MY BOOKS
Havens Across the Sea
Havens Across the Sea is an account of the evacuation of a party of Oxford children and mothers to Canada and the United States in July, 1940, and their stay with families there in the years that followed. It is composed of recollections and contemporary material contributed by those who made the the journey.
Available from Robert Boyd Publications, 260 Colwell Drive, Witney, Oxfordshire, OX 26 5LW ISBN 1 899536 63 9. Published in 1990. Revised edition in 2015. Price £9.50.
Celebrating Age
A little booklet about all the good things about growing old. It was published by Age Concern (now Age UK) in 1987 when Ann was Chairman of Age Concern England. This body was the initiator of the year of Celebrating Age. Its main purpose was to go some way to counteract ageism and negative attitudes about growing old.
Storks, Black Bags
and Gooseberry Bushes
‘Where did I come from Mummy?’ Answer: ‘You were in the oven behind the gravy’. ‘Why didn’t I burn?’ ‘Oh, Mummy was clever and knew when to bring you out when you were ready’. Another child was told that her baby brother was bought at Woolworths. This is a collection of the awkward questions that children asked several generations ago. Contributions came from the USA as well as from Great Britain.
This can be obtained from Paul Watkins Publishing,
1 High Street, Donnington,Lincolnshire, PE114TA
Price £3.95.95 ISBN 1 871615 63 1 Published in 1993. Email: pwatkins@pwatlinspublishing.fsnet,co.uk
Oxfordshire People and the Forgotten War The Anglo-Boer Conflict 1899-1902
This fascinating and highly readable story of one County’s part in the Anglo-Boer conflict will be of interest to those who wish to learn about how those who fought or looked on reacted to this conflict. The story is told with the help of family archives and photographs, most published for the first time, as well as contemporary accounts in magazines and newspapers of the day. It throws a particularly personal light on the events.
Available from Robert Boyd Publications, 260 Colwell Drive, Witney, Oxfordshire, OX 26 5LW ISBN 1 899536 63 9. Published in 2002. Price £12.95.
Books in The Changing Faces series
Published by Robert Boyd Publications,
260 Colwell Drive, Witney, Oxfordshire, OX26 5LW.
The Changing Faces of North Oxford
Book One (Norham Manor)
There are many people, not only those who have Oxford connections, who will enjoy this book. It has a fascinating chapter about the snobbery which was rife in that part of Oxford in the late 19th and earlier 20th centuries. It also includes photographs of the Tolkeins and Haldanes in the section on North Oxford families. It includes the account of how the author contacted John Betjeman to help prevent the destruction of the North Oxford houses in the 1960’s.
First published in 1997. ISBN 1 899536 25 6.
The Changing Faces of North Oxford
Book Two (Walton Manor)
This book includes some excellent illustrations of this part of North Oxford which is older than Norham Manor, having been mentioned in the Domesday Survey. It has become a very popular place to live in recent years. Price £9.50.
ISBN 1 899536 33 7.
The Changing Faces of
Wolvercote, Wytham and Godstow.
This is a new edition of the one published in 1997 which has sold out. It was published in 2011 and includes photographs and information about more recent events and organisations.
Price £9.95. ISBN 978 I 899246 54 0.
The Changing Faces of Summertown
and Cutteslowe Book Two
Written with the help of Chris Nichols this was published in 2009. It includes the saga of the notorious Cutteslowe walls, a monument to snobbery erected between Council and private estates. After several unsuccessful attempts the walls were demolished in 1959.
Price £9.95. ISBN 978 1 899536 92 4.
The Changing Faces of Iffley
The name Iffley has been spelled 84 different ways since the earliest written evidence of Gifetelea in 941. It is best known for its wonderful Norman Church (shown on the back cover). The front cover shows a group celebrating May Day, a festival which has been celebrated in the village for over two centuries. The songs, rehearsed by the children for many weeks before the day, were handed down from the older to younger children. The children had a holiday from school and dressed up for the occasion. It was a great honour to be elected Queen or King of the May by one’s school fellows.
Price £8.50 ISBN 1 899 536 41 8.
The Changing Faces of Rose Hill
Although today Rose Hill is more associated with its post-war housing estate built by Oxford City Council to meet the needs of people coming to work in the motor industry, its origins go deep back in time. Excavations undertaken in 1935 proved that there was a potters’ kiln in use in the second century AD and there was evidence of people living there in pre-Roman times. The road and the estate are both named after a house on the hill in which lived an eccentric medical practitioner who gave it that name in about 1800.
Price £8,50 ISBN 1 899536 52 3.
The Origins of Oxford Street Names
Written by Ann Spokes Symonds and Nigel Morgan and published in 2010 this book became a best-seller and the first thousand copies sold out in six months. It was republished in 2011 and is still a very popular book in Oxford. Not only does it have an index of 1,455 Oxford roads and streets giving the reason for the names but it includes eighteen chapters which include Street Names in Early Days, How roads are named in more recent times, Evolving Names, Snobbery and Street Names, Missing Names and about roads names after Celebrities.
Price £11.95
Follow Me A Dog’s View of the Gospel Story
By Richard Symonds (Ann’s husband) and Ann Spokes Symonds. Published in 2006 by Robert Boyd Publications, 260 Colwell Drive, Witney, Oxfordshire, OX 28 5LW.
This is Tobias the dog’s story of the Gospels as told by him. When Jesus said to James and John ‘Follow Me’ he thought that meant him too and he also followed. The illustrations in this book show that right through the centuries great painters knew that the dog was there at the time of Jesus and his travels with his disciples. They therefore put him in their paintings. People of all ages will enjoy this book. Also, those studying history of art should gain from looking at these pictures.
Price£6. ISBN 978 1 899 536 82 5.