“WHAT do you know about Edgar George Wilson?” The question was posed by the male half of a middle-aged Welsh couple, armed with telescopic walking sticks, haversacks and boots that once wouldn't have looked out of place in a Rhondda coal mine.

“Who?” I asked, flicking through my mental filing cabinet.

We were on the footbridge that crosses the Bullstake stream before it joins the Thames in the shadow of the railway bridge.

He pointed to the monolith I’d passed hundreds of times over the past 20 years.

“That’s the trouble with memorials. They blend into the wallpaper of our daily lives. We are aware of their presence, but their significance may dim,” he said. (The Welsh can be so poetic; Dylan Thomas has much to answer for.) The engraving on the stone says it was in memory of the said Edgar George Wilson, who, at the age of 21, lost his life after rescuing two boys from drowning on June 15, 1889. The memorial was erected through the efforts of Oxford Young Men’s Christian Association and unveiled by the then Lord Mayor of Oxford, Walter Gray. I had read the words scores of times, but of Edgar George I knew nothing.

Making light of my ignorance didn’t impress the woman.

She sniffed a telling sniff before extending her walking stick in a way the faint-hearted might have deemed aggressive.

They eventually walked on, leaving me to re-read the words that told of heroism and tragedy.

It suddenly dawned that next month is the event’s 130th anniversary – which seemed an appropriate time to learn more about Edgar George Wilson. Where did he live? What did he do? Who were his family and are any descendants still around?

Who better to ask than Oxford Mail readers?

Can anyone improve my wisdom? I’d like to leave some token at the memorial on June 15.

INCIDENTALLY, while on riverbank topics, can anyone tell me where the swans are? I haven’t seen any for a couple of weeks. Are they nesting, or did I say something to upset them?

CARELESS hands had reduced number one dinner service by two side plates and a soup bowl and if everything was to match at the celebration tuck-in, replacements had to be found.

But who would stock items with a 20-year-old-plus design that never won universal approval?

Fortunately there are still such shops in Oxford, and one was my first port of call.

The assistant put me straight from the outset; they didn’t sell any of that brand, let alone the required design. But she knew who did.

She took a notepad and wrote the names of shops she felt could help.

Suddenly a commanding voice was heard.

“I see you still write the small letter ‘f’ with an irregular backward loop, Barbara. You never would get out of that nasty habit.”

This from a small, ramrod-straight woman, in hacking jacket, tweed skirt down to her heavy-duty-stockinged calf muscles, and ‘sensible’ shoes.

“Sorry, Miss,” said Barbara apologetically, turning a bright shade of red.

“She is my old primary school teacher and has a memory like an elephant,” she explained after her critic had departed. “She still puts the fear of God in me. I wouldn’t care, but primary school was more than 50 years ago. Heck! I’ve even got three grandchildren!”