DERELICT SUNDAY

We had a good service at Church, which I led this morning - with an excellent sermon from a visiting Minister, Rev'd Ian Bunce, entitled “Battle for the Mind”.  If you are interested in hearing it, you should be able to by clicking on this link.   Of course, there was emphasis on the Queen, and rightly so, but we were invited at the end of the service to join in a Communion Service and to remember that as Christians, we serve the King of Kings.

After the service, because I will be visiting a Blip friend on Tuesday and needed to get my rail ticket, we went to the station - I could have bought it online but would rather have the tickets in my hand and ready to go - a bit old-fashioned, I know, but I realised that if Mr. HCB was dropping me off at the station early on Tuesday morning, I needed to know everything was in place.

However, we were thwarted because I realised I had left my Senior Railcard at home in my purse, so we had to come home, collect it and then went back a bit later.  Mr. HCB, of course, was very pragmatic about the whole thing and never raised his voice, but just said we could come back quite easily, bless him!

Having done all that, I didn't like to suggest we went out for a drive, so having remembered that there was a derelict property on one of the roads on our way home, again, he was very kind and took me that way.

This has featured in one of my Blips six years ago, but it's now in much worse state, which is a great shame, as it could be a lovely double-fronted family home.

I found out this information, from Mr. Google, of course:

"At the time of the 1881 census the Clarke family lived at 17 Wellington Street.  William worked as an Iron Turner in the Great Western Railway Works, but he was an ambitious, intelligent and determined young man.  Ten years later William had moved his family up the social ladder and up the hill to a house in Victoria Road where he worked as a solicitor’s clerk.

When William died on December 16, 1898, his obituary in the Advertiser recalled how for many years he had been employed as a mechanic in the GWR Works, but eventually resigned his post to act as an accountant and debt collector."

Apparently, his three daughters, Rosa, Mabel and Florence established their own financial business - as accountants and debt collectors - quite something in those days, particularly for women!

Today, despite numerous planning applications, Oxford House is boarded up and derelict, with plenty of graffiti covering the window boards and doors.  It looks as if it could be a beautiful house if it was refurbished, but who knows what will happen to it in the future.  Having stood like this for so long, one wonders why the Council allows houses to deteriorate in this way, but sadly it is all too common in our town, as I'm sure in many other towns too.

I spoke to a friend at church this morning who had been up to London with his wife to pay their respects to the Queen.  His wife was in a wheelchair, so fortunately, they were in the "accessible" queue, but even so, they waited for six hours.  He said it was worth it, but his knees were very sore and he didn't sleep much last night.  We have watched quite a lot of the television coverage of the Queen Lying In State and of course, will be standing to honour her memory at 8 o'clock tonight along with millions of others.  She was a very special lady and loved by so many.