https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/4430842.run-bagley-wood/?
Reptiles, my latest novel starts with Toad Patrol in Bagley Woods. In this pic, I’m wear my high viz jacket but the month wasn’t appropriate, the amphibians move at the end of February and in March.
This is how I describe Toad Patrol in Reptiles
‘City girl, Alex, was amused when she first heard about Toad Patrol after buying a house in the village. She witnessed residents wearing high-visa jackets patrolling alongside the old Abingdon Road during mating season to protect a throng of frisky toads, newts and frogs from being flattened as they bounced out of Bagley Wood to the pond near Chandlings School. George had explained it to her,
‘Amphibians are not good at dodging traffic so we use torches to spot them as they near the kerb.’ Alex joined the team twice a week the previous year. She learned to place the rescued in buckets. George identified them including their sex, recorded the numbers and carried the buckets across the road where they were released to finish their journey to spawn in their favourite pond.’
I’ve good memories of taking my sons there in the holidays but you had to get permission from the Bursar of St Johns in those days. With Shirley & Idris Jones, John & Gill Hedge & Chris Warner, Atam & I founded the Kennington Peace Group and when the CND activist, Bruce Kent, was walking from Land’s End to John O’Groats, we arranged to meet him for a picnic in Bagley Woods on the way. I think it was 1983. Atam and Justin are talking to Margaret Ibbott. Bruce is sitting on the grass.
I became involved in KOA in 1974.
In the nineties, we started the Bagley Wood Fun Run. In 2013, I made a coup when I persuaded Sir Roger Bannister to open it. He invited the winners to tea with him. In those days, Ekhard Groth followed by Sylfest Muldal organised the Fun Run and it involved a lot of work! It was popularwith runners and walkers for 25 years. I walked it when not a marshall. 
KOA ended after 50 amazing years. Under the KOA banner and using our volunteers, the village ran brilliant events including Kids 4 KOA concerts, Opera Gala Nights, an annual pop up shop–the first in Oxfordshire- &,with the school and church, we ran a village fete. They like the Fun Run ended with KOA.
In 2018, when I stepped down from being chair of KOA we couldn’t find a replacement for me so decided that our 50th anniversary was the perfect time to celebrate our achievements and wind it up.
The final Fun Run was opened by the Lord High Sheriff who changed out of his ceremonial gear to run it.
When I wrote for the Oxford Times between 1998 and 2018, I was lucky enough to get a two page spread for a feature on Bagley Woods.
St Johns College,who own the wood, have been more open in recent years. I contacted Professor Heather Bouman, who has the great title of Keeper of Bagley Woods to try to make the woods family friendly. She’s open to the idea of nature trails and information boards but the wheels turn slowly in the colleges.
So watch this space….