For Julian is an antiquary, that is a person who studies the past through looking at historical artefacts. And it is his lifetime’s collection of the stuff (and still counting), that I am delighted to have been invited to see today.
Albert Ernest Smith was born in 1903 and started work aged 13 for what was then known by the Orwellian title of The Cleansing Department, part of Oxford Corporation (now Oxford City Council). His first job was as a dustman, later driving a small van from which he serviced the central Oxford public lavatories.
I was delighted to be invited to meet Chris Raworth at his workshop in Middle Barton, catching him just after he had assembled his set of gallopers. A tall man with a shock of white hair he can barely contain his excitement as he opens the door into a long garage lined with benches overflowing with mechanical parts and crammed with boxes painted with brightly coloured signwriting instantly recognisable as that of the fairground.
This was ‘real tennis’, played with a net that sags in the middle, on a funky inside court to a complicated but intriguing set of rules more akin to a game of ‘quidditch’ than that played on the lawns of Wimbledon. And although today I am heading to the one surviving court in the city, it seems the game is still alive and kicking.
Firm believers in art made for public spaces, they were also keen that their work was accessible, sensory, tactile, carving the polysterene moulds by hand using household tools like potato peelers and nutmeg graters to produce a variety of concrete finishes.
It’s extraordinary to see what is achieved in such a tight space – Masoud and his team navigating the area, taking orders, scooping, cutting, frying, filling, it’s like a tightly choreographed ballet.
What I hadn’t fully understood was this was to be an immersive Christmas experience. For Cordelia doesn’t do this season by halves. First, I am treated to a tour of her Christmas crib collection. She has 74 of them.
It’s at this time of year, after the clocks have gone back, and the evenings draw closer, that I like to don my coat and scarf and set off for…
Kazem Hakimi has run the fish and chip shop at the far end of the Iffley Road for the past 36 years. It’s an old school takeaway. A narrow frontage…
Once upon a time there was a sad, unloved, alleyway. It was overgrown with weeds and brambles. And strewn with cans and broken bottles. Shopping trolleys, mattresses and building rubble…