Kennington (Oxford) a unique and unsung village.
Kennington, where I live, is two miles from the beautiful city of Oxford and four miles from Abingdon, which claims to be the oldest town in Britain in continuous settlement. The village is squeezed into a narrow track of land between Bagley Woods and a beautiful stretch of the River Thames , where the annual Pooh Sticks Championship takes place. The other woodland is the spring flower paradise that is Radley Large Wood and, for which, the artist Diana Bell and the nature writer Paul Gamble and I have curated the anthology Woodland. There is a launch in Abingdon Library @ 6pm on Thursday Sept 17. All welcome. What makes Kennington unique? See below these pics.
There are many villages that are surrounded by inspirational countryside so it maybe an unsung asset but that isn’t unusual. What makes Kennington unique is a particular generosity. Many villages raise money for local charities, to restore the church organ, fundraise for the PTA and for local residents in need. Kennington does all of those but it goes further…
In 1968, the Kennington churches invited people of all faiths and none to explore new ideas. Those meetings resulted in the founding of two organisations. Kennington Good Neighbours offers sympathetic and pragmatic help, especially for the elderly. The other organisation was Kennington Overseas Aid (KOA), which lasted 50 years and, through annual events like a pop up shop, a Fun Run, children’s and adult concerts and gala nights raised over £500,000 for development projects all over the world. That’s quite an achievement for a not-wealthy village and the only one in the UK to do that. That experience made us open minded to a unusual project… twinning with an African village. Last year Kennington was the first village in Oxfordshire to twin with an African village and first in the UK to twin with a Kenyan village. We first connected with Musanda, through KOA, when we funded a Spirulina Production Unit in the village. Twinning is about friendship and learning from each other. Kennington has expertise that I hope can inspire Musanda. But I’d love the UK to learn from this village on how to empower disadvantaged children.
Our care system is an expensive rip off and a failure. A third of children taken in to care end up in trouble with the police and mostly feel abandoned at 18. Our Toward Twinning event was attended by three wonderful young people from Musanda. (pic below) Moses had been found almost dead, abandoned in a field, but he is now a dentist. Rajab and Eunice were orphaned at four years of age but Rajab is now a doctor working in the local hospital and Eunice is a social worker. The over 400 poor or orphaned children looked after in Musanda have ambition. They are loved and taught to believe in education and to work hard to acquire shills. No one can take them away from you! What children need is Love and a Purpose. We could learn from Musanda and we’d save huge amounts of taxpayer‘s money if we were prepared to do that. Our anniversary zoom will take place on October 10. I’ll be in Musanda to cut the tape on the new library/resource centre which will be the hub through which Kennington and Musanda can connect through zoom.
Rajab and Eunice in Kennington
The Library Resource Centre to be opened on October 10
& Sons : A Flash of Fame, Atam’s Nature /Nurture research and his experience as a man of colour in Academia.
On Friday evening, I went to the first showing of &Sons at the Phoenix Picture House. Veteran film producer ,Victor Glynn, whose son is a producer of &Sons, invited to me to be an extra. An early scene in the film is a memorial service in the exquisite Worcester College Chapel. Five hours of filming resulted in two minutes in & Sons and yes, I was there in a one second flash of fame alongside Bill Nighy. I took this pic when he walked passed me.
My connection with Victor Glynn?
He taught me screen writing on the Diploma Course in Creative Writing @Oxford. I pitched to him Shakespeare in Oxford, a series of contemporary adaptions of Shakespeare plays a few of us had written. He liked them and suggested we workshop Polly Biswas Gladwin’s take on Romeo and Juliet. This was the resulting film, taken by Philip Hind, of that workshop that Victor pitched to Channel 4… Ah well…. Nine months work organising it. The story of my life…
https://vimeo.com/123886243 Joe and Zara
Without spoiling the plot, in &Sons there’s a theme of Nature /Nurture. For two decades I was involved in that debate through Atam . His PHD was in Quantitative Genetics and was published in Nature. Given the death of Jason Arday, Atam’s experience as a man of colour in academia is relevant. I wrote about it in my memoir .Scientific racism etc Chapter 17 FoL
Victor has had amazing experiences including producing early Mike Leigh films and the TV Inspector Morse series o I had to cast him away on Oxtopia Here is his story.Victor Glynn
Victor and Colin Dexter enjoyed the castawy events. Here’s a good memory ( Victor on the middle behind Morse author, Colin Dexter). Sir Roger and Lady Moyra Bannister were enthusiastic supporters of my books. Moyra said Brushstrokes in Time is ‘Absolutely Brilliant!’ 
Interviewing the castaways: the importance of asking open questions and then listening & lessons for would-be writers from Colin Dexter.
Yesterday, I attended the Kyoto Prize lecture by Carol Gilligan. The psychologist has shown how women in particular silence themselves and say what they think they should say rather than express their true experience and opinion. Here is her lecture.
She stressed the importance of listening. To do that well she says you have to avoid judgement and employ curiosity. That triggered memories for me. For 10 years, I interviewed interesting people from five continents, most religions and backgrounds from aged 29-88 and cast them away on my mythical island of Oxtopia. Castaway was a magic word, even Chris Patten the last governor of Hong Kong and former chancellor of Oxford University let me cast him away and he was frank and open.
Oxford Castaways
Many of the castaways told me stories they had never told before. Kenyan born Nancy Mundenyo Hunt (Founder of the Nasio Trust) confessed that her father had not registered her birth because she was a girl. It was a few years later when her oldest sister named her Nancy and registered her, so she is not certain if the date her sister wrote is correct. Caroline Qu told me that the founder of the Stars Art Movement, Qu Leilei would NEVER talk about his first marriage. When he agreed to say a little something to me, it was like the floodgates opened: he talked for three hours. Similarly, Sir Roger Bannister, Dr Maria Jaschok, former Director of International Women’s Studies (Oxford), and the scientist Christopher Watson told me stories never in print before.
Why I wondered had that happened?
I started writing as the freelance specialist on Art and Antiques for the magazines of The Oxford Times, in 1998. I’d been a teacher and then started a business and , although I’d been an avid reader since aged seven and had written for pleasure, I had no formal training as a journalist. I simply used my instincts, instincts that I now believe were right.
I did some research before the interview but not so detailed that I and not the interviewee determined the story. I always started with the same question When and where were you born? Given the answer, I’d follow that with open questions about how the castaway got from there and then to the here and now. Some needed more prompting than others but once they got going, I just listened, recorded them and took notes and only interrupted if something wasn’t clear.
Fun but useful stories also immerged. When interviewing Colin Dexter, the author of the Morse series, I interrupted him for a clarification and the result was great advice for when, like him, I started to write novels. Colin had been a Classics teacher but started to lose hearing and needed to change career. He explained that was how he came to Oxford and the Oxford Exams Delegacy. He then launched into talking about his writing , so I interrupted him.
‘Colin I just want to check that I’ve understood this correctly. Are you saying that you wrote the Morse books while working fulltime at the delegacy?’
‘Yes’ he replied.
‘Bbbut how’ I asked, ‘how did you do it?’
His reply is a great lesson for would be authors.
‘It was like this. I went home and had supper (Having a wife is useful! Dorothy cooked it) I listened to The Archers, and then went to the pub for a pint or two (with fellow crossword compiler Don Manley). But I’d worked out that there are 365 days in a year and if I wrote a page a day, I’d written a book.’
So please, women or men readers, don’t silence yourself, express the real you – it will enrich your life and that of your listener. Once silenced stories are released, you are FREE you can be truly you.
Colin Dexter above and a few more other castways …
David & Me.
This blog sounds arrogant but my aim is to celebrate David Attenborough through some memories and meetings. I was 10 years old when I watched Zoo Quest on a tiny black and white TV but it is etched on my memory. From a young age I was fascinated by India and China so the search for the Kimodo dragon spoke to me. Dragons are benevolent in Chinese culture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omKm7jOkbcg
David also visited (a then) remote Hindu part of Bali. He fell and injured his arm. In the mountains there were no Western doctors so we watched him enter the premises of the local Ayurveda doctor. After 45 minutes he came out smiling and explained that he had pointed to his arm and the doctor had nodded and massaged his head. He had again pointed to his arm and the doctor massaged his shoulder and so on. I believe he said ‘He didn’t touch my arm but I feel a lot better.’
I never expected to meet David but I did twice and have never forgotten those meetings. For 10 years, with Gill Hedge, I ran Oxford Antiques Centre. We provided space for 30 dealers, a bookshop,a café and services like in the repair shop & a relaxed and popular meeting place.
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We had an antiquities dealer and a regular customer of his was Desmond Morris the writer of The Naked Ape. Desmond lived in North Oxford and he collected Etruscan Pottery.
One Saturday, he arranged to meet the antiquities dealer (on the stand next to mine) & he brought a friend with him -David Attenborough. In the Jam Factory pic, I’m in the blue & white striped outfit and Gill is next to me and I’m in the third pic too.
While Desmond was examining an Etruscan vase, I asked David if he collected anything and he replied ‘Studio Pottery’. I was pleased because we had a dealer in Studio Pottery. We showed him the cabinet with its examples of Leach and Cardew but he explained ‘I mostly collect Lucie Rie and Hans Coper.’ I was a bit downcast because that’s in another league but he said nice things about our centre and talked to everyone.
My next encounter was when writing for The Oxford Times. I was the art and antiques writer for 20 years and, for ten of those, I wrote the castaway series in which I wrote the stories of 100 interesting people from Town, Gown and County with connections to Oxford and sent them to my island of Oxtopia. Ma Smith , Chris Patten, Ray Foulk , founder of the Isle of Wight Festival, Euton Daley (Pegasus Youth Theatre), Shami Chakrabharti (then Chancellor of Brookes University where Atam taught), the Countess of Carnarvon, Colin Greenwood of Radiohead, Qu Leilei the Chinese artist who inspired me to write my first novel Brushstrokes in Time and the wonderful Roger Bannister etc. were among the hugely diverse castaways.
In 2012, David spoke at the press day for this Edward Lear exhibition at the Ashmolean.
The editor of Limited Edition Magazine and I attended eager to meet him and write the lead article in the magazine on the exhibition. After his talk and that of the curator, Tim & I looked for him and found him sitting alone in the shop. He looked tired… more tired than he does now at 100. We apologised but he started to chat. I gave him a copy of a wildlife related castaway feature and of the first castaway book. Tim and I explained what it was about and said, ‘We understand if the answer is ‘no’ but we’d be honoured if you might consider being an Oxford castaway.’
Oxford Castaways
But he didn’t say no! He suggested I get in tough with his agent in 18 months’ time & during the following year, 2015, said he may be able to do it. Imagine that! But ,when 2015 came around, Tim was to be one of the senior staff to be made redundant in sweeping cuts & the use of freelancers like me was being questioned. Newsquest was shedding staff and didn’t appear to be interested in content only in saving money. It was too embarrassing a situation to ask him. I don’t have many regrets in life but that is one of them.
David’s effects on my writing
David Attenborough’s programmes introduced me to a love of nature and wildlife as they do today’s young people. A love of walking in countryside resulted in my first book – ten Oxfordshire Rambles produced for KOA. On May 21 we will launch ‘Woodland’, a community anthology I’ve co-curated in support of the Friends of Radley Large Wood. (FRLW) The launch is being organised by the Friends of Kennington Library (FOKL) and will take place on Thursday May 21 in St Swithun’s Church Hall, Kennington Road, Kennington OX15PL @ 7pm.
The naturalist Hugh Warwick has endorsed it saying,
‘Words weave a welcome to the woods – poets, artists, writers, and ecologists – share their love of Radley Large Wood in this delightful collection.’
Oliver Tickell and I founded the Friends of Radley Large Wood in response to the heavy felling of the Eastern side of the ancient woodland using industrial machinery. https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/24839010.campaigners-ask-oxford-college-stop-felling-trees-wood/
The Friends are liaising with the wood’s owners St Hilda’s to encourage a lighter wildlife friendly approach to managing this well-loved wood situated between Kennington and Radley. As part of the anthology I wrote a potted history of Radley Large Wood and titled it Riots, poaching, dramas and holiday camps. For The Oxford Times I wrote a feature on a period of rebellion in the countryside due to land enclosures. What’s in a word? In essence it was stealing land just as Israel is doing in the West Bank. https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/1447890.rural-revolution/
There will be an Oxford launch of the anthology at the Summer Oxford Indie Book Fair under the umbrella of The Oxford Festival of the Arts on Sunday July 12 in Magdalen College School. https://www.oxfordindiebookfair.co.uk
A third launch will take place in Abingdon Library on September 17. The wood was once the property of the Abbot of Abingdon.
Please say NOT IN MY NAME
These inhumane times are hard to bear. It’s easy to feel helpless in the face of evil. There is one thing we can all do and that is to say or express, in any form we prefer,
NOT IN MY NAME
With Malcolm Atkins, I’ve founded Sing4 Gaza. It’s not a bureaucratic membership organisation more an idea that anyone anywhere in the world can use. We have a fundraiser event on Feb 14 for the Hands Up Project. They support children in Gaza and connect them to children elsewhere in the world. They write profoundly moving poems which Hands Up publish. We hope to connect with some of the young poets on zoom.
Sing 4 Gaza have the names of 20,000 children killed by the IDF. With friends we are recording them. It will take a long time to complete. A bell rings, I read the name of the child and his/her age and a bell rings. Of the three pages of the names I read last week, three quarters of the dead children were under two. They deserve an identity not just a body bag.
Minneapolis
I was stunned to realise that the population of Minneapolis is only double that of Oxford (when the students are here). Every citizen must be affected by the barbarities of ICE. The wonderful citizens of the city are saying
NOT IN MY NAME
This is my tribute to Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in the style of William Blake,
Make America Great Again
Stand Tall
‘Yea’ shouts the crowd,
Be Proud,
Make America Great Again.
Deport five year old Liam in his bunny hat.
Stand tall as you deprive him of his mother.
Be Proud,
Take old Chongli in his underwear into the freezing snow.
Make America Great Again
Sneer at outdated empathy.
Be brave with your guns.
Shoot Renee in her car,
and Alex on the ground.
Make America Great Again
Ignore the homeless
Ignore the hungry
Ignore the sick
Ignore the unemployed
Be proud
Watch Melania preen and scowl.
Make America Great Again
Echo true grit around the world.
‘Yea vote for that!’
Vote Farage, Vote Reform
And beat those puny folk in boats.
Make Britain Great Again
*****
There’s inhumanity everywhere. Yesterday I went to an International Liberty Meeting (Exiled Iranians).We held the pictures of beautiful young people shot in the back of the head by Revolutionary Guards. A Ukrainian living in my village says her daughter in Kviv is without heating and lifts etc. on a 16th floor flat. It’s minus 22 degrees. The Kurds are being treated like the Palestinians and life in the Sudan is hunger and horror. All we can do is not look away but raise our voices to demand a better world.
The Joy of the Oxford Indie Book Fair
The joy of the Oxford Indie Book Fair: inclusion, creativity, connection, fun & thought. The Lord High Sheriff gets it and describes it as ‘uplifting.’
https://highsheriffofoxfordshire.co.uk/a-morning-among-oxfords-storytellers
Oxib is run by a volunteer committee, and you can see from the faces of the delightful students volunteers from Oxford Brookes Publishing Course that as well as hardworking, they were enthusiastic.
There’s a pic of me when I was their age behind the Lord High Sheriff !
Here’s me now on my stand in 2025 ..ah well.
None of this could have happened without the support of Felicity and Richard Dick and the Lucy Group.
It is great to have an independent Oxford icon behind us. Shona Nicholson the experienced event organiser is neither an author nor publisher but manages everything on the day out of the goodness of her heart. It was great to see another incredible organiser at the fair Michelle Casteletti announcing the theme for The Oxford Festival of the Arts 2026 Signs Symbols and Secrets
The pics show that oxib is for EVERYONE. Dr Katie Isbester of Claret Press, my publisher, led the discussion of David v Goliath. She launched Secrets of Micro publishing… so if you want to start a publishing company get a copy.
To buy copies of Oxford Castaways 2
Go to
http://www.oxfordfolio.co.uk
and click on the cover image.