It’s past time to challenge Mr Trump on his outrageous statements of intent. There are so many ways that what he is proposing for Greenland is simply not going to happen. I believe that’s true whether you take an American view, or a Greenlandic view or, indeed any other.
Let’s see this from an American perspective first. My next door neighbour has a larger house than mine, and he also has a bigger and more expensive car than mine. So if I was to follow the Trump approach I might just say, ‘I need my neighbour’s house and car’. Does that justify my actions if I knock down a section of his garden fence and break one of his windows, take his car keys, change the locks on his door, and seize his car and house for my own use?
Clearly it does not. The police would soon be knocking on my door, probably with an arrest warrant. Saying I need something does nothing to make it legally mine. I’d soon find out that the police and the law courts would have a different opinion!
Yet this is effectively what Mr Trump is saying to Greenland. The USA ‘needs’ Greenland. If the USA needs anything, it needs to mind its own business, apply some common sense, and observe international law. We’ve seen countries with overwhelming military power make similar demands in the 20th century. Adolf Hitler argued that Germany needed lebensraum (literally ‘living space’). Poland and Russia had space they did not need (in Hitler’s opinion), so the German army was ordered to take it – first by invading Poland. and later by invading the Soviet Union. In the end that did not work out well for Germany.
Perhaps we should dig into the details and see how Trump might come unstuck.
An invasion of Greenland would involve American forces. There is no land border so troops would have to be taken in by air and/or by sea. The first thing would be for Trump to require the Pentagon to draw up plans for such an invasion. But American forces of all ranks owe allegiance, not to the President of the USA, but to the Constitution. They would be right to refuse orders that were either illegal or immoral. I think Trump would be stuck right there. Orders to invade an allied nation would be seen as neither legal nor moral. About as legal and moral as me taking my neighbour’s car and house!
I believe France, Germany and Norway already have small numbers of troops in Greenland to bolster Danish forces, and I further understand that British troops will join them very soon. I expect them to be joined by Polish, Finnish, Swedish and other forces, also very soon. What will they do? My first task if I was ordered to make it harder for an enemy force to land would be to consider ways to block those landings. Greenland is very inhospitable in the winter months. Even more so for forces unfamiliar with such conditions. And if American forces did arrive, I’d focus on ways to limit or destroy their supplies. But I don’t think Trump will get this far. His foolish bluster will be dealt with long before any invasion of Greenland gets under way. American politicians, both Democrat and Republican will make sure of that. Crowds would be out on the streets demanding he back down. It would be a disaster for Trump, Vance, MAGA, and for the USA as a whole.
Invading Greenland is probably Trump’s worst idea so far. If he persists he will be bought down. And his landing will be very hard indeed. I suggest he learns ice-skating as fast as possible, he’s going be on severely slippery ice soon, with no grip. And even if he becomes a great skater, he’ll be on very thin ice and the heavier you are, the more likely the ice is to break! You don’t live long if you’re plunged into severely cold water (nearly -2 C around Greenland). If you’re unfit and have a dodgy heart, your time would be even more limited. I hope you’re listening, Donald!
A rumpus is brewing
The fourth video above, Trump officials rebuff Greenland, Denmark calls… discusses rare earth minerals, what is being overlooked here is that any resources in the rocks of Greenland are covered by an ice sheet one mile deep. For all the talk of the ice melting due to global warning, no rare earths in Greenland are going to be reachable for many decades to come.
I’ll leave you with a final thought:
Russia believed it was strong, but under Putin’s misguided leadership it has lost much of the strength it once possessed.
The USA believes it is strong, but under Trump’s misguided leadership, it is starting to lose that strength. If he can damage the US this much in one year, what effect will he have over four years? I hope and pray he will not remain President for a full term.
I was admitted to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital (GRH) for six days of investigation including CT and MRI scans. I started off on a trolley in a corner of Acute Medical until they could find space in a ward (2025).
October 2025 (3 months before publishing this article)
Click pics to enlarge
View from my hospital trolley
This was an unusual month during which I suffered a small bleed in my brain (a subarachnoid haemorrhage). The effects were weird and quite sudden, I began having seizures, in my case quite mild symptoms of muscle weakness in my left leg and numbness in parts of my left leg and head; curiously my left arm was not affected. These symptoms lasted for a few minutes and then faded away. This happened three or four times a day to begin with but quickly reduced in frequency.
After nine hours in A&E I was admitted to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital (GRH) for six days of investigation including CT and MRI scans. I started off on a trolley in a corner of Acute Medical until they could find space in a ward. And much of my time was spent in Gallery Wing, Ward 1C. I was interested to see that all the medical and ward staff used their staff badges to log in to any hospital computer to see their own desktop with all the icons and applications they needed to do their work. Efficient and well-thought-out. The computer in the photo is displaying the login screen.
My symptoms were mild and were completely suppressed by low doses of Levetiracetam prescribed by my consultant. And my GP here in Cirencester can see the consultant’s notes as well as her own. I’ve had no seizures at all since 1st November. No surgery was required, but until I have six months clear of seizures, I’m not allowed to drive. There are more details in an article I wrote at the time.
From 4th to 7th we took Donna’s Mum, Isobel, for a short holiday at a Warners Hotel near Hereford. We visited Great Malvern and struggled to get the wheelchair up and down some of the very steep footpaths in the town.
The Small Group I meet with on Tuesday evenings gave me an opportunity to work through part of JDMC with them. This was encouraging and successful enough that Al suggested we work through some more of it next week.
In our back garden I added some more turf to a path I’m rerouting. We visited our neighbour George who’s in hospital in Dursley.
JHM: I wrote about the apostolic gift; and about the complex water flows in Cirencester. World events: The International Court of Justice ruled that countries can sue each other over historical emissions of greenhouse gases and the effects of climate change; and clashes erupted in southern Syria between armed Druze and Bedouin groups.
I walked out in the evening twilight and took this photo near the footbridge from The Beeches to Cricklade Road opposite Aldi. In the south-western sky you can see a waxing crescent Moon and the planet Venus near the top of the image. You may need to click the image to enlarge it to see Venus.
Moon and Venus again
Here they are again the following evening (3rd January) seen from Stratton north of Cirencester, see how far the Moon has moved along its orbit in just a little under 24 hours!
Chimney repair
The builders came to fix our leaking chimney, it was good to have that job done. In the bad old days when I was young the builders would have nonchalantly walked over the roof as if it was at ground level. But these days scaffolding is a must as the safety standards have been changed. It costs a little more, but it reduces the risks considerably.
JHM: I wrote about Knightstone Causeway; and my breakfast. World events: Bulgaria and Romania removed their EU land border controls having joined the Schengen Area; while Ukraine halted the flow of Russian gas following the expiration of a five-year transit deal and became a state party in the International Criminal Court.
After a great deal of effort and trying several different ways, I was finally able to get the Paul Young videos live on YouTube from the House2House meetings CDs. I then wrote to my friends, the Dales, who hold the copyright to the recorded sessions from the meetings back in 2008.
Having got that task done I was then able to group them into a playlist and anyone can now watch them online. The video titles are Grace, Tradition and Soul; together they explain how Paul came to write The Shack, how he came to understand the grace of God working in people’s lives including his own, and the shame-based fear so many people face in our Western culture and just how crippling it can be. Paul wrote the book for his children and its amazing success as a book in 2007 and as a film in 2017 has changed the trajectories of so many lives ever since. The book remains available as a paperback and an ebook from Google Play, Amazon, and others, and the film is still available to view on YouTube, Amazon and elsewhere (here’s the trailer). The three talks Paul Young gave at the House2House conference must have been one of the first times he spoke about it publicly to a large audience, and they’re still well worth watching.
Two of them have been seen by the Small Group that I meet with most weeks, we really should try to see the third one too in the coming year.
This was the view from our window on 24th January! A relatively heavy fall of snow and still coming down when I took the photo.
A newish Moon
Earlier in the month, on 15th, I was able to get a lovely photo of the crescent Moon, just a day or two after New Moon. The sun had recently set below and to the right of this image. There was still enough light in the sky to prevent the sunlit side of the Moon from flaring and there’s enough contrast to just see the nightime part of the Moon, sometimes poetically described as ‘the old Moon in the New Moon’s arms’.
Stratton Meadows
The later part of the month was wet and the River Churn broke its banks and flooded fields and meadows in low lying areas. the final image for this month shows Stratton meadows inundated. The village of Stratton is on the higher ground beyond the flooded area. This land, now used to graze cattle in the summer was used to grow willow rods 150 years ago. They would have been harvested in the autumn and bound into bundles for local basket making businesses.
World events: Supporters of US President Donald Trump attacked the US Capitol; and the global death toll from COVID-19 passed 2 million.
We had daffodils in flower by the end of January, surprisingly early and evidence that global warming was already beginning to have practical effects. The photo shows a row of them along the roadside in St Neots. We welcome them in springtime, but in January I’m not sure they are quite as welcome, though very lovely.
One of my friends from the coffee shop Bible study group, Kevin, was suicidal, I took him to A&E at the hospital in Huntingdon and stayed with him until he could be seen. It seemed a wise and necessary precaution.
We had Peter and Dadka staying with us as they were unable to afford anywhere of their own. They were both from Slovakia. Peter received a message on 9th to say that his parents had been involved in a road accident and his father had died in the collision. He flew back home to be with the family for a week or two and help make the necessary arrangements. This must have been a terrible shock for him.
On 30th I enjoyed a coffee and a great chat with a friend, David Pacini.
World events: The IAEA announced that Iran has adequately dismantled its nuclear weapons program, allowing the UN to lift sanctions; and the WHO announced an outbreak of the Zika virus.
In the garden the snowdrops were in flower and our rhubarb was beginning to grow with buds bursting and the first, crinkled leaves beginning to unfold. We bought a new HP LaserJet colour printer to replace our old Samsung laser printer.
I was involved in several different meetings at this time. There was the Open Door Small Group once a week on Tuesdays, I was meeting with the coffee shop crew at least once a week and quite separately with Jim, Sean and Kevin on Thursday evenings. On Thursday mornings I met with Roger and Ruth at their home in Offord d’Arcy. With the coffee shop group we discussed ideas around not going to church because we are the church, and how our focus should be to plant Jesus, plant disciples, and plant the gospel.
On 7th we had a sixth Cornerstone Meeting, not just directors this time, but staff as well. Paul has written off the setup costs of £81k and planned to run on a break-even basis in future. He also thought he might move to fried food and reduced prices. Paul declared that there would be no directors from now on, just a management team. Some of us foresaw problems, mainly because Paul wanted things all his own way and some of his ideas were somewhat controversial; but he was putting up all the money, and if he didn’t want ideas and thoughts from others, that was, of course, his choice to make.
Following Mum’s death at Cheltenham General Hospital on 1st January, Dad was pretty busy getting the news out to friends and relatives and making initial arrangements for the funeral. I worked up an initial draft for the service sheet, and I discussed it with Dad and my three sisters before revising it.
Debbie sent me a scan of her unborn baby, and I felt sad that Mum would not see the birth of two great-grandchildren (Beth was also expecting a baby, probably a little before her sister, Debbie).
Gayna, Donna and Ken
Towards the end of the month, we enjoyed visiting the National Trust’s Anglesey Abbey with our friends Ken and Gayna. It was a lovely, sunny day and the gardens at Anglesey are always a delight at any time of the year.
World events:A panicking crowd during the Stoning of the Devil ritual on the last day of the Hajj in Saudi Arabia, killed at least 362 pilgrims; and NASA launched the first interplanetary spacecraft to Pluto, New Horizons.
I began redecorating the stairs, hall, and landing. I fitted an electrical box with wiring for an extractor fan in the bathroom, repaired the plasterwork where necessary, and painted emulsion on the walls and gloss on the woodwork. It was quite a long job, but we got it completed in the end.
Conservatory
We decided to buy a conservatory, our garden was large enough to take one and it would extend our living space quite a bit. Also, we thought it would fit well against the long brick wall of the kitchen, airing cupboard and the old laundry room and we could easily replace the dining room window with a small bi-fold opening using the existing lintel; so just a matter of cutting through the lower brickwork, making good, a bit of plastering and decorating.
We began visiting conservatory suppliers to look at what they had to offer and get some idea of price. The one in the photo was the sort of shape and size we thought might work well for us.
A further improvement at home was the removal of the very old bathroon suite and its replacement with a new bath, shower, loo and sink in white to replace the worn out avocado bath, loo and sink. Times had moved on with bathroom colours!
Colworth badge
And finally at Unilever Research Colworth, we all received brand new security badges which opened gates and doors automatically for all the areas each member of staff had access to.
World events: Greece became the 12th country to join the Eurozone; and Apple launched iTunes, software that acted as both a media player and a media library.
on 1st January Beth, Paul, Jenny and I went to see Apollo 13 at the cinema in Weston-super-Mare. It seems a strange thing to have done just after losing Judy, but at the time it seemed to make perfect sense. Debbie, would, I think have been preparing to go back to study for her teaching qualification at Newport in south Wales. I certainly enjoyed watching the film.
I returned to work at Long Ashton on 3rd and started to pick up the threads that had been temporarily abandoned, or taken over by Pete Moody or Mike Truman while I’d been away. Peter Shewry invited me to join the Computing Strategy Review Meeting, and I continued developing the Microscopy web pages in the evenings at home.
Judy’s funeral was on 5th January and the day did not begin well. I woke up in the morning to the sound of dripping water and found it coming through the top of the bedroom doorframe. An emergency plumber came out and soon got things sorted for me. When the house was built, the overflow pipe was never connected so instead of a pipe dripping outside the house, the system was dripping inside! That lost me two hours at the start of a rather busy day, but everything else went well.
About 160 turned up which was astonishing, Judy was much loved not only by the extended family but by her pupils and colleagues at Cotham Grammar School, and many LARS staff had come along too. Bev was great, he said all the right things and was appreciated by everyone, I think. But only around 80 to 90 came to the buffet afterwards at Horsecastle chapel, so we had far too much food and donated what was left to the Horsecastle youth groups.
Rachael and Neil witnessed a horrendous event on their way back to Rugby later that day. A man jumped from a motorway bridge just as Rachael was approaching it. She had managed to swerve and miss him, but two cars behind her were unable to avoid him and caught him full on. Neil and another man had made their way back to the area of the incident and saw what happened.
World events: Serious fighting broke out on 9th January between Russian soldiers and rebel fighters in Chechnya; and France undertook its last nuclear weapons test.
We visited Nana and Grandad (Judy’s parents) at their home at 14 Belland Drive, Charlton Kings, Cheltenham. The photo shows Nana, Beth and Debbie playing a game on the dining table, perhaps one of Beth’s Christmas presents.
Cleaning the guinea pig run
On 13th we were back at home in Yatton, Debbie and Beth were out in the cold cleaning out the guinea pig run. When it was particularly cold we used to bring the guinea pigs into the house for protection, but they were quite good at managing cold days, the three of them would huddle together to keep warm.
World events: The US Congress authorised the use of force to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait; and in South Africa, Nelson Mandela and Mangosuthu Buthelezi agreed to end the violence between the ANC and Inkatha.
I was busy at LARS constructing a user-friendly menu system for the EDAX X-ray microanalysis software on the scanning electron microscope (SEM). I also produced a series of step-by-step instructions for using the SEM. The instrument in the photo is similar to the one we had at Long Ashton, but with a different X-ray microanalysis system.
Debbie and Beth remained at school in Yatton and we were living at 80 Stowey Road.
World events: Spain and Portugal joined the European Community; while the United Kingdom and France announced plans to construct the Channel Tunnel.
I couldn’t find anything for January 1981. Debbie would have been five-years-old, turning six in March. Beth was two and would become three in May.
John Jefferies and Son would have been clearing surplus stock from the shop in the January sales but would also have been starting to consider how best to dispose of the business since the four brothers were approaching or beyond retiring age. My cousin, Tim, was young enough to carry on for some time but it was far too much for one person to manage. My Dad would be able to help out a lot but for relatively few years. The options would have been to shrink the business very considerably by selling off much of the land, or finding a buyer to continue it as a going concern. I suspect a decision was made to sell and hope to keep Tim employed by the new owners. There would have been no great urgency at this stage, but the clock was certainly ticking and something would need to be done.
World events: Greece joined the European Economic Community; and Iran released the remaining 52 American hostages, minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President, ending the Iran hostage crisis.
The photo is from February 1976 as I could find nothing for January. It shows Cindy with Gavin and Rebecca walking towards the front door at Churnside.
Debbie was 10 months old in January and we were regularly meeting our friends Tony and Faith for prayer and to explore ways to go deeper in our knowledge and experience of meeting and living non-denominationally. Others were beginning to join us too, but just in ones and twos at this stage. Judy and I were still regularly at Horsecastle Chapel on Sundays too. There was a certain tension about this as the Horsecastle elders worried that we might come off the rails meeting without oversight with all these other odd people (from their point of view).
Judy’s temporary Christmas job at a Bristol department store came to an end once the January sales finished. She began her new job as a lab assistant in the Woodland Road Biochemistry Lab at Bristol University. I think the photo shows the same building in 2008, though I can’t be certain. She worked for Dr Mike Tanner who was doing research on a human erythrocyte membrane protein. They used out of date donated blood from Bristol Royal Infirmary, prepared erythrocyte ghosts (empty cell membranes) and extracted the proteins. I think they were studying Protein D as it was then called, and assembling amino acid sequences. It involved a lot of acrylamide gel chromatography although the lab was the proud owner of an early amino acid sequencer that could analyse short peptides automatically. The short sequences had to be manually matched and assembled into longer sequence maps.
Our bed-sit was cramped and very basic, but it was home. We still had our first car, ‘Pumpkin’, a Ford 100E sidevalve engine with a 3-speed gearbox. In the mornings I’d drive to the top of Park Street and drop Judy off near the Wills Building, then drive to Long Ashton. I forget what the evening arrangement was, probably I parked on Woodland Road and we drove from there to the bed-sit at 59 Linden Road. We were saving money now and starting to look at the possibility of an unfurnished flat and we might have made the move later in the year.
World events: In the Ibrox disaster, 66 people died and over 200 were injured in Glasgow during a spectator crush at a football match; and the Aswan High Dam was officially opened in Egypt.
The Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard, one of the local newpapers in the area, published a story on 7th January about The Corals, a local pop group who hired Cirencester’s Corn Hall on New Year’s Eve to attempt a world record of playing popular music without repeating a tune. They played for 11½ hours so did indeed smash the previous record of 10 hours.
What was not reported (because nobody knew) was that the drummer, Colin Flooks, would later become world famous as Cozy Powell, playing with bands like Black Sabbath as well as with Brian May and other famous performers. Colin was in my class (1B) when we started at Cirencester Grammar School in 1959.
World events:Indira Gandhi was elected Prime Minister of India and was sworn in on January 24; and the Radio Caroline ship Mi Amigo ran aground on the beach at Frinton-on-Sea.
I was studying a range of subjects in Class 2B, including Latin for a second year. The photo shows the cover of one of my exercise books. We began in years 1 and 2 with a wide range of subjects, but these changed after the second year, I was not doing well with Latin so discontinued it at the end of the summer term in 1962.
The third year of my time at Querns School continued into its second term. Christmas and New year were already done and we were starting to look forward to Easter, and beyond it the long summer holiday.
I was in the third year at Querns School (my junior school). I was excited as I was seven-years-old now and feeling much more confident with school work, the environment and my fellow pupils. But it was still good to go home at the end of the school day to eat a meal with Mum, Dad and Cindy (we called it tea, dinner was the midday meal). Sometimes before bedtime we’d have a cup of hot chocolate or Ovaltine as a bit of a treat. If you had something to eat in the evening it would be supper. Perhaps if we’d been out all day we might have fish and chips in newspaper. Now that was a treat!
Whirlybirds
Fridays were special because they were followed by Saturday and Sunday when there was no school at all. All day to play in the garden with Linda and Graham Watts from next door, or walk to the little shop near the Golden Farmer pub to buy bacon or a loaf of bread for Mum and perhaps some sweets. Mr and Mrs Watts had a TV and often we’d go round to watch Whirlybirds or The Lone Ranger. Click on the link, choose an episode, and watch!
The Korean War was in full swing, and I remember Dad getting his RAF kitbag out of the loft and going away to Kent for a week or two to train on the latest Radar systems. I don’t know when this happened, of course or even if it was in 1951. The Korean War ran from June 1950 to July 1953 and it seems to me that Dad’s absence for training was before Cindy was born in October 1951. It makes sense that if they were going to retrain people they’d have done it early during the war.
In January, Dad was receiving tobacco from Lilias as well as from Bob and Betty (Mike’s brother and sister-in-law). His Uncle Herbert (his Father’s brother) had left him a £50 legacy in his will. He had a bad dream about Lilias on 3rd/4th.
On 7th he had a second flight in the Avro Anson and photographed the runways from the air. By 10th he was worried because he’d had no recent letters from Lilias, a letter came on 11th to say she’d been ill. He had a further hour in the Anson and this time was given a chance to try the controls (he would have so loved that!) On 16th he heard that his friends Joe and Dorothy were engaged to be married. He watched quite a few films during January as well. Mike also took photos of the Anson, a Stirling, and his garry (lorry).
World events: The first meeting of the United Nations was held, at Methodist Central Hall Westminster in London; and Project Diana bounced radar waves off the Moon, measuring the exact distance between the Earth and the Moon, and proving that communication is possible between Earth and outer space.
There’s not enough information to write something for every month in the 1940s. Mike’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.
US Embassy in Japan, 1931
Mike would have been 15 and still at school, possibly at Cirencester Grammar School or perhaps already at Rendcomb College just north of Cirencester. His older brothers were all serving with British forces in the Second World War. His father was managing the family business (John Jefferies & Son Ltd) on his own with help from some paid staff, but even these would have been in short supply due to the need for fighting men. It must have been a difficult time.
World events: Australian and British troops defeated Italian forces at the Battle of Bardia in Libya; and the US ambassador to Japan, reported to Washington a rumour overheard at a diplomatic reception, concerning a planned surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
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.
Cirencester traditionally had a town carnival every August. These petered out and were discontinued, I think in the 1970s. The photo shows the Carnival Queen and her attendants in the 1939 Carnival.
The Carnival procession made its way through the Market Place and along Dyer Street and then Victoria Road to a field at Watermoor where there would be tents, amusements and fairground rides.
This photo taken 95 years later in December 2025 is seen from the same angle. I thought there’d have been no mill here in the 1930s, but the photo was made from a footbridge that’s still there and is in daily use as part of Riverside Walk. There is no mill here today, though, so there’s a fuller story to discover if and when anyone has the time and inclination to dig a bit deeper.
World events (January 1931): The cyclotron was invented (used to accelerate sub-atomic particles to study nuclear physics). (January 1936):Radium E (bismuth-210) became the first radioactive element to be made synthetically.
As with the 1930s material, everything in this section will have a connection of some kind with these two decades.
Ted and Mike
Mike (my father) was born on 4th June 1926. The photo shows him with his father, my grandpa, Ted. The album holding this photo probably belonged to Mike’s older brother, Dick and this page is clearly marked 1927. The trees in the photo are leafless, so we can date the photo to wintertime which would put Mike at around 18 months old.
At Churnside
The second photo was on the same page so is also from 1927. It might have been a warm day in October, perhaps, and was taken in the back garden of Churnside, 37 Victoria Road.
This month I thought I’d provide a pen picture of Alice Freeth (later Jefferies) who married John Jefferies . Alice was born in 1810 in the village of Minety and baptised on 5th August 1810, her parents were Robert and Elizabeth Freeth. I do have some photos of her, but can’t find them right at this moment. I’ll add one later as and when.
Family connections
Parents – Robert and Elizabeth Freeth of Minety
Born – July/August 1810 (baptised 12th Aug 1810)
Died – 29th December 1893
Married, around 1842 or 1843) – John Jefferies of Somerford Keynes
Siblings – Unknown
Children – William John (1844), John Edwin (1845), Alice Mary (1847), Edward (1849), Julia Anne (1851), Henrietta (1854), Agnes Henrietta (1855)
John and Alice moved to Cirencester, perhaps when John took over the Gregory Nursery business or maybe before that while he was still employed by Richard Gregory. In any case, the census for 1881 records them as living at Minerva Villa in Cirencester. Although we don’t have a marriage date, Alice and John’s first child was born in June 1844 so it’s likely they married in 1842 or 1843 when Alice was in her early thirties and John about 30. Henrietta died as an infant aged just one month, so that would have been a time of great difficulty and sadness for them both.
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You see the lights and you might hear the engine or the sound of the tyres on the road surface. But there’s no way you could tell the make and model of the car. The details are hidden.
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
Sometimes it’s foggy in Cirencester. The Cotswolds is in the south-west of England and the prevailing winds come from the south-west and are laden with water vapour after crossing the Atlantic. As the air rises over the Cotswolds and other hilly country, some of that water vapour condenses as rain and some as fog. Once the sun appears, any mist or fog clears away with the rising temperature.
It’s all in the detail
As you look at the scene in the photo, you’ll notice right away that the fog obscures details on the church tower while the details on the nearer, and much less tall buildings in the foreground are quite sharp. This is always the way of things in foggy conditions. Nearby objects reveal more detail than those further away. If you stood near the base of the tower and looked towards the top you’d see the same thing. Stonework at the same level as your head would be clear, but raise your gaze to the top of the tower and you’d see few details. In heavy fog you might not see the top of the tower at all.
This is a great illustrative parallel of our ability to see spiritual details too. Look at the people around you and you see a lot of detail – hair colour, eye colour, style of hair, details of clothing , now look up and the detail seems to vanish. The Bible tells us that the Creator is hidden in dark clouds. The English words dark and darkness didn’t traditionally mean an absence of light, the sense was of something hidden from view. When you look into the headlights of a car coming towards you at night you see the lights and you might hear the engine or the sound of the tyres on the road surface. But there’s no way you could tell the make and model of the car. The details are hidden although (or even because) there’s so much light.
Yahweh (God) is like that too, as you get to know him the first thing you’ll understand is the simplest thing of all – he is there! Just an indistinct outline in the distance. As you draw closer, gradually you’ll begin to see how brightly he shines, but spend some time with him and more detail will appear, not what he looks like because he’s not a physical object in our universe, but you’ll start to see that he consists of a pure love, you’ll notice that he cares deeply about everyone, not just his followers, that he is the source of such things as peace, and grace, and joy, and that he knows you better than you know yourself. This experience feels very like walking towards an object almost invisible in the fog and discovering it to be a beautiful tree or an an amazing building. And the closer you get, the more detail you can distinguish – the veins on the leaves or the surface details in the stone.
Making a start
But how can you begin to know him? Where do you start? The answer is simple, begin right where you are right now. Start by noticing that the people you know (and you yourself) have a threefold nature. You are physical, like a stone or a puddle of water, but you also have a mind – utterly unlike a stone or a puddle! Is it so surprising, then, that there’s a third dimension to your existence and nature? These dimensions overlap yet they are distinct.
Your physical presence can be measured just like that of a stone, you have a certain size, shape, and mass, if you’re in motion you have measurable velocity, direction of movement, momentum and so forth. You possess colour and reflectivity. But overlapping with this physical presence are your senses of touch, sight, hearing and the rest.
The stone lacks these abilities. You have a brain that constantly evaluates the information coming from your senses and combines them into knowledge of your environment. This makes you aware of other objects (don’t trip over that stone, don’t step in that puddle), other lifeforms (chase away the fly that has landed on your arm, don’t step on that frog on the footpath), other people (talk to your neighbour, pay for the item you just bought, wave to your friend across the road, ask for directions).
Pushing through the fog
And that third dimension? Most of the overlap here is with your emotions, the love you feel for family and close friends, the fears you entertain (fear of death, fear of injury, fear of loss). There’s a spiritual element to your nature that overlaps mere emotion and goes way beyond feelings. This is another dimension that you can explore and it’s part of our nature that we sometimes fail to consider and rarely, if ever, visit.
So go there, move towards that somewhat foggy zone and the further you go, the more you will see. And I can assure you, the more you see the more you’ll be drawn along to explore further because what you find will be delightful, encouraging and fulfilling. And remember, in the fog, the further and higher you look the less you will see. But go closer and the details will become clearer. Drawing close is the only way to deal with fog.
And there’s a huge additional advantage, the physical and the mental aspects of your existence will pass away, the atoms of your body will be recycled, dispersed, and used to construct other things. But the overlapping spiritual aspects remain, because they are not dependent on the physical world in any way, they remain.
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How extraordinary to see both lava and snow close together, lava inside the volcano and snow on the slopes outside. Truly, the natural world is completely amazing.
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
This photo really is extraordinary. Take a guess at what might be going on here first. Then I’ll tell you all about it.
Needless to say, I did not take this photo. It was in Nature Briefing, anyone can sign up free of charge for science news and photos from the prestigious scientific journal, Nature. The signup link is in the upper, right of the Nature home page.
The image was made by the photographer Francisco Negroni and shows Villarrica, described as the most dangerous volcano in Chile. (You can buy a much more detailed version of this image online.)
Two heavy, dark clouds have formed over the volcanic caldera, illuminated by the lava. The heat of the lava below has evaporated the central part of both these clouds, forming them into perfect rings. The sky was already dark enough for stars to be visible. How extraordinary to see both lava and snow close together, lava inside the volcano and snow on the slopes outside. Truly, the natural world is completely amazing.
Think about that last point, lava is literally red hot, around a thousand degrees C, snow is made of water ice, it can’t exist above 0 C at atmospheric pressure. The volcanic rock between the lava and the ice provides sufficient thermal insulation to allow these incompatible materials to survive inside and outside the volcanic cone at the same time!
People of faith may say that God made it that way, people of science will provide a physical explanation. Many people, perhaps even most, might argue these two views are incompatible. But that’s not necessarily the case; there are many people who are both good Christians (or Muslims, Jews, Buddhists or Hindus) and also good scientists. Very often faith communities have enabled and supported great advances in science and technology, enabling us to understand and explain all sorts of phenomena in mechanistic ways that sometimes seem not to require any kind of faith at all. It’s a conundrum that philosophers sometimes explore and discuss.
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It might have been William who requested and obtained the title ‘Royal Nurseries’ This was a forerunner of the later ‘By Appointment to’ designation denoting high status businesses (1800s).
September 2025 (3 months before publishing this article)
Click pics to enlarge
Al and Phil at Stonehouse
Small Group got started again after the summer break. This is a discussion group, part of CBC but run by my friends Al and Chris Booth. I’m not part of CBC but I am part of the Small Group and that suits me just fine.
I did a short canal walk with Phil and Al, both friends from the Small Group. The weather was a bit mixed but we enjoyed the walk with coffee and a light lunch at the half way point at Ebley Mill.
The Lion Trail
Donna and I walked around the centre of Cheltenham as she wanted to do the Lion walk. Some of those lions are amazing!
We visited Blenheim Palace, in part to look at the flower show that was on, and in part to explore aspects of the palace that we’d not seen before. We took a good look around the Winston Churchill exhibition (Churchill was born in the palace and spent a lot of time here, it was one of his favourite places).
But we also explored the parkland around the house, a wide expanse and very beautiful too as you can see from the photo.
Donna ran a 10 km race at Westonbirt School; she was among the final finishers, but she did it. With a large field of experienced club runners, she did really well and deserves plenty of kudos for all the training and effort she put in!
The start date for our heat pump installation slipped to 6th January, so we’ll have to manage without central heating until half way through January. We still have the gas fire in the lounge, of course, and we have several convector heaters too.
Kingfisher
A bonus this month was that I got a photo of the kingfisher perching on the barbed wire outside Cirencester’s outdoor swimming pool. Although it’s a little fuzzy, it’s the best image I’ve obtained of the kingfisher so far.
Sadly, it was no longer possible to keep Erin alive any longer and I buried her in a carefully recorded spot in the garden (one of her favourite summer sleeping spots).
Chastleton
We visited Chastleton House, partly because we wanted to see the house and grounds, but particularly as we wanted to look at the amazing plaster ceilings for which the old house is so famous. We were not disappointed! The photo shows the largest of these extraordinary ceilings.
Narrow escape
Shortly before Christmas a huge lime tree fell across the Gloucester Road between Cirencester and Stratton, demolishing a section of the Cotswold wall on the west side of the road, taking out a big chunk of the hedge on the east side, and almost crushing a passing car. The driver must have had a very narrow escape.
Walking in Cirencester Park near Barton Farm, I passed this medieval dovecote, the oldest building still standing in Cirencester apparently. What a delightful and wonderful old structure!
I had a really good phone chat with my friend Jim who lives near St Neots. His daughter Bethany has completed training as a nurse, following in her mum’s footsteps.
During a heavy storm on 23rd, we had leaks through the dining area rooflights, but a local builder, Trevor Rowlands, was exceptionally helpful and covered up the rooflights with waterproof sheeting, weighing it down with heavy timber and brick which worked well as a temporary fix.
Elephants!
Donna and I walked into Cirencester park to look at the elephants. There’s been a whole herd of a hundred of them in London, but three are currently on loan to the park.
We drove to York to spend some time with Debbie, Beth and their families. As always, it was great to see everyone and exchange presents, now a long-standing tradition. There was the annual Nativity play in Thorganby, Sara was Mary this year.
In Broadstone
And, of course, we also drove down to Broadstone to see Donna’s parents and meet Paul and Vanessa with more presents to exchange.
Wedding
And on 28th, Ele and Jonathan tied the knot in grand style, so December was a really busy month one way and another. Three long journeys for us, but all of them well worth the time and effort.
World events:OpenAI, a non-profit artificial intelligence research company, was founded; and SpaceX landed a Falcon 9 rocket, the first reusable rocket to successfully enter orbital space and return.
On holiday in Gran Canaria, we drove up into the central mountains on 1st December; the scenery was amazing. We were surprised to get a view of Mount Teide about 120 km across the sea on Tenerife.
I finally made the move from Windows to Ubuntu on 13th December. No more Windows licence fees, no more expensive software, everything I need in one free installation – the operating system, office suite, image editing, everything, all at zero cost. I was well pleased. Then, a few days later we had a heavy snowfall.
Snow!
We set off in the snow to drive to York, but most of the way the roads were completely clear of snow.
The 5th Cornerstone Directors’ Meeting was held on 7th November. It wasn’t clear if Paul wanted to have directors or not, our advice and suggestions seem to cut across his own plans, but he’s in difficulties and could do with help and advice. We decided he needs to be clear about his wishes.
We drove down to Broadstone to Visit Donna’s Mum and Dad just before New Year’s Eve and Paul and Justine who were also there at the time. It was good to see Paul again, he’s always been one of my favourite people.
An extra Unilever Portal page was needed for Colworth, so I was working on that, but also I’d been tasked with managing the spreadsheets involved with the costs of Colworth mobile phone calls and that was proving much more difficult. Not only was I unfamiliar with Microsoft Excel, but the systems for charging departments were not easy either.
I’d been travelling down to visit Mum and Dad, often on a Friday, and not long before Mum’s Hospital admission Dad had asked me to pray with them. I think he knew Mum had little time left. I knelt down between them as they sat in the front sitting room at Churnside and each held one of my hands and we prayed together, I think for safety, blessing, peace and Jesus’ guidance. Then I left to drive home, and that was the last time I saw my Mum while her mind was still active.
Shortly afterwards, Mum had a couple of major strokes and was in Cheltenham General Hospital on 30th December, though she seemed to be no longer conscious or aware. The photo shows the hospital with Cleeve Hill in the background. Dad was of course distressed by this and the entire family rallied round. Donna and I made our way down to join them all. The hospital was very helpful, finding a room we could all rest in and even stay overnight to be with Mum and Dad as much as possible.
World events: Scientists announced the creation of mice with small numbers of human neurons to model neurological disorders; and an extra second was added (23:59:60) to resynchronise calendar time to atomic clock time, last required in 1998.
We had a WebForum meeting in Amsterdam. The photo shows Phil Briggs (Briggsy) reading a newspaper on the plane, probably from Cambridge Airport to Rotterdam. We’d have completed the journey by train from Rotterdam to Amsterdam. Pete Keeley also came with us on this trip. My initial development of a temporary WebForum for Unilever Research sites was going to be replaced with a much improved version to be developed for us by INFO NL, a software developer in Amsterdam. INFO NL demonstrated their web site development software and we discussed early mock-ups of the appearance and functionality we would require.
Data Science’s Christmas Party.
Donna and I both worked for Colworth’s Data Sciences group. I was in the Knowledge Systems Group (KSG) while she was in Statistics. Data Sciences held a Christmas Party each year and anyone working there in 2000 will recognise the people in the photo.
This was a difficult month for all of us as Judy became weaker and weaker and was unable to do anything for herself. She was stuck in bed and quite unable to get downstairs, even with considerable help. The exceptions were when Tony, Faith, Paul and Jenny visited for a meeting. Judy protested that we should continue meeting downstairs no matter what, so Tony and Paul carried her down in the wheelchair for the meetings and back up afterwards.
Reading through my journal entries during the last week or two of December reminds me of many details I’d forgotten. Judy tried to hide her pain, not only from me, Debbie and Beth, but also from Dr Boyles and the nurses. But once we understood this Dr Boyles was able to keep her comfortable without knocking her out entirely – a good outcome.
Our friend, Bev Foster agreed to take the coming funeral service at the crematorium when the time came, and Judy was pleased about that. On 26th Judy woke me several times to say she needed the loo, but it was far too late every time. This provoked a decision to insert a catheter. Judy died at two minutes past midnight on 28th December with my Mum and Dad, me, Debbie and Beth all gathered around the bed. In the end she just stopped breathing. I phoned the on-call GP who certified the death, and then called Britten’s Undertakers to collect the body. None of us felt like sleeping, so we watched the newest Wallace and Gromit film, A Close Shave, which Judy would have absolutely loved. we were in bed by 02:00 and slept like logs until the morning.
On 29th I drove into Clevedon to register the death and later began phoning round to make arrangements for the funeral and everything that needed to be put in place. It all came together quite easily and very satisfactorily.
World events: NASA’s Galileo Probe entered Jupiter’s atmosphere; and the Dayton Agreement was signed in Paris, officially ending the Bosnian War,
Debbie had a major role in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Backwell School on 15th December.
Beth and Judy
We spent Christmas Day and Boxing Day with Judy’s parents in Charlton Kings, then on 27th we visited Cirencester to see my Mum and Dad. We tried to ring the changes a bit, sometimes spending Christmas in Cirencester, sometimes in Cheltenham, but rarely at home in Yatton. Before leaving for Cheltenham, on 23rd December we’d spotted goldcrests and bluetits in our back garden in Yatton. Hungry birds in the winter often appear in gardens where food may be more available.
World events:Channel Tunnel workers from the United Kingdom and France met 40 metres beneath the English Channel seabed; and Slobodan Milošević was elected President of Serbia in the first round of voting.
Judy made and decorated a cake for her Mum and Dad’s 40th wedding anniversary and we drove up on the day to give it to them.
Around this time (I’m not sure exactly when) it was clear my gibberellin localisation work was not going anywhere, and Long Ashton management decided I’d be better employed helping with the electron microscopy lab supporting Richard Pring who needed an assistant. My extensive background in light and fluorescence microscopy made me a promising candidate and I was happy and relieved to take on the role. We had a Philips 505 scanning electron microsope (SEM) with a cryo attachment for work with frozen samples, and a Hitachi transmission electron microscope (TEM). Staff from other departments at Long Ashton, and visiting workers would often need microscopy work done and would either want help and advice with using the instruments or perhaps need someone to do the work on their behalf. So it was an interesting job socially as well as technically.
Debbie and Beth remained at school in Yatton and we were living at 80 Stowey Road.
World events: The first Unabomber victim, Hugh Scrutton, died in Sacramento; and the naturalist, Dian Fossey, was found murdered in Rwanda.
I couldn’t find anything for December 1980. This photo is believed to date to 1980 based on its position in Judy’s photo albums, it looks like a dull but warm day in summertime. There’s a for sale sign in the garden which is puzzling because we moved house in August 1985 and Beth looks far too young. In summer 1980 she would have been two. Perhaps the sign was for Mike and Mary Low’s house next door at the end of the terrace. I’m pretty certain they moved some years before we did.
As with all the shops in Cirencester, John Jefferies and Son’s would have been busy leading up to Christmas with customers buying gift vouchers, pots of Hyacinths forced for Christmas flowering, and Christmas wreaths for front doors, and of course, the essential bare-rooted Christmas trees in a range of sizes, also local people ordering Interflora deliveries to far-flung friends and relatives.
Judy and I were busy collecting suitable things to put in Debbie and Beth’s tights to hang up on Christmas Eve. We didn’t pretend that Father Christmas was real, we explained that it was all a bit of fun, and it was mums and dads who filled the children’s socks; but we also told the girls that some of their friends might think he was real and they shouldn’t disappoint them as that was OK too.
I remember being about three or four myself and walking along the footpath between Queen Anne’s Road and St Mary’s Road with Dad and my younger sister Cindy. I said to Dad, ‘Father Christmas isn’t real, is he Daddy?’ Dad just put his finger to his lips and said, ‘Shh, we’ll talk about it later’, and we did. It didn’t occur to me to ask, ‘So… who eats the mince pies and the carrot, and drinks the sherry, then?’
Debbie turned 9 months old and by now we were well settled in our home in Rectory Drive, Yatton. We bought a twin tub washing machine that could be rolled out from under the kitchen worktop (it made washing nappies far easier), and our old cooker, fridge and double bed came with us from the flat in Bristol.
On the swings
We were in Cirencester visiting my Mum and Dad on the day after Boxing Day (27th December). Probably we had been in Cheltenham on Christmas Day with Judy’s parents, perhaps splitting Boxing Day between the two families.
I have no photos for December 1975, but the two shots here in Cirencester’s Abbey Grounds were filed by Judy in one of her photo albums around that time. But, as Debbie pointed out to me, they must be a few years later than 1975.
World events: Wreck of HMHS Britannic (sunk by a German mine in 1916) was discovered by Jacques Cousteau; and six people kidnapped delegates of an OPEC conference in Vienna.
Judy began her temporary work at a Bristol department store during the Christmas/New Year rush when they needed additional help. The photo shows Broadmead as it was in 2005, the two large buildings near the top were Jones’s (left) and Lewis’s (centre) in 1970.
By this time we were well settled in our bedsit in Linden Road and saving as much as possible so we’d be able to buy some furniture once we moved to an unfurnished flat. We would need quite a lot, dining table and chairs, a sofa, easy chairs, a cooker, fridge, washing machine, kitchen stools, a TV and something to stand it on, the more we thought it through the more it seemed to add up. Most of it would have to be second-hand.
At work I was looking into the possibility of starting on a higher degree. It seemed possible I could do an MSc by research and write it up as a thesis; and one of the most promising lines would be pollination of a fruit tree other than apples which were already well-covered by Ray Williams and his team. One early contender seemed to be plum. My boss, Ken Stott was beginning to reduce his willow and poplar work in favour of helping with the pollination studies and it seemed we were going to buy an ultraviolet fluorescence microscope similar to the one being used to track apple pollen tubes growing in compatible and incompatible apple flowers. That would be perfect.
World events: The U.N. General Assembly supported the isolation of South Africa over its apartheid policies; and Paul McCartney sued to dissolve The Beatles legal partnership in the UK.
The 6th Form went carol singing around the town. Judy and I shared a hymn book (the photo shows a similar version) so we could both keep one hand warm in a pocket. Judy put her school hymn book in my right jacket pocket and I held mine in my right hand so we could both see the words in the lamplight.
At the end of the event we all made our way home, but Judy forgot to recover her hymn book. I found it, of course, immediately after setting off for home (as soon as I put my hands in my pockets). I ran after her to hand it back but in the distance saw her disappear through the front door of her parent’s home at 69 Chesterton Drive. I walked on down and rang the doorbell. Her Dad answered the door, I explained that I was returning Judy’s Hymnbook, he thanked me, and I headed home. This was my introduction to Judy’s Dad; I already knew he was in the Police and had been a sergeant in Filton but was now newly promoted to Inspector, he seemed approachable and very matter-of-fact.
World events: The Glasnost Meeting in Moscow became the first spontaneous political demonstration in Russia; and Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 performed the first controlled rendezvous in Earth orbit.
December saw the end of my first term in Class 2B at Cirencester Grammar School. Mum and Dad would have been preparing for Christmas, the cake was probably baked by now and it would have been undergoing regular drenching from below with sweet sherry (aided and abetted by numerous holes created by one of Mum’s knitting needles. Dad would have selected a well-balanced Christmas tree. Bonfire night had long since come and gone, the end of the school term would come next, and then it would be Christmas followed by New Year and then in January the second term in my second year at the Grammar School.
World events: A Soviet satellite containing the dogs Pcholka and Mushka, other animals, and plants was launched into orbit. Due to a malfunction, it burned up during re-entry; and Peter Pan was presented as a two-hour special on NBC in the United States. Rather than being presented live, it was shown on videotape, allowing repeats.
I was in the third year at Querns School (my junior school). I was excited as I was seven-years-old and Christmas was getting close. Christmas was always fun, a decorated tree, presents from parents and grandparents, Christmas cake, Christmas pudding, sausages wrapped in bacon, a holiday from school. And, if you were lucky … snow!
The tree in the image was decorated in typical 1955 style. Tinsel hanging down like icicles, coloured balls, and early designs of electric lights, small but not tiny like today’s LEDs, often with moulded coloured glass in shapes of Father Christmas, reindeer, little pine trees, lanterns. And the presents stacked below – what would be inside those paper wrappers?! So exciting!
Approaching 2½-years-old, Christmas must have been a huge surprise for me. I would not have retained many memories of the previous Christmas, and my understanding of all sorts of things would have improved dramatically as well. Christmas 1948 would have effectively passed me by, but Christmas 1950 would have been a revelation; presents to unwrap, the sound of tearing paper, the stickiness of sellotape, the smells of fruit cake, sherry, and the sounds of Christmas carols outside the front door must have been really striking! A tree with lights on it, tinsel, shiny balls hanging on the tree with miniature reflections. All the adults chatting and laughing would have seemed very different from their usual serious calmness.
World events: Isaac Asimov published his science fiction short story collection I, Robot; and Richard Nixon took office as a U.S. Senator from California.
December was a busy month. In addition to writing and receiving many letters and cards to and from family, friends, and of course Lilias, Mike watched some ENSA shows, and also films. Meanwhile he was taking part in an amateur Christmas play. He had a collision with an Indian army truck on 3rd and also was able to drive an Austin 10 Staff Car.
He went to communion on Sunday 9th and heard a service broadcast by the BBC from Cirencester Parish Church! He was picking up some local words in the Marathi language spoken in the Mumbai area, gadi sounds like ‘garry’ and was the word for a lorry, pani gadi sounded like ‘parny garry’, pani meaning water, and pani gadi was a boat (literally a water lorry).
By 18th December they were rehearsing their Christmas play ‘Round the Bend’ right through from beginning to end and everything was coming together. He had a chance to examine an American B-24 Liberator bomber with his friend Paddy. Christmas dinner was served by the CO and other officers. On 30th December he went swimming at Juhu Beach with Paddy, noting in his diary ‘water lovely and warm’.
World events: The United States Senate approved the entry of the USA into the United Nations by a vote of 65–7; and twenty-one nations ratified the articles creating the World Bank.
There’s not enough information to write something for every month in the 1940s. Mike’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.
The top floor of John Jefferies & Son’s shop and office in the Market Place was entirely occupied by the Landscape Design Department. It was the domain of my Uncle John, born in 1907. I remember it in the 1960s as a large, open space filled with beautifully drawn plans of proposed gardens, some pinned on drawing boards, and many more rolled up and stored in cardboard tubes. John, and his assistant Desmond Walker, did the survey and design work, while a team of practical workers converted the designs into real gardens. Each site had to be cleared, the hard landscaping done first (building walls, laying paving, fitting gates, constructing rockeries), then trees, shrubs and herbaceous borders planted, lawns seeded and so forth.
From 1939 until 1945 or later, this work would have stopped. John joined the army as an officer and was away from home for a number of years. World War II was an unavoidable interruption for British businesses of all kinds. The armed forces required a great number of men and women, and inessential things like building gardens had to wait.
John was thirty-two-years-old in 1939 so he’d have done some garden design work before the war began, perhaps enough to become competent but not an expert. I remember helping him build a rockery somewhere south of Cirencester, probably in the Blunsdon/Highworth area north-east of Swindon from what I recall. This was much later, perhaps during a summer holiday while I was a Sixth Form student. I had thought for a time that I might consider the Landscape Architecture course at Pitville Pump Room in Cheltenham, but in the end studied Horticulture at the University of Bath instead. I remember the care and precision with which Uncle John manouevred large blocks of Costwold stone so that they aligned just so with their neighbours to give the impression of being part of an underlying natural outcrop. The angle of repose had to be just right.
I also remember that at one point his left wrist got trapped between a stone we were moving and one that was already in place. His watch glass was shattered though he was unhurt.
World events: British forces in North Africa began their first major offensive, attacking Italian forces at Sidi Barrani, Egypt; and Plutonium was first synthesised in the laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.
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 we’ll take a look at an aspect of the town rather than my family history. This is Barton Mill in the 1930s according to the OldCiren Facebook group where I found a copy of this photo. The mill burned down in 1926 and I had assumed it was never replaced, although the mill pound still exists in 2025.
The same view today
This photo taken 95 years later in December 2025 is seen from the same angle. I thought there’d have been no mill here in the 1930s, but the photo was made from a footbridge that’s still there and is in daily use as part of Riverside Walk. There is no mill here today, though, so there’s a fuller story to discover if and when anyone has the time and inclination to dig a bit deeper.
World events (December 1935): The German Lebensborn program in support of Nazi eugenics was founded by Heinrich Himmler. (December 1930): All adult Turkish women were given the right to vote in elections.
In 1900, Watermoor was a recently but rapidly growing industrial area. It included the Cirencester Arm of the Thames & Severn Canal ending at Cirencester Wharf, Watermoor Railway Station, and an ironworks with its blast furnace, noted for its ability to cast large iron structures without cracks forming on cooling. Famously, the huge gear wheel for the rotating stage at the London Palladium was cast here. I wonder how they moved it to London?
The photo shows Watermoor Church in astonishingly open countryside. In the photo, the road ahead points the way north to Cirencester, becoming Cricklade Street at or near the junction with Lewis Lane and Querns Lane. In the other direction, it rejoined the old Roman route of Ermin Street heading towards Cricklade, Blunsdon near Swindon, and on to Marlborough. In this view Ermin Street would be a few tens of metres out of sight to the right
This time we’ll take a look at William John Jefferies, born in Cirencester 0n 8th June 1844 and my great-great-Uncle William. He married his wife Frances in 1894 and died in 1929 at the age of 84.
William had a huge role in building and expanding the family business he inherited from his father, John Jefferies. He was a real entrepreneur, someone with considerable drive, determination, and focus. He was a businessman through and through and he developed what was already a locally respected nursery business into a nationwide and even internationally renowned company. I suspect it might have been William who requested and obtained the title ‘Royal Nurseries’ This was a forerunner of the later ‘By Appointment to’ designation denoting high status businesses approved by and supplying royalty. It may also have been William who built the Warehouse (now flats) on what was then Tower Street Nursery and much later became the Forum Garden Centre. And it was likely William who developed the Garden Design Department and was behind the company’s presence at both local and national flower shows.
William built two houses in the Avenue. They were a semi-detached pair, he and Frances (Fanny) lived in the left half and his sister Julia in the right half. There was an interconnecting door between the two homes. On William’s death, Fanny moved in with her sister-in-law Julia. The houses still exist, William’s half is now The Avenue Surgery, part of Cirencester Medical Practice, the right hand property remains a private residence.
As William and Frances (Fanny) had no children, he took on his nephew, Edward Arthur Jefferies as his main assistant in running the company and Edward (often known as ‘The Governor’ or just Guv) continued managing the company on his Uncle William’s death.
Family connections
Parents – (John and Alice Jefferies [nee Freeth])Jefferies)
Born – 8th June 1844
Died – 1929
Married, 1894 – Frances (Fanny)
Siblings – John Edwin (1845), Alice Mary (1847), Edward (1849), Julia Anne (1851), Henrietta (1854), Agnes Henrietta (1855)
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To answer those two simple questions I need to be be honest with myself and also be honest with you, my readers.
NOTE: This article led me to write more material, not part of the chain blog. You might like to take a look.
What does Jesus mean to me?
He means the world to me. In all seriousness I have to say he is my source, my inspiration, my guide and teacher, and the essence of all I want to be. Jesus once said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life’; for me that sums him up extremely well.
Jesus is someone we must all make up our own minds about. He’s an historical person, not only is his life and death described in the four gospels in all versions of the Bible, and his teachings presented throughout the New Testament, he is attested by Roman, Jewish, and Muslim authors as well. Josephus writes about him in his famous history of the Roman war against Judea and the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 AD. The apostle Paul writes about him too and was mightily influenced by him although they probably never met, though Paul did experience Jesus in spiritual ways. And the Roman authors Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny the Younger all wrote about him; so did Mohammed and Jesus (Isa) is mentioned in the Koran and in other Muslim books and teachings and is regarded as an important prophet.
But for me, and many other followers of Jesus, he is far more than a figure from history and far more than an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a shepherd, or a teacher (though he was all of those things). Jesus taught his followers about his spiritual Father, Yahweh, the God of Israel, about the Holy Spirit who would come and rest upon them and live within them, the Spirit he would send to rest on them and in them after he, the Son, returned to be with the Father again. I have received this Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, myself. I’ve been changed, I cannot deny that.
How do I respond to him?
In the late 1960s and early 1970s I began following him as best I could, learning more and more about him and what he wanted of me along the way. I’ve written about this elsewhere, in a series of articles that is not yet finished.
I’ve gradually discovered along the way that he wants me to follow him, to grow in my understanding of how foundational he is, who he is and how he leads and guides me. So my response is as full and complete as I can manage. I make mistakes along the way, I’m still learning at 77-years-old, I’ll never know him fully in this life, but I am still making progress. One of the things I do is write articles like this one, hoping a little of his light will shine out in my life and help to reach those around me every day. I try to listen, both in my reading of the Bible and many other books written about Jesus down the ages. I can see glimpses of him in other people who followed him in past times (St Patrick, for example).
In the time remaining to me (it will be far shorter than the 77 years I’ve already had, unless I make it to 155-years-old which seems highly implausible. Ha!) In those final years of my life on this planet I want to get to know him even better and learn to serve and follow him ever more fully. Jesus is love in person, so the better I get at loving those around me, the more like him I will become. So that is my ultimate goal – to serve him by becoming more and more like him. That, I think, is the only sensible way to respond to him.
I could go into the practicalities in endless detail, but I could never do better (or even half as well) as Henry Drummond. Do leave your thoughts below, and any questions you might have. I’ll try to respond to all your reactions in my replies. This article was intended to start the chain blog, but also sparked a new series of posts which continues with Becoming like the foundation.
At Vale Road in Stratton on the northern edge of the Cotswold town of Cirencester, residents (and one in particular) put a lot of effort each year into decorating their homes and gardens with all sorts of coloured and illuminated decorations. And they invite the people who come to look to make a contribution to Macmillan Cancer Support.
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
People love Christmas lights and decorations, and people hate illness particularly if there’s no cure. So can Christmas lights help people with incurable illness? Yes they can! But…how?
Well, one way is to use the Christmas decorations to raise money for charity, and that’s what one street in Cirencester has been doing every year for some time now.
There’s more inside – a model village!
At Vale Road in Stratton on the northern edge of the Cotswold town of Cirencester, residents (and one in particular) put a lot of effort each year into decorating their homes and gardens with all sorts of coloured and illuminated decorations. And they invite the people who come to look to make a contribution to Macmillan Cancer Support. This charity provides care, help, nursing and support for cancer patients and their families right at the time when they need help most. They will help families care for a mum, a dad, or a grandparent at home.
The heart of the action
If you live in Cirencester or the local area, why not drive out to Vale Road and park in a nearby street like Vaisey Road, Tinglesfield or Park View? (But please don’t block any driveways or park near junctions.) Then walk the short distance to Vale Road. You can pay for a tour of the best of the lights, delight your children (or grandchildren), and help support a great cause all at the same time. What could be better than that?
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
John knew Peter well, they’d been around the entire time of Jesus’ teaching of the twelve, and perhaps they’d known one another for years before Jesus came on the scene, both families lived by fishing on Galilee, they were both called by Jesus to follow.
18:1-14 – Jesus and his disciples left the upper room and walked out of the city, presumably by a southern gate. They crossed the Kidron Valley and entered the garden of Gethsemene (from ‘gath’ meaning a press, and ‘Shemanim’ meaning oils). It was a place where olive trees grew and where the harvested olives were pressed to release the oil. ‘Garden’ does not imply decorative plants and flowers as we would think of a garden today. It was just the term for an enclosed agricultural space, a ‘garth’ or ‘gard’ with a wall around it to ‘guard’ it. Jesus and his followers often met here, and Judas was well aware of that fact.
Judas arrived outside the enclosure, followed by a group of soldiers (presumably Romans) as well as a group of Pharisees and some staff of the High Priest. Jesus left the walled enclosure and asked them who they were looking for, and they answered ‘Jesus of Nazareth’.
Jesus told them, ‘I am he’. And they stepped back and fell to the ground. ‘I am’ in Hebrew and in Aramaic sounds rather like ‘Yahweh’, the Holy Name that nobody was allowed to utter. This would have profoundly shocked the Pharisees and the High Priest’s staff. He asked them again, ‘Who are you looking for?’ Again they answered, ‘Jesus of Nazareth’. And he told them again, ‘I am he, so let these others leave’. Peter had a sword and struck out at Malthus, the High Priest’s servant, cutting off his ear lobe. Jesus told Peter to put the sword away. The Roman soldiers under their commander, and the Jewish officials accompanying them, arrested Jesus and tied his arms, probably behind his back, then took him to Annas, once High Priest, father-in-law of Caiaphas, the current High Priest. Annas asked questions about Jesus’ followers and about doctrinal matters and then sent him on to Caiaphas.
Peter’s denials
18:15-26 – Peter and one other disciple followed Jesus and the group who’d arrested him (bravely under the circumstances). There’s been some debate about the ‘other’ disciple. It might have been John, or Nicodemus, or Joseph of Arimathea, or possibly even the traitor, Judas. (Read some aspects of the debate for yourself.)
This other disciple made it possible for Peter to enter the home of Annas where there were some questions being asked of Jesus. So which of those characters mentioned above would most want Peter to hear that questioning and Jesus’ answers? Think about that for a moment. John knew Peter well, they’d been around the entire time of Jesus’ teaching of the twelve, and perhaps they’d known one another for years before Jesus came on the scene, both families lived by fishing on Galilee, they were both called by Jesus to follow. Peter was a man of action, he’d proved it once again by using his sword that very evening!
Annas questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching (verse 19). Jesus often taught to crowds (you can’t get more public than that) and replied that he always taught in public in synagogues, or even the Temple courts. He didn’t teach in secret. Annas could learn about Jesus’ teaching from any of his many listeners. That remark drew an abusive slap in the face from one of the Jewish officials. Peter and the other disciple heard and saw all this. At this point Annas sent Jesus, still tied up, to Caiaphas.
And Peter denied being one of Jesus’ disciples for the second and third times. How did all this affect Peter? I’d suggest seeing and hearing the interrogation and the angry slap and recognising his own failure in denying he was a disciple all helped to stir Peter up and ready him for action. Frustration, helplessness, anger and guilt are a heady mix for anyone with a habit of activity. And I submit that John, knowing Peter as he did, would have expected that. I think John also understood that a time for action was coming very soon.
With Caiaphas
Although John doesn’t record the interaction between Jesus and Caiaphas, we can fill the gap a little from other sources, read Matthew 26 for example.
After the resurrection of Lazarus, Caiaphas had told the Sanhedrin that it would be better for one man to die for the people, than that the whole nation should perish. He was worried that the Romans would lose patience and intervene militarily.
And during Jesus trial before the Sanhedrin, Caiaphas directly questioned Jesus, demanding a clear answer on his identity: ‘I demand you tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God’. Jesus did not give a direct answer, but what he said was regarded as blasphemy and the Sanhedrin condemned him.
The Roman governor, Marcus Pontius Pilatus
Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin wanted the death penalty for Jesus, but only the Roman governor could provide such a sentence, so Caiaphas sent him on for a third hearing.
Pilate was not interested in religion, only in politics, so his first question was about Jesus’ kingship. Jesus explained that he hadn’t come to rule, but to testify to the truth. Pilate’s concern was not truth, either, but still only politics, so he went back outside to the waiting Jewish delegation and told them he didn’t find Jesus guilty of anything. But the custom is that at Passover time I release someone from captivity for you. I can release Jesus for you if you wish. ‘No’, they shouted back, ‘Not Jesus, release the agitator and rebel, Bar Abbas. This Aramaic name means, quite literally, ‘Son of the father’. This is striking indeed as Jesus is the true ‘Son of the Father’. Jesus was known in Galilee as ‘Yeshua bar Yoseph’, Jesus son of Joseph, but he was truly ‘Yeshua bar Abba’, Jesus son of the Father. The Jewish leaders were choosing the wrong man, but also the Wrong Father!
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
Journeys of Heart and Mind 
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