A ride out to Girton and Oakington to see a member of the congregation and to pay quiet homage to Agnes Arber (1879-1960)

This morning I cycled over to Midfield Lodge Care Home in Oakington to see there a very elderly member of the congregation who is slowly recovering from a serious stroke. My route took me past Girton Parish Church and, as I always do when I cycle by the church (unless it's pouring with rain), I stop and go into the church yard to pay quiet homage to Agnes Arber (1879-1960). Nobody seems to remember her these days but I think she's a quite remarkable figure and, this Sunday, I intend (at this moment on Friday evening anyway), to draw on her 1957 book The Manifold and the One for my address. I've been meaning to introduce folk to her for years but, for some reason, have not yet done so.

It was a beautiful autumn day and, as regular readers might expect, I took the opportunity to take a few pictures along the way. The first photo is of the grave Arber shares with her husband and the second is of Girton Parish Church itself. The ones which follow were taken on a footpath that runs between Girton and the new guided busway. In a field along that path I stopped for a flask of tea and spent a pleasant half hour re-reading some of Arber's book to help me begin to gather some thoughts for Sunday's address.

For those interested there is a paper about Arber available at this link by Rudolf Schmid from the Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley. It's called Agnes Arber, nee Robertson (1879-1960): Fragments of her Life, Including her Place in Biology and in Women's Studies.

All photos taken with my iPhone6+ and the RNIFilms app using a setting mimicking 1950s Agfacolor film.  Just click on a photo to enlarge it.