Selma Becker-Parker

“You can be part of the community – or you can be anonymous if you want” I was born in Austria in the late 1950s and grew up in a small industrial mountain village in northern Styria. Trieben was a small community with only 3000 inhabitants, and everyone knew everyone else’s business. The educational system…

Philippe Rowland

“We’ve got to know a lot of people through dog walking” I was born August 1st 1961, in Indiana, USA. My mother had eight kids in 9 years, and I was the sixth. By the time I came along the family routine was well established. My father was very orderly in how he ran the…

Steve Travis

“Watlington for me is like being hugged by the Chiltern Hills and the community” I was born in the mid 60s in South Africa. We had a great family life, with my mum, my dad and my younger brother. All my schooling was in Johannesburg, and from the age of 14 I was working as…

Anna Badcock

“One of the most fulfilling things I do is go for a walk, and going for a walk with friends is even better.” I was born in Bishop Auckland, County Durham in 1972 and when I was one we moved to Stokesley. The easiest way to describe my childhood is that I grew up in…

Jules Bishop

“There were pram races down the High Street” I was born in 1970 in Townlands Hospital, Henley and lived at the top of Howe Hill with my mum, my dad and my older brother Gary. My brother lives in Lewknor now. We always felt part of the Watlington community, and I remember going to “WAG”…

Glyndwr Jones

I’ve had a really busy life. I’ve been a soldier, a policeman, a fireman. Uniform jobs all me life “I was born in 1933, the year that Hitler came to power. My Tadgu (grandfather) blamed me for the second world war. My first breath was in the front room of a coal miner’s cottage, where…

Watlington Folk – The Book!

“A revelation as to the richness and variety of Watlington’s inhabitants” – Jeremy Irons & Sinéad Cusack Check out the book of the series! 56 portraits and interviews of the people who live in Watlington. The stories are fascinating in themselves and, as a collection, they represent a social document and historical record of a…

Elliott Baker

I was born in Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury in 2007. I was four weeks early and had a build up of bilirubin (jaundice), which damaged a small part of my brain. This has affected my speech, hearing, muscle control and eyesight. This makes me a bit wobbly. In 2018, I had deep brain stimulation…

Rae Young

“It’s a dynamic and diverse place” I was born in South East London in 1977 and moved to Thame when I was 18 months old. The M40 was being constructed at that time, and my father had a job as a sales engineer for a company that made air conditioning equipment in Birmingham. His sales…

Fiona Danks

“It’s the best of both worlds” I was born in 1960 in Kent, where my father was stationed for his National Service, and soon after we moved to Warwickshire where he took a job as  a GP. We lived in a village surrounded by countryside, and I grew up with my two younger sisters. We…