There are a LOT of interesting characters on this overcrowded island of ours; and if you’d been in the Rose & Crown last Friday night you could be forgiven for thinking that most of them live in Oxford.
Entertaining, erudite, eccentric, exasperating, extraordinary … All human life is here, and everybody seems to have a tale to tell.
So many exceptional people have strolled down our streets, shopped in our shops, swum in our streams, cursed at our traffic, wandered in and out of our hallowed portals, taken Oxford for granted precisely because they live and work and – let’s face it – love being here.
On which note we take this opportunity to draw attention to an excellent podcast series called Oxford Lives, produced by Graeme Fry with interviews by Jeremy Allen.
The strap line is ‘Real Lives. Real People’. What exactly ‘Real’ means is a moot point. But it is beyond doubt that everyone in this weird and wonderful city of ours seems to come with a fascinating backstory.
You can listen below to some recent examples:
JC Niala is a writer, poet, artist, urban gardener, and self-styled ‘delight merchant’ with a passion for heritage and storytelling. Her latest book would make David Attenborough’s heart sing. It is entitled The New Eden: Wildlife in the City. This superb image of JC (by portrait photographer Fran Monks) features in a current Ashmolean exhibition.
Nigel Ewers was for many years Butler to the Wardens of New College, and is now the college’s Visitor Liaison Officer, a post which affords him the perfect opportunity to regale all-comers with his rich store of anecdotes.
Liz Woolley is a well-known local historian whose research focuses on the ‘Town’ rather than ‘Gown’. She gives many public talks, the most popular of which is ‘Beer, Sausages, and Marmalade’ and the latest of which is about the Ultimate Picture Palace.
Rawz describes himself as ‘an artist working in multiple mediums’ – drawing, film, photography, colours, digital art, sculpture, painting, and above all poetry and music. From humble beginnings in Greater Leys, he has fashioned a reputation as one of Oxford’s foremost cross-disciplinary artists and community voices.
Dr Mary Miller is a consultant in palliative medicine, specialising in end-of-life care. A graduate of University College Cork, she came to Oxford in 1998. In this moving and deeply impressive interview she discusses the challenges and delights of caring for the terminally ill.
