The end of the season at Hinksey pool
This past week there’s definitely been an early morning nip in the air. The sun is lower in the sky, the leaves are turning, and the nights are closing in.…
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At Fringford Church with the Oxfordshire Monumental Inscriptions team
Mary Whitehead is kneeling in front of a part buried gravestone thick with yellow lichen when she calls me over to take a look. We are in the churchyard of the 12th century St Michael and All Angels Church in Fringford, just north of Bicester, and the decorative carving on the stone’s crown as well as its positioning on the main pathway tells her that this might be one of the oldest here. Carefully she takes her trowel and pulls back the inch or so of turf that has grown up around it.
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The gardeners of Cripley Meadow
Arriving in England from Southern Italy in 1960 to take up positions in domestic service, they were always going to grow their own – it was what you did back home. And over the years, they have cultivated everything from peas, parsnips, and pumpkins to chicory, chard, carrots and cucumbers, beetroot, borlotti beans and purple sprouting broccoli. They may no longer have the bend in their bodies to put in the hours they once did, but with no garden at home this is still their favourite spot, where they like to come to get out of the house. The place in which they have produced such abundance is where they feel most happy.
