it’s the home of the Shuttleworth collection of old aircraft and motor vehicles, a very fine and famous collection with a long history, originally as a private collection, but now open to the public. The old aircraft are frequently rolled out, and often one or more are performing in the air.
Everything that’s not active on a particular day is stored in a series of First World War hangers and those are all open to visit as a museum with informative explanatory material on display as well. There is active maintenance and restoration going on, and some of that may be on display too.
If you’re interested in this sort of thing, and are in the area, I highly recommend popping over for a visit.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome!
Journeys of Heart and Mind 
