Companion voices

Oxford’s New Literary Magazine…

JCA Notices

JCA AGM 2024

How the World Made the West

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The cafe is back

Our popular Saturday morning cafe will be restarting March 30th. 

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Street Fair Stall booking

The 2024 Street Fair will be held on Saturday 8 June. This will be part of a Jericho weekend. To book a stall, please click HERE.   

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Jericho Pantry

The main purpose of the Pantry is to make food that would otherwise be thrown away accessible to people who live locally who can make use of it.

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Life drawing classes

Explore your creativity -- all levels welcome. 

Local artist Mike England holds life drawing classes at the community centre.

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Join your local association

The JCA represents residents on local issues, organizes events, and runs the community centre. Membership is FREE.

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NEWS ITEM

John Spurlock

Six years on

Posted - February 09, 1981

The death of John Spurling on 12 December 1974 at the age of 65 dismayed a host of Oxonians, who find it very difficult to grasp that the little shop on the corner of Walton Street and Crescent is not after all a permanent club and focus for collectors high and low, from near and far, who came for bargains, excitements, insights, ancient novelties, and above all for an hour of John's bubbling company, generous smile, sparkling eyes, his inevitable cackles of laughter, his depth and breadth of rarely repeated reminiscence, his anecdotes of the beloved pictures he bought and sold, often with anguish after many years in his homes with his friends the Whitlocks, of the ones that got away, of the Great Bear that he saw as a tiny invalid boy in Paddington before a health-giving stay in Devon, or bricklaying on ribbon developments and Dolphin Square, and of cut-throat repointing jobs in the depths of the depression, which with the war finally drove him to Oxford in the 40's from his life in London, where he came from a family gifted in the world of entertainment and music, in which he found deep emotional experience, and in which he was no mean performer, on mandolin or piano.

He had a wiry professional affection for pictures, which he restored with considerable skill and responsibility, and a knowledge derived from close physical examination with eyes and fingers for detail and a capacious and retentive memory. His grasp of an artist's style was direct and usually accurate, his ability or indeed desire to pronounce their names uneven and somewhat Churchillian - Poussin was "that there Pewzar", and Eversen was Evesham; but with his aesthetic loyalty he could comfortably hold his winking own in the Oxford picture market against dons, dowagers, doctors, debutantes and dealers alike.

What a loss that this memorable raconteur was never recorded on tape! Above all, we shall miss the whole Spurling persona: independent, his own man, craquelured, a figure from Velasquez and the brothers Grimm, a generous giver of gifts and friend to his fellows. The above was written six years ago, and John's memory survives. I have not altered what I then wrote, but all John's friends are delighted that his shop and its traditions are surviving in the capable hands of Mrs. Whitlock.

Diary

A Mozart Weekend
Sat 13 Apr - 7.30 pm
St Barnabas Church
St Sepulchre’s Garden Group Caring for Jericho's most peaceful space
Tuesday 9 April - 10:00 AM
St. Sepulchre's cemetary
Monthly litter pick
Keeping Jericho tidy
Saturday 6 April - 10:00 AM
Jericho Community Centre

MY JERICHO
Next meeting
Lazy Saturday
Beer, sausages and music Sat 20 Apr - 12:00pm
At: Mount Place