Swindon Women’s Aid is celebrating its 40th birthday and is holding a number of events to mark this momentous occasion.
Jenni Manners set Swindon Women’s Aid up in 1975, in response to her own experience of domestic violence. This in urn inspired her to help others by providing a safe house to which women and their families could flee.
Ralph Bates Civil War Chronicler
Some time ago, in the tourist information centre in Bristol, I saw an information sheet on a literary trail round the city. And that got me thinking that Swindon could surely have such a thing here what with Richard Jefferies and Alfred Williams – neither of whom I knew much about until recently. No sooner had I had this thought than, in one of those curious coincidences that punctuate our lives, what should appear on my social media stream than a piece from the Swindon Link magazine publicizing a forthcoming talk at the Museum and Art Gallery about Ralph Bates. No – I’d not heard of him either. And in his day he was rated as better than Hemingway. Who knew?
Swindon Town FC: Come on you reds! “My name is Lee (@Leefer3 on twitter)…and I have been watching Swindon Town since 1975, so it’s close to forty years now.
My recent post about the Richard Jefferies museum at Coate, Swindon has prompted a reader of this blog to share with us his memories of his secondary school which was named after the eponymous writer.
Well dear readers, here we are with the last in my series of 10 things I think are worth celebrating about Swindon.
It’s not by any means a definitive list. Merely 10 things that have made an impression on me. Any one of you out there could make a completely different and equally valid list. The point being, and as Brian so eruditely points out in his post, Swindon and Swindonians – and after 20 years here I’d like to count myself as one because Swindon is definitely home to me now – has so very, very much to be proud of.
August 2013
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a busy university student needs guest bloggers to keep the blogging ball rolling. So I’m super grateful to Frances Bevan for sending me these words about some of Swindon’s old farmhouses.
Whilst my knowledge of Swindon, is at best, superficial – though my enthusiasm for the town is anything but – the same cannot be said of Frances.
