TWO tall, immaculately dressed women wandered along St Clement’s towards South Park. They checked their watches more times than seemed necessary.

As I approached, they made their move, apologising for troubling me, (something I quickly dismissed; would that all trouble came in such elegant packaging), and asked if I could point them towards St Catherine’s College.

They spoke English with a hard-to-pin-down accent, saying their small map was confusing, although one admitted sheepishly that map-reading was not among her accomplishments.

They were off target I told them, and volunteered to accompany them back across the Plain, over Magdalen Bridge, into Longwall Street and beyond.

Their schedule was tight, they said. It was their first visit and they had only a couple of hours in Oxford, so we quickened our step.

As we went, I did my unofficial guide stuff, listing other places to see – the Sheldonian Theatre, Christ Church, the Old Schools quadrangle, Radcliffe Camera, museums and so on – but they seemed unimpressed. Thus rebuffed, I led the way to Manor Road, restricting conversation to the weather, fearing more suggestions might meet similar fates.

“We are Danish – from Copenhagen,” the taller of the two revealed when we reached the college, adding emphatically: “So was he.”

“Who?” I asked.“Arne Jacobsen, the brilliant man who designed St Catherine’s,” she replied, eyes flashing excitedly, suggesting that while Christopher Wren and other architectural luminaries were fine in their place, they couldn’t hold a theodolite to their man.

  • Dylan is two, the apple of grandfather Tim’s eye. They joined me in Oxford to see some of the sights. Again these proved of secondary interest.

We were crossing Frideswide Square when Dylan spotted the shutters of the city fire station in Rewley Road. Was that where Fireman Sam lived? (He is a devoted fan.) Possibly, I white-lied. He peered excitedly through the windows at the gleaming vehicles. Suddenly a door was raised and there stood Fireman Jake – or to give his proper name, Firefighter Jacob Richardson.

“Do you want to come in?” he asked with a broad smile. Dylan needed no second invitation.

Jake was joined by Firefighter Nick Windsor, and they made a little lad’s dream come true as they kitted him out with a helmet, albeit several sizes to large, answered countless questions and showed him lots of equipment.

Then came the icing on the cake: would he like a ride? Dylan ran to the cab before you could yell ‘Fire!’ More firefighters joined them and the engine was driven out, round the exercise yard and back through the rear door – a brief excursion but he will dine out on the story at nursery school for months.

Jake, Nick and their colleagues had no reason to do what they did. It was kindness beyond the call of duty – another reason, if we needed it, to be proud of ‘Oxfordshire’s finest’.