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Catatonia (band)

Catatonia were an alternative rock band from Wales who gained popularity in the mid-to-late 1990s. The band formed in 1992 after Mark Roberts met Cerys Matthews and Kirsty Kennedy. The first major lineup featured Dafydd Ieuan of Super Furry Animals on drums, Paul Jones on bass, and Clancy Pegg on keyboards. With this line-up the band recorded two EPs, For Tinkerbell and Hooked.

Pegg was fired prior to work on their first studio album, Way Beyond Blue, and during the recording of the album the band was joined by drummer Aled Richards, replacing Ieuan, who left to focus full-time on Super Furry Animals. During the live promotional appearances for the album the band was joined by guitarist Owen Powell. This latest incarnation of the band lasted until its dissolution in 2001. The single "You've Got a Lot to Answer For" received radio airplay and became the band's first top 40 single in the UK Singles Chart in September 1996. Their breakout success came at the start of 1998 with the International Velvet album and the release of the single "Mulder and Scully" some two weeks apart. The album went to number one in the UK Albums Chart, and sold more than 900,000 copies being certified triple platinum by British Phonographic Industry, while the single reached number 3 in the UK Singles Chart, the highest any Catatonia single would chart.

The follow-up release, "Road Rage", reached number 5 in May, and was nominated for best song at the Brit Awards and the Ivor Novello Awards, winning at the Q Awards. The title track of the album International Velvet received additional attention, and the band performed it at the opening of the opening ceremony of the 1999 Rugby World Cup on 1 October in the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. While in Catatonia, Matthews collaborated with Space on "The Ballad of Tom Jones" in March 1998 and with Tom Jones on a cover of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" in December 1999. Their final top ten single came in April 1999 with "Dead from the Waist Down" off the following album, Equally Cursed and Blessed. Rumours began to circulate about a breakup, but a further album, Paper Scissors Stone was released in 2001 following a two-year break from live performances.

Matthews' drinking had long been reported in the tabloids and gossip columns, and she entered rehab in mid-2001 for drinking and smoking. The tour to support Paper Scissors Stone was cancelled, and a month later, the band announced that they were breaking up. Matthews has subsequently released solo albums, while Powell has become a radio presenter and joined the supergroup The Stand to release a charity single. Critics have highlighted the use of metaphors in Catatonia's work, as well as comparing songs to poetry. Writing duties had been shared across the band, although had been led by Matthews and Roberts. They disagreed with being labelled an indie band, with Powell saying they had only ever sought to write pop music. The band were considered a key band of 1990s Cool Cymru.

Formation (1992)
The story that Catatonia were formed after Mark Roberts spotted Cerys Matthews busking in Cardiff in 1992 was an invention for the media in order to give the band a newsworthy biography. While the duo did go busking, they did not meet this way. Matthews had been a fan of Roberts' previous band Y Cyrff. They began dating as well as writing songs together at the end of 1991. For four years after this they remained in the relationship, many aspects of this being played out publicly in their lyrics. They took the name of the band from Matthews' experience working in a mental health facility as well as the novel The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley. They believed it to mean a sense of extreme pleasure and sleep, and wrote the song "Sweet Catatonia", subsequently naming the band after the song. As Sweet Catatonia, Matthews and Roberts recorded a series of demos at the city centre youth project in Cardiff, nicknamed "Grassroots".

Roberts and Matthews routinely encountered Owen Powell during this time, who played guitar in the band Colour 45. Both bands entered a band competition to play at the Cardiff Bay Music Fiesta, and while Colour 45 came tenth and was given a place on the bill, Sweet Catatonia placed 45th. Roberts and Matthews hired a drummer, Stephen "Frog" Jenkins from the band U Thant, and continued to record bilingual Welsh/English tracks. The band began to play live, with Matthews and Roberts busking to support their income. They were spotted by the girlfriend of the lead singer of the band The Pooh Sticks, who thought that Matthews would make a good female voice for the group. But after seeing Sweet Catatonia perform, the band members did not agree and so Matthews remained with Catatonia. Further recordings were made, with Guto Pryce joining the trio. This session included the track "Gyda Gwen" which attracted the attention of Rhys Mwyn at Crai Records.

The Crai EPs, "Whale", and "Bleed" (1993–95)
The band line up changed as they signed to Crai, with Jenkins and Pryce departing for other projects. Mwyn arranged for Matthews and Roberts to be joined by Dafydd Ieuan on drums, former Y Cyrff member Paull Jones on bass, and Londoner Clancy Pegg (who had befriended Roberts and Matthews after moving to Cardiff) on keyboards. It was at this point that the band shortened its name to "Catatonia". Mwyn used his contacts to get Catatonia onto Welsh language television, and strove to move their live performances away from Cardiff so that they were not simply playing in front of their regulars the entire time. They had their first overseas gigs in Germany, support Mwyn in his punk band Anrhefn. Catatonia were hired by political party Plaid Cymru to headline a Welsh language concert at Builth Wells in August 1993, but they performed in both Welsh and English.

Despite being signed to Crai, this was more as promoter than as a record label itself. It was only when Roberts suggested that Catatonia record some extended plays (EPs) after two months with the label that Mwyn made the arrangements. The first, entitled For Tinkerbell, had a cover photo taken by Roberts and Matthews' housemate Roland Dafis. Mwyn successfully got the record on BBC Radio 1 after sending a copy to radio presenter Mark Radcliffe. After Iestyn George heard the release, the journalist named it as the record of the week for the magazine NME. For Tinkerbell contained some early tracks, including a version of "Sweet Catatonia". Matthews later explained that while she had liked the songs on the EP, she felt that she was not good at performing live at the time. They signed to Nursery Records to release the single "Bleed". Catatonia's first national interview was published following the release of "For Tinkerbell", a 300-word piece appearing in Melody Maker.

They held their first London gigs in support of the EP, under the advice of George and The Pooh Sticks lead singer Huw Williams. After warm-up gigs in Cardiff and Birmingham, the London performance took place at the Samuel Beckett pub in Stoke Newington on 13 November 1993 alongside Anrehfn and Margi Clarke. Further Welsh radio and television appearances followed, as did an interview for NME. When George arrived for the interview, Matthews asked if he'd be interested in becoming the band's manager. He politely declined, saying that he did not have the experience. On 19 and 20 February 1994, the band's follow-up EP, Hooked was recorded in Llandwrog, Gwynedd, and produced by Ken Nelson who they had met on Radio Wales. A performance was set up at the Falcon the Splash Club in London where several music executives were to be present. The band drove down from Cardiff in a Ford Transit with their equipment and then spent the afternoon drinking. Just prior to going out on stage, they began taking cocaine, the result of which was a terrible performance later lamented by Roberts. The trip became a sobering experience, as they made no money from it and were only paid £50 for a gig at Kingston University a day later. Matthews later recalled that they'd needed to borrow money from a fan to pay the toll on the Severn Bridge on the way back to Cardiff.

The band returned to the Falcon, where they played a still shambolic, but better gig in front of record executives. Meanwhile, George had put the band in touch with their first manager, Richard Lowe from MRM management. They made further appearances on Welsh television to support the release of Hooked in May, but another drunken performance followed, this time in Newport. MRM sent them on a short tour in France during the second week of May, and then started their first UK wide support tour to the band Salad. When due to perform at the Cnapan Music Festival in Wales on 2 July, the band ran into some difficulties. The security team refused to let Matthews in as they did not recognise her. It was only after the intervention of one of the fans of the band, actor Rhys Ifans, that she was allowed in.

Mwyn departed the band when the band's time with Crai came to an end, and a few weeks later MRM sought to remove Pegg, leaving it to Matthews to tell her. Pegg was upset, and refused to discuss it with journalists. After her departure, the single "Whale" was published on the Rough Trade Records label. The band had rushed to record it, having only been given a month's notice by the label that one of their songs would be released as a single in September 1994. "Whale" was named the NME single of the week, as For Tinkerbell had been the previous year. The band appeared in the mainstream press for two incidents, the first was when they were thrown off a train at Swindon as they were travelling to London after arguing with a train guard about punk rock, and the other when they swore at the bouncers in Welsh at the Underworld club in Camden and were banned. A further single, "Bleed" was recorded the following November, and was released in February 1995 on Nursery Records. Geoff Travis, who had released "Whale" for his Rough Trade Records, offered the band £350,000 to sign for Blanco y Negro Records, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Records. They duly signed.

Way Beyond Blue (1996)
The band began work on a debut album, alongside producer Paul Sampson. Ieuan introduced Sampson to Aled Richards, who later replaced him as Catatonia's drummer when Ieuan left to join the Super Furry Animals. The label wanted to market the band, and so at some expense, had photographer Gered Mankowitz conduct a photoshoot with Matthews. She, the band and their management all hated the photos, but the label wanted to use them in order not to write the cost off as a loss. In order to have some photos, a series of black and white photos of Matthews drinking a bottle of wine while wearing a Pepsi T-shirt were taken by one of the press agency staff. Warner Bros liked the images and authorised their use. The band had a recording session at Sawmills Studios, Cornwall, which saw some disagreements during recording between Matthews and Roberts. Afterwards, Sampson was removed as producer following a row over the arrangement for "Sweet Catatonia".

Music reviewers responded with surprise when the band began to perform live while sober. Meanwhile, the release of "Sweet Catatonia" as a single was pushed back to January 1996 due to the issues with finding a new producer. The first time he met the band was when they arrived to record at the Maison Rouge Studios in London. They found working with him far easier than Sampson, as Matthews later explained that he took their ideas into account. Ieuan left during the recording of the album to join Super Furry Animals, and was subsequently replaced by Aled Richards. They returned to live performances after completing the recording of the album, and decided to actively look for a second guitarist. They ultimately hired Colour 45's Owen Powell, who by this time was working as a music technician for the Super Furry Animals, to this role. As they prepared for the album, they released a special release for the Catatonia fanclub which had formed after "Bleed". Containing "Blow the Millenium, Blow" and "Beautiful Sailor", the vinyl record was sent to all members. The following month, on 18 January 1996, "Sweet Catatonia" was released. It became the first Catatonia single to reach the UK singles chart, peaking at 61st position. MRM sought to expand the profile of the band in Europe, publishing the compilation The Sublime Magic of Catatonia. The band toured the UK, supported by Liverpool-based band Space, and while touring "Lost Cat" was released on 22 April. It just missed out on the top 40, reaching 41st position. As part of the tour, they appeared at several music festivals that year including Reading, Phoenix and at Madstock! 3 in London.

Catatonia began to get radio exposure with the single "You've Got a Lot to Answer For", which entered the top 40 for the first time in September 1996. After several delays, the album Way Beyond Blue was released on 30 September. There were 12 tracks, several of which had appeared on previous EPs and as b-sides to singles. On the background of the successful album, there were problems behind the scenes. Matthew's and Robert's relationship broke down, with Roberts ending it and seeing someone else within days. The duo sought to keep the band together despite the problems, and they found a way to continue working together. Warner Bros. Records had intended to release "Lost Cat" from Way Beyond Blue in the United States, but due to problems at the record label this did not occur.

International Velvet (1997–98)
While Roberts sought to begin work on a second album, they began to tour with fellow Welsh band The Manic Street Preachers as a support act, and the label released the compilation Tourist EP in Japan. They began recording demos for a new album in Cardiff at the start of January 1997. The subject matter was mostly based on the stories coming out of Roberts and Matthews' breakup. They booked in a recording session for the second album in June, at the Monnow Valley Studio in Rockfield, Monmouthshire. In the run up to the recording, they performed for the first time in the United States, supporting The Boo Radleys in New York. They went on to perform in Austin, Texas and in Los Angeles during March. The following month, they conducted a ten-night tour of the UK, in which songs such as "Mulder and Scully" made their first public appearances.

As they worked on the album, Catatonia feared that they were about to be dropped by their record label, which they summed up in the song "That's All Folks". Further references to difficulties with Warner Bros were included in "I Am the Mob", but they preferred working with producer TommyD on the production than they had with those on Way Beyond Blue. The first single off the album had intended to be "Mulder and Scully", but the label insisted that "I Am the Mob" was released instead. As with previous works, this was delayed, and Catatonia performed at festivals during the summer of 1997 while they waited for the release. They were booked for the Glastonbury Festival, but upon arriving they were told their spot had been cancelled. Matthews continued to get the band mentioned in the gossip columns of newspapers due to her drunken behaviour. One example followed an incident at a party celebrating the victory of the yes vote in the 1997 Welsh devolution referendum, as when asked how she felt about the result, she responded "What we want to know is who is going to shag Siân Lloyd?" Lloyd subsequently launched legal action, but accepted an apology from Matthews.

The new album was further delayed as Warner Bros ordered the removal of the six-minute-long anti-Warner track "That's All Folks". Meanwhile, work continued on "I Am The Mob" with a video shoot directed by Kevin Allen. The single was released on 6 October and entered the top 40 for a single week in the 40th position. Catatonia found their roles reversed shortly afterwards, performing as the support act to Space after the Liverpudlians had a series of top 20 singles. They finished off the year with a tour of their own, originally aimed to support the new album, but this was still being held back by the label. Warners replaced "That's All Folks" with "My Selfish Gene", and agreed to release "Mulder and Scully" in January 1998 and International Velvet some two weeks later.

"Mulder and Scully" launched them into the mainstream public consciousness when it was released on 19 January 1998. It entered the charts at number 3; the highest position a single by Catatonia would ever achieve. International Velvet became the breakout album for the band, charting at number one in the UK Album Charts. The album sold more than 900,000 copies in 22 months, being certified triple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry. International Velvet was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize 1998, which was awarded to Gomez for Bring It On.

Of the five singles released from the album, "Road Rage" became the most critically acclaimed, being nominated for best single at both the Ivor Novello Awards and the Brit Awards, while winning at the Q Awards. Despite this, it did not chart as high as "Mulder and Scully", reaching number 5 on the UK Singles Charts. The subsequent releases "Strange Glue" and "Game On" did not get into the top ten, reaching number 11 and number 33 respectively.

The title track of the album, "International Velvet", featuring the line "Every day when I wake up I thank the Lord I'm Welsh" and Welsh language verses, received additional attention from the media. Matthews explained in an interview that she wanted to turn to invert the idea of being Welsh from an apparent negative into a positive, "We're not seen to be very good at anything. Our football team is shit. The song is saying, despite all these things, I still wake up in the morning and thank the Lord that I'm Welsh. Hopefully, by now people realise that Wales is brimmed full of talent and we're great people with massive brains." In front of 70,000 spectators, Catatonia performed "International Velvet" at the opening ceremony of the 1999 Rugby World Cup in the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. The album became the first to be released for Catatonia in the United States, but failed to chart. The Washington Post called it "overlooked".

Equally Cursed and Blessed (1999–2000)
Following the success of International Velvet, and the heavy touring that followed, the band were pleased to return to the Monnow Valley Studio to record a third studio album. On the recommendation of TommyD, the band had been recording sample tracks onto a DPS12 hard disk recorder in their tour bus while on an American tour and they returned to Monnow Valley to record them properly. The band felt less pressure on them for the new album, due to the success of International Velvet and because they no longer feared being dropped by the label.

In January 1999, the band announced their new album, Equally Cursed and Blessed. The title was taken from a line from "She's A Millionaire", a song on the album. Preceded by the first single, "Dead from the Waist Down" on 22 March, Equally Cursed and Blessed was released on 12 April. The album, like International Velvet, reached the top spot in the UK charts. Catatonia were so popular at the time that in April 1999, Way Beyond Blue, International Velvet and Equally Cursed and Blessed were all in the top 40 of the UK Albums Chart. But, the singles from Equally Cursed and Blessed did not repeat the success seen in the previous album. "Dead From The Waist Down" ended up becoming the final single by Catatonia to reach the top ten in the singles charts, getting to number seven in the UK singles charts. "Londinium" reached number 20, while "Karaoke Queen" barely entered the top 40 at number 36.

In May, they played two outdoor concerts at the Llangollen International Pavilion in front of 6,000 people on successive days. This was a warm up to their largest concert so far, held at Margam Country Park near Port Talbot. Guitarist Powell stated the importance of the Llangollen performances, as North Wales was the first place where the crowd had sung along to their songs. Matthews added that Margam Park was chosen as no-one had ever held a concert there before.

Catatonia supported R.E.M. on two European dates in June; there was an incident at Kindl-Bühne Wuhlheide, Berlin, when Matthews ran on the stage during the R.E.M. performance to kiss bassist Mike Mills. It was later attributed to her having drunk a bottle of wine. The band had wanted to release "Karaoke Queen" as the second single off the album, but the record label forced them to release "Londinium" instead. Matthews was also equally angry that the cost for the video for the single was higher than the cost to produce the entire album. A month later, Barry Cawley, who had been a roadie for the band since it originally formed, was killed in a road accident in North Wales. Cawley had been cycling when he was killed by a driver in a Fiat Punto. Roberts explained prior to the funeral that the roadie had helped keep Matthews' "feet on the ground".

The band attempted to break into the United States once more with Equally Cursed and Blessed. The album release included two tracks from International Velvet, including "Road Rage". They had been scheduled to make appearances on American television shows such as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and conduct interviews with the media. But after drummer Richards was taken to hospital in the UK with appendicitis, it was abandoned and the rest of the band returned to the UK. Richards had remained in the UK and was due to join them a day and a half later. Rumours began to appear in the press that the band was about to break up, but a band spokesman stated that the intention was to return to the States later in the year. Performances did take place in Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Paper Scissors Stone and dissolution (2001)
The band took a break from performing live between the NetAid charity concert in October 1999 and 2001. They returned to the stage for a further charity gig on 28 April, in support of Unison's campaign for a living wage at the Manchester Evening News Arena. Matthews said prior to the performance that "It's a cause I think's really important and it just seemed to be the right time for us to come back – it's a long, long time since we played live. It should be really great. We're really looking forward to what they (the new songs) are going to sound like live. It'll be good to get back on the old live circuit again." They played several tracks from their upcoming album, at that point entitled It's What's Not There That Makes What's There What It Is. By May, it had been renamed to Paper Scissors Stone. Matthews was looking forward to the new releasing, explaining to NME that "I think it's stronger than the last album, a bit more avant garde!...It's a bit less stupid. [Equally Cursed and Blessed] was all over the shop stylistically, I think it's a bit more focused. And I think it's a bit more impassioned".

Catatonia went on to headline the NME stage at the T in the Park festival on 7 July, having conducted a warm up concert at The Lighthouse, Glasgow. The lead single from the new album, "Stone by Stone", was poorly received by the media with NME giving it a score of one out of ten, calling it "lumpen, the voice grating" and that Catatonia are "fading from the public consciousness quicker than Shane Ritchie" and "awkwardly out of date". On the other hand, Andy Gill of The Independent felt the song is the "closest they come" to a hook "as memorable as" their erstwhile hits.

The media reported that Matthews entered drug rehabilitation for drinking and smoking in mid-2001, with the singer stating that she was also suffering from depression. As a result, the tour to support Paper Scissors Stone was cancelled at the start of August. At the time this was because Matthews had not yet finished her "ongoing treatment for anxiety and exhaustion". It was suggested that the band might split up in August, which was dismissed as "rubbish" by Catatonia. However, on 21 September it was announced that they were breaking up with the record label releasing a statement which said "Their decision has been made entirely amicably, and there are no details at present as to their future plan".

Tributes came in for the band from a variety of sources, with BBC Radio 1 presenter Huw Stephens describing them as "international superstars", and adding "I always thought they were one of the best Welsh bands. They were not just a throwaway pop band – they had real, meaningful songs." Iestyn George, editor of the magazine Maxim at the time, praised the influence that Matthews had through Catatonia in the later 1990s, saying that "Around 1998 and 1999, Cerys was in the papers every other day". He also referenced that she had never intended this role as Catatonia had thought that they had already peaked prior to International Velvet.

Post-dissolution (2002–present)
Matthews went on to release her first solo album, Cockahoop, in May 2003. Her second album Never Said Goodbye was released in August 2006. In November 2007 she released a mini-album of Welsh language songs Awyren=Aeroplane on the My Kung Fu label. Matthews returned in late 2009 by releasing albums simultaneously in both Welsh and English (Paid Edrych I Lawr and Don't Look Down, respectively). Powell has gone on to write songs, including for Duffy, and from 2007 onwards has presented a Welsh language show on Radio Cymru. He also replaced drummer Stuart Cable from the Stereophonics, following his death, in the supergroup The Stand. They released a charity single in 2010 to fund construction of a statue of Welsh footballer Fred Keenor in Cardiff city centre.

On 17 April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Matthews confirmed that Catatonia were aiming to take part in a #timslisteningparty for International Velvet. A date was announced, but postponed due to an unspecified problem with either Matthews' or Roberts's internet connection. The party remained on timstwitterlisteningparty.com as an upcoming event until the autumn of 2020, when all reference to it was removed. Matthews did appear as a guest on Tim Burgess' Listening Party radio show on Absolute Radio in 2023, where the album was played in its entirety, marking its 25th anniversary.

On 3 June 2023, Matthews announced on Twitter that a new retrospective collection of music titled Make Hay Not War: The Blanco Y Negro Years would be released by Cherry Red Records.

Side projects and collaborations
While working on International Velvet, Matthews was approached by Tommy Scott of the Liverpool-based band Space to perform on the single duet "The Ballad of Tom Jones". They had met while on tour two years prior and had kept in touch. She joined them on tour for several dates to sing the duet live. Matthews said of the song, "It's great. I feel like Nancy Sinatra because it's a superb ballad." She went on to duet with Tom Jones on a single for his album Reload. It was a cover of the song "Baby, It's Cold Outside", which was released as a Christmas single in 1999. She was credited as "Cerys from Catatonia".

Musical style and influences
Matthews said that they did not have any particular influences in their music. However, she said that her family had always been singing along to BBC Radio 2. She held the ambition to have the band appear on Radio 2, as due to poor levels of radio reception in Wales they had been unable to listen to other stations. She attributed the style of Welsh music as never attempting to be cool as they would not have been aware of what was in fashion at the time. Catatonia frequently used metaphors in their songwriting, such as "Road Rage" which references emotional anger. The line "If it turns to blue, what are we going to do?" in the single "You've Got A Lot To Answer For" from Way Beyond Blue references a pregnancy test. Other works from International Velvet were compared to poetry by Katharine Viner in The Guardian.

All members of the band were involved in the writing of songs, and there may have been more than one person's set of lyrics appearing in a single release. Powell said that "It's quite interesting to have two people's viewpoints within the same song. I'm not sure how many bands actually do that. In most bands, the guitarist writes the music and the singer writes the lyrics. We tend to share things out more evenly." He also criticised the attachment of an indie pop label to the band, saying "We're seen as one of the indie bands. But we've always just tried to make pop music. Even if it is pop music with a hard edge and quite a twisted little view of life. We've always seen ourselves as a little bigger than an indie band."

The style of music played by Catatonia changed slightly over time. An article in The People newspaper described International Velvet as the "purest pop". By the time that Paper Scissors Stone was released, the band were using country music influences in some of their songs according to Fiona Shepherd at The Scotsman. She compared the music to that of the Scottish band Mogwai, while elements of "Nightfall" were compared to Arab Strap.

Members

 * Final lineup
 * Cerys Matthews – vocals (1992-2001)
 * Mark Roberts – guitars (1992-2001)
 * Paul Jones – bass (1993-2001)
 * Aled Richards – drums (1996-2001)
 * Owen Powell – guitars (1996-2001)

 * Former members
 * Stephen Jenkins – drums (1992-1993)
 * Guto Pryce – bass (1992-1993)
 * Dafydd Ieuan – drums (1993-1996)
 * Clancy Pegg – keyboards (1993-1994)

Promotional releases

 * Christmas '95 (1995, fan club vinyl record)
 * Tourist EP (1996, Japan EP)
 * A's & B's of Catatonia (1998, Promo EP)
 * Storm the Palace EP (2000, Japan EP)

title: Catatonia (band)


text:
Splice

Splice may refer to:

Connections

 * Rope splicing, joining two pieces of rope or cable by weaving the strands of each into the other
 * Eye splice, a method of creating a permanent loop in the end of multi stranded rope by means of rope splicing
 * Splice joint, a method of joining two members end to end in woodworking
 * Tape splice, the joining of audio tape
 * Film splice, the joining of film stock
 * Electrical splice, the joining of wires in electrical wiring
 * Optical splice, the joining of optical fibers:
 * Fusion splicing, a permanent splice between two fibers
 * Mechanical splice, a temporary splice between two fibers
 * Pile splice, connecting two concrete, timber or steel piles for a deep foundation
 * Line splice, a splice of two cables in the telecommunication industry

Genetics

 * RNA splicing, a natural modification of ribonucleic acids
 * Genetic engineering, also known as gene splicing, artificially joining pieces of genetic material
 * Protein splicing, a natural process where inteins are removed

Computer science

 * Splice (system call), a system call used to transfer data on Linux
 * Delayed binding, also called TCP connection splicing, is a postponement of the connection between the client and the server in computer networking
 * An operation between two linked lists, in which all or part of one list is transferred to another in constant time by relinking
 * An operation on arrays in programming languages like JavaScript, PHP or Python

Mathematics

 * Splicing rule, a transformation of formal languages
 * Splicing of knots creates satellite knots

Media

 * Splice (film), a 2009 science fiction film
 * Spliced (TV series), a 2010 Canadian animated TV series
 * Splice (video game), a 2012 puzzle game

Other uses

 * Software release life cycle, or Software Product Life Cycle (SPLICE)
 * Splice (platform), a cloud-based music creation and collaboration platform
 * Splice (ice cream), an Australian iced confectionery consisting of ice cream surrounded by fruit flavoured ice
 * Splice the mainbrace, an order given aboard naval vessels to issue the crew with a drink
 * Splicing veins, the connection of more than one vein to formulate a long vein conduit for vascular bypass surgery
 * Splice, on a cricket bat, where the handle is joined to the body of the bat

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Splice


text:
Paper Scissors Stone (album)

Paper Scissors Stone was the fourth and final album by Welsh band Catatonia. It was released on 6 August 2001 in the UK, and reached #6 on the UK album chart.

Background
The album only had one single taken from it, "Stone by Stone" – the group's final single release. Fittingly, the ending of the video for the song features the band members all abandoning their instruments and walking away. The band had announced on their website that the next single was to be the rocky "Is Everybody Here on Drugs", although the announcement was quickly removed once it was clear that Catatonia were about to put an end to the band.

The band were unable to promote the album, albeit with the exception of an appearance on Later...with Jools Holland and a few performances of "Stone by Stone", as Cerys Matthews was being treated for alcohol addiction and nervous exhaustion. The band had to cancel their upcoming eight venue UK tour which was due to take place during September due to ongoing concerns with Matthews' recovery. A statement by the record label Warners said that Matthews would not have "recovered sufficiently" from her treatment for "anxiety and exhaustion."

The album's cover and in-sleeve photos were taken from the film, Tiger Bay, which starred Hayley Mills. Hayley was given a thank-you in the album. The album was dedicated to close friend and roadie Barry Cawley, who was killed in a road accident on his bicycle in Betws-y-Coed, North Wales in July 2000. The track, "Imaginary Friend", was written about him. The album title refers to the game rock paper scissors.

Reception
Andy Gill of The Independent noted a feeling within some of the album's lyrics and song titles such as "Is Everybody Here on Drugs?", which felt like they mirrored her actual life. Gill commented: "Cerys's boozing is, on this showing, the least of the band's problems. More pressing, surely, is the glaring absence of a hook as memorable as 'Road Rage' or 'Mulder & Scully'; the closest they come here is the single 'Stone by Stone'." Caroline Sullivan in The Guardian said that "[Matthews] will always be an acquired taste, one that depends wholly on the strength of the songs. Ideally suited to pub singalongs, her warble is done justice by festival anthems such as Road Rage, but when pitted against anything heavy or balladish it tends to grate relentlessly." She also praised the single "Stone by Stone", saying it "gets it right." She concluded: "on balance it comes down to loving or hating that voice." In 2006, Iain Forrester of Stylus Magazine said the album "certainly doesn’t deserve any of the hatred it received in the press at the time. It has a fire to match their debut and a much wider musical scope, taking in the string-laden melodrama of 'Godspeed' (which certainly suits Cerys Matthews' bellowing vocals) and flirtations with dance on 'What It Is,' as well as rock blasts like 'Immediate Circle'."

Personnel

 * Cerys Matthews – vocals
 * Mark Roberts – guitar
 * Owen Powell – guitar
 * Paul Jones – bass
 * Aled Richards – drums

title: Paper Scissors Stone (album)


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Edith Cavell

Edith Louisa Cavell (4 December 1865 – 12 October 1915) was a British nurse. She is celebrated for treating wounded soldiers from both sides without discrimination during the First World War and for helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium. Cavell was arrested, court-martialled under German military law and sentenced to death by firing squad. Despite international pressure for mercy, the German Government refused to commute her sentence and she was shot. The execution received worldwide condemnation and extensive press coverage.

The night before her execution, she said, "Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone". These words were inscribed on the Edith Cavell Memorial opposite the entrance to the National Portrait Gallery near Trafalgar Square. Her strong Anglican beliefs propelled her to help all those who needed it, including both German and Allied soldiers. She was quoted as saying, "I can't stop while there are lives to be saved." The Church of England commemorates her in its Calendar of Saints on 12 October.

Cavell, who was 49 at the time of her execution, was already notable as a pioneer of modern nursing in Belgium.

Early life and career
Cavell was born on 4 December 1865 in Swardeston, a village near Norwich, where her father was vicar for 45 years. She was the eldest of the four children of the Reverend Frederick Cavell (1824–1910) and his wife Louisa Sophia Warming (1835–1918). Edith's siblings were Florence Mary (1867-1950), Mary Lilian (1870-1967) and John Frederick Scott (1872–1923).

Cavell was educated at Norwich High School for Girls, then at boarding schools in Clevedon, Somerset, and Peterborough (Laurel Court).

After a period as a governess, including for a family in Brussels from 1890 to 1895, Cavell returned home to care for her father during a serious illness. The experience led her to become a nurse after her father's recovery. Cavell worked as a nurse at the Fountain Fever Hospital in Tooting from December 1895. At the age of 30, Cavell applied to become a nurse probationer at the London Hospital and commenced as a regular probationer at the London Hospital in September 1896 under Matron Eva Luckes. Cavell was seconded to work with other London Hospital nurses in the Maidstone typhoid epidemic, from 15 October 1897 until early January 1898, while still a probationer. Along with other staff, she was awarded the Maidstone Typhoid Medal. After her training, Cavell worked from October 1898 to December 1899 as a private nurse employed by the Private Nursing Institution of the London Hospital, treating patients in their homes. Cavell travelled to tend patients with cancer, gout, pneumonia, pleurisy, eye issues and appendicitis. In 1901, Luckes recommended Cavell for the position of night superintendent of St Pancras Infirmary. In November 1903, she became assistant matron of St Leonard's Infirmary in Shoreditch.

In 1906, Cavell took a temporary post as matron of the Manchester and Salford Sick and Poor and Private Nursing Institution, working there for about nine months.

Work in Belgium
In 1907, Cavell was recruited by Antoine Depage to be matron of a newly established nursing school, L'École Belge d'Infirmières Diplômées (or the Berkendael Medical Institute) on the Rue de la Culture (now Rue Franz Merjay), in Ixelles, Brussels. By 1910, "Miss Cavell 'felt that the profession of nursing had gained sufficient foothold in Belgium to warrant the publishing of a professional journal' and launched the nursing journal, L'infirmière". Within a year, she was training nurses for three hospitals, twenty-four schools, and thirteen kindergartens in Belgium.

Cavell was offered a position as matron in a Brussels clinic. She worked closely with Depage, who was part of a "growing body of people" in the medical profession in Belgium. He realised that the care that was being provided by the religious institutions had not been keeping up with medical advances. In 1910, Cavell was asked if she would be the matron for the new secular hospital at Saint-Gilles.

When the First World War broke out, Cavell was visiting her widowed mother in Norfolk. She returned to Brussels, where her clinic and nursing school were taken over by the Red Cross.

Assistance to Allied soldiers
In November 1914, after the German occupation of Brussels, Cavell began sheltering British soldiers and funnelling them out of occupied Belgium to the neutral Netherlands. Wounded British and French soldiers as well as Belgian and French civilians of military age were hidden from the Germans and provided with false papers by Prince Réginald de Croÿ at his château of Bellignies near Mons. From there, they were conducted by various guides to the houses of Cavell, Louis Séverin, and others in Brussels, where their hosts would furnish them with money to reach the Dutch frontier, and provide them with guides obtained through Philippe Baucq. This placed Cavell in violation of German military law. German authorities became increasingly suspicious of the nurse's actions, which were further fuelled by her outspokenness.

Arrest and trial
Cavell was arrested on 3 August 1915 and charged with harbouring Allied soldiers. She had been betrayed by Georges Gaston Quien, who was later convicted by a French court as a collaborator. Cavell was held in Saint-Gilles prison for ten weeks, the last two of which were spent in solitary confinement. She made three depositions to the German police (on 8, 18 and 22 August), admitting that she had been instrumental in conveying about 60 British and 15 French soldiers, as well as about 100 French and Belgian civilians of military age, to the frontier and had sheltered most of them in her house.

At her court-martial, Cavell was prosecuted for aiding British and French soldiers, in addition to young Belgian men, to cross the Dutch border and eventually enter Britain. She admitted her guilt when she signed a statement the day before the trial. Cavell declared that the soldiers she had helped escape thanked her in writing when they arrived safely in Britain. This admission confirmed that Cavell had helped the soldiers navigate the Dutch frontier, but it also established that she helped them escape to a country at war with Germany. Her fellow defendants included Prince Reginald's sister, Princess Marie of Croÿ.

The penalty, according to German military law, was death. Paragraph 58 of the German Military Code determined that "In time of war, anyone who, with the intention of aiding a hostile power, or of causing harm to German or allied troops", commits any of the crimes defined in paragraph 90 of the German Penal Code "shall be punished with death for war treason". Specifically, Cavell was charged under paragraph 90 (1) no. 3 Reichsstrafgesetzbuch, for "conveying troops to the enemy", a crime normally punishable by life imprisonment in peacetime. It was possible to charge Cavell with perfidy, or war treason (Kriegsverrat), as paragraph 160 of the German Military Code extended application of paragraph 58 to foreigners "present in the zone of war".

While the First Geneva Convention ordinarily guaranteed protection of medical personnel, such protection was forfeit if medical practices were seen to be used as cover for belligerent action. This forfeiture is expressed in article 7 of the 1906 version of the convention, which was the version in force at the time, and justified prosecution under German military law.

The British government could therefore do nothing to help her. Sir Horace Rowland of the Foreign Office said, "I am afraid that it is likely to go hard with Miss Cavell; I am afraid we are powerless." Lord Robert Cecil, Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, advised that, "Any representation by us will do her more harm than good." The United States, however, had not yet joined the war and was in a position to apply diplomatic pressure. Hugh S. Gibson, Secretary to the U.S. Legation at Brussels, made clear to the German government that executing Cavell would further harm Germany's already damaged reputation. Later, he wrote:

"We reminded [German civil governor Baron von der Lancken] of the burning of Louvain and the sinking of the Lusitania, and told him that this murder would rank with those two affairs and would stir all civilized countries with horror and disgust. Count Harrach broke in at this with the rather irrelevant remark that he would rather see Miss Cavell shot than have harm come to the humblest German soldier, and his only regret was that they had not 'three or four old English women to shoot.'"

Baron von der Lancken is known to have stated that Cavell should be pardoned because of her complete honesty and because she had helped save so many lives, German as well as Allied. However, General von Sauberzweig, the military governor of Brussels, ordered that "in the interests of the State" the implementation of the death penalty against Baucq and Cavell should be immediate, denying higher authorities an opportunity to consider clemency. Cavell was represented by defence lawyer Sadi Kirschen from Brussels. Of the twenty-seven defendants, five were condemned to death: Cavell, Baucq (an architect in his thirties), Louise Thuliez, Séverin and Countess Jeanne de Belleville. Of the five sentenced to death, only Cavell and Baucq were executed, the other three were granted reprieves.

Cavell was arrested not for espionage, as many were led to believe, but for "war treason", despite not being a German national. She may have been recruited by the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), and turned away from her espionage duties in order to help Allied soldiers escape, although this is not widely accepted. Rankin cites the published statement of M. R. D. Foot, historian and Second World War British intelligence officer, as to Cavell having been part of SIS or MI6. The former director-general of MI5, Stella Rimington, announced in 2015 that she had unearthed documents in Belgian military archives that confirmed an intelligence-gathering aspect to Cavell's network. The BBC Radio 4 programme that presented Rimington's quote, noted Cavell's use of secret codes and, though amateurish, other network members' successful transmission of intelligence.

When in custody, Cavell was questioned in French, but her trial was minuted in German; which some assert gave the prosecutor the opportunity to misinterpret her answers. Although she may have been misrepresented, she made no attempt to defend herself, but responded to have channelled "environ deux cents" ("about two hundred") soldiers to the Dutch border. Cavell was provided with a defender approved by the German military governor; a previous defender, who was chosen for Cavell by her assistant, Elizabeth Wilkins, was ultimately rejected by the governor.

Execution
The night before her execution, Cavell told the Reverend H Stirling Gahan, the Anglican chaplain of Christ Church Brussels, who had been allowed to see her and to give her Holy Communion, "I am thankful to have had these ten weeks of quiet to get ready. Now I have had them and have been kindly treated here. I expected my sentence and I believe it was just. Standing as I do in view of God and Eternity, I realise that patriotism is not enough, I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone." These words are inscribed on her statues in London and in Melbourne, Australia. Cavell's final words to the German Lutheran prison chaplain, Paul Le Seur, were recorded as, "Ask Father Gahan to tell my loved ones later on that my soul, as I believe, is safe, and that I am glad to die for my country."

From his sick bed Brand Whitlock, the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, wrote a personal note on Cavell's behalf to Moritz von Bissing, the Governor-General of Belgium. Hugh Gibson; Maitre G. de Leval, the legal adviser to the United States legation; and Rodrigo de Saavedra y Vinent, 2nd Marques de Villalobar, the Spanish minister, formed a midnight deputation of appeal for mercy or at least postponement of execution. Despite these efforts, on 11 October, Baron von der Lancken allowed the execution to proceed. Sixteen men, forming two firing squads, carried out the sentence pronounced on her and on four Belgian men at the Tir national shooting range in Schaerbeek, at 7:00am on 12 October 1915. There are conflicting reports of the details of Cavell's execution. However, according to the eyewitness account of the Reverend Le Seur, who attended Cavell in her final hours, eight soldiers fired at Cavell while the other eight executed Baucq. Her execution, certification of death, and burial were witnessed by the German war poet Gottfried Benn in his capacity as a 'Senior Doctor in the Brussels Government since the first days of the (German) occupation'. Benn wrote a detailed account titled "Wie Miss Cavell erschossen wurde" (How Miss Cavell was shot, 1928).

There is also a dispute over the sentencing imposed under the German Military Code. Supposedly, the death penalty relevant to the offence committed by Cavell was not officially declared until a few hours after her death. The British post-war Committee of Enquiry into Breaches of the Laws of War however regarded the verdict as legally correct.

On instructions from the Spanish minister, Belgian women immediately buried Cavell's body next to Saint-Gilles Prison. After the war, her body was taken back to Britain for a memorial service at Westminster Abbey and then transferred to Norwich, to be laid to rest at Life's Green on the east side of the cathedral. The King had to grant an exception to an Order in Council of 1854, which prevented any burials in the grounds of the cathedral, to allow the reburial.

International reaction
In the months and years following Cavell's death, countless newspaper articles, pamphlets, images, and books publicised her story. She became an iconic propaganda figure for military recruitment in Britain, and to help increase favourable sentiment towards the Allies in the United States. Along with the invasion of Belgium, and the sinking of the Lusitania, Cavell's execution was widely publicised in both Britain and North America by Wellington House, the British War Propaganda Bureau. She was a popular icon because of her sex, her nursing profession, and her apparently heroic approach to death. Her execution was represented as an act of German barbarism and moral depravity - very much at variance with Cavell's own clearly stated wish to have "no hatred or bitterness towards anyone."

News reports shortly after Cavell's execution were found to be only true in part. Even the American Journal of Nursing repeated the fictional account of Cavell's execution in which she fainted and fell because of her refusal to wear a blindfold in front of the firing squad. Allegedly, while she lay unconscious, the German commanding officer shot her dead with a revolver.

Because of the British Government's decision to publicise Cavell's story as part of its propaganda effort, she became the most prominent British female casualty of the First World War. The combination of heroic appeal and a resonant atrocity-story narrative made Cavell's case one of the most effective in British propaganda of the First World War.

Before the First World War, Cavell was not well known outside nursing circles. This allowed two different depictions of the truth about her in British propaganda, which were a reply to enemy attempts to justify her shooting, including the suggestion that Cavell, during her interrogation, had given information that incriminated others. In November 1915, the British Foreign Office issued a denial that Cavell had implicated anyone else in her testimony.

One image commonly represented was of Cavell as an innocent victim of a ruthless and dishonourable enemy. This view depicted her as having helped Allied soldiers to escape, but innocent of 'espionage', and was most commonly used in various forms of British propaganda, such as postcards and newspaper illustrations during the war. Her story was presented in the British press as a means of fuelling a desire for revenge on the battlefield. These images implied that men must enlist in the armed forces immediately in order to stop forces that could arrange the judicial murder of an innocent British woman.

Another representation of a side of Cavell during the First World War saw her described as a serious, reserved, brave, and patriotic woman who devoted her life to nursing and died to save others. This portrayal has been illustrated in numerous biographical sources, from personal first-hand experiences of the Red Cross nurse. Pastor Le Seur, the German army chaplain, recalled at the time of her execution, "I do not believe that Miss Cavell wanted to be a martyr... but she was ready to die for her country... Miss Cavell was a very brave woman and a faithful Christian". Another account from Anglican chaplain, the Reverend Gahan, remembers Cavell's words, "I have no fear or shrinking; I have seen death so often it is not strange, or fearful to me!" In this interpretation, her stoicism was seen as remarkable for a non-combatant woman, and brought her even greater renown than a man in similar circumstances would have received.

German justification
The Imperial German Government thought that it had acted fairly towards Cavell. In a letter, German Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, Alfred Zimmermann (not to be confused with Arthur Zimmermann, German Secretary for Foreign Affairs) made a statement to the press on behalf of the German government: "It was a pity that Miss Cavell had to be executed, but it was necessary. She was judged justly ... It is undoubtedly a terrible thing that the woman has been executed; but consider what would happen to a State, particularly in war, if it left crimes aimed at the safety of its armies to go unpunished because they were committed by women." From the perspective of the German government, had it released Cavell there might have been a surge in the number of women participating in acts against Germany because they knew they would not be severely punished. It took the view that it was up to the responsible men to follow their legal duty to Germany and ignore the world's condemnation. Its laws did not make distinctions between sexes; the only exception to this being that, according to legal customs, women in a "delicate" (probably this means "pregnant") condition should not be executed. However, in January 1916, the Kaiser decreed that, from then on, capital punishment should not be carried out on women without his explicit prior endorsement.

The German government also believed that all of the convicted people were thoroughly aware of the nature of their acts. The court paid particular attention to this point, releasing several people because there was doubt as to whether the accused knew that their actions were punishable. The condemned, in contrast, knew full well what they were doing and the punishment for committing their crimes because "numerous public proclamations had pointed out the fact that aiding enemies’ armies was punishable with death."

Repatriation and burial
Cavell's remains were returned to Britain after the war, sailing from Ostend aboard the destroyer HMS Rowena and landing at Admiralty Pier in Dover on 14 May 1919. Cavell's was one of only three sets of British remains repatriated following the end of the War, the others being Charles Fryatt and The Unknown Warrior. As the ship arrived a full peal of Grandsire Triples (5040 Changes, Parker's Twelve-Part) was rung on the bells of St Mary's Church in the town. A plaque commemorating the peal in the church's bell-ringing chamber states it was "Rung with the bells deeply muffled with the exception of the Tenor which was open at back stroke, in token of respect to Nurse Cavell" - deep (or full) muffling is normally only used for the deaths of sovereigns. All the ringers were former soldiers, including Frederick W Elliot, formerly King's Royal Rifle Corps, who had been a prisoner of war in Germany for eight months.

Her body was transferred to a railway van and lay in state on the pier overnight before departing from Dover Harbour station for London Victoria station. Becoming known as the Cavell Van, that van is kept as a memorial on the Kent & East Sussex Railway and is usually open to view at Bodiam railway station, though during October 2015 it was placed on display outside the Forum, Norwich. From Victoria the body was processed to Westminster Abbey for a state funeral on 15 May, before finally being reburied at the east side of Norwich Cathedral on 19 May, where a graveside service is still held each October.

Memorials
Following Cavell's death, many memorials were created around the world to remember her.

 * A stone memorial, including a statue of Cavell by George Frampton was unveiled opposite the entrance to the National Portrait Gallery near Trafalgar Square in London.
 * A memorial tower added to St Mary & St George Anglican Church in Alberta, Canada was dedicated to her.
 * Edith Cavell Bridge, Arthurs Point, Queenstown, New Zealand
 * Memorial gardens are dedicated to her in Inverness, Scotland
 * Memorial gardens are dedicated to her in Ararat, Victoria, Australia, established by the Mother's Club of the State School in 1931.
 * The Edith Cavell Memorial (Melbourne), a bust of her on a stone pedestal, was unveiled in Kings Domain in Melbourne, Australia in 1926.
 * A memorial statue by Henry Alfred Pegram was unveiled in 1918 by Queen Alexandra in the grounds of Norwich Cathedral, during the opening of a home for nurses, which also bore her name.
 * A memorial bust on Tombland, Norwich, outside Norwich Cathedral.
 * Her name is included on the war memorial at Sacred Trinity Church on Chapel Street, Salford where she worshipped.
 * She is named on the memorial to the 35 people executed by the German army in Tir national in Schaerbeek, Brussels, Belgium.
 * St Mary's Church in Swardeston holds her portrait, and the village holds an annual flower festival on 12 October in her memory.
 * A portrait of her is included in the mural of heroic women by Walter P. Starmer unveiled in 1921 in St Jude's Church, Hampstead Garden Suburb, London.
 * There are memorial plaques to her in both Peterborough Cathedral, and St Leonard's Hospital, Hackney, London. The Peterborough memorial was designed by Temple Moore and carved by Mahomet Thomas Phillips.
 * A blue plaque in West Runton, Norfolk, outside Cumberland Cottage reads "Edith Cavell 1865–1915 Nursing Pioneer Spent Holidays Here 1908–1914".
 * A joint memorial to Cavell and Marie Depage by Paul Du Bois is in Brussels
 * A stone memorial to her in Paris was one of two statues that Adolf Hitler ordered to be destroyed on his 1940 visit there (the other being that of the French general Charles Mangin).
 * In May 2016 a simulation training suite at the University of Salford was jointly named after Cavell and another First World War nurse, Minnie Wood; Diana Souhami, the author of a biography of Cavell, and Dr Claire Chatterton, chair of the Royal College of Nursing’s History of Nursing Society, both gave presentations.
 * A memorial to Edith Cavell and Canadian Nurses during The Great War outside the University Street entrance of Toronto General Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
 * Mount Edith Cavell, Alberta, Canada was named in her memory in 1916.

In religion and culture

 * The French singer Édith Piaf, born two months after Edith Cavell's execution, was named after her. The name "Édith", hitherto rare in France, became more common there after 1915.
 * In the Church of England's calendar of saints, the day appointed for the commemoration of Cavell is 12 October. This is a memorial in her honour rather than formal canonisation, and so not a "saint's feast day" in the traditional sense.
 * In 2022, Cavell was officially added to the United States Episcopal Church liturgical calendar with a feast day on 12 October.

Films, plays and television

 * The first film made of Cavell's life story was the 1916 Australian silent film The Martyrdom of Nurse Cavell soon followed by Nurse Cavell later the same year.
 * In 1918 John G. Adolfi directed The Woman the Germans Shot, starring Julia Arthur as Cavell
 * In 1925 Eva Elwes wrote a play Edith Cavell, Nurse and Martyr. It was refused a licence by the Lord Chamberlain after consultation with Cavell's sisters. After changes to the title and characters the play was granted a licence as The Price She Paid and performed in 1927.
 * Herbert Wilcox made a 1928 silent film called Dawn with Sybil Thorndike. He remade it as Nurse Edith Cavell (1939) starring Anna Neagle and George Sanders.
 * Nurse Cavell, a play in three acts, by C. S. Forester with C. E. Bechhofer Roberts opened at the Vaudeville Theatre in London on 7 March 1934, where it ran for 34 performances. The play had first been performed at the Q Theatre in the suburbs.
 * In the second episode of the 1980 television series To Serve Them All My Days, Cavell is mentioned in a speech to the school's Officers' Training Corps.
 * In Les plus grands Belges ("The Greatest Belgians"), a 2005 television show on the Belgian French-speaking public channel RTBF, the audience voted Cavell the 48th-greatest Belgian.
 * In the final episode of the 2014 BBC drama series The Crimson Field, Cavell is mentioned as having been executed, during the interrogation of Sister Joan Livesey.
 * Patriot, a play by Angela Moffat, premiered at the Grand Theatre Arts Wing, Swansea in October 2014 with Claire Novelli appearing as Cavell. It was produced by Fluellen Theatre Company.

Music

 * Edith Cavell is the third and final opera by Maltese composer Paolino Vassallo (1856–1923). A melodrama in three acts to a libretto by Alfonso Giglio, it received its première at the Royal Opera House, Valletta, Malta, on 21 March 1927, four years after Vassallo's death, and was an immediate success.
 * The song "Saint Stephen's End" by the Felice Brothers from their 2008 album The Felice Brothers includes a verse about the death of Cavell.
 * The song "Amy Quartermaine" by Manning from the 2011 album Margaret's Children is also based on the life of Cavell.
 * The song "Que Sera" on the album Silent June by O'Hooley & Tidow was inspired by the execution of Cavell.
 * A patriotic song, "Remember Nurse Cavell" (words by Gordon V. Thompson, music by Jules Brazil) appeared with 1915 British copyright.
 * The 2024 song "Portraits of Edith Cavell" by British composer Ryan Linham was commissioned in 2023 by the PTC Record Label and Samantha Barnhart. The piece was commissioned as an effort to further Edith's legacy of heroism and highlight a female historical figure from a time when women around the world were making an impact through service and dedication, but might not have been given the acknowledgement or place in history that they deserved. The song's various movements each depict a part of Edith's unique life through the lens of some of her strongest qualities including service, purpose, dedication, and passion.

Centenary
Although the centenary of her death was in 2015, she was also remembered by three new musical pieces in 2014 during commemorations of the outbreak of World War One -
 * Standing as I do before God by Cecilia McDowall - an a cappella choral setting of the last reported words of Cavell for soprano solo and five-part choir.
 * The Scarlet Flower by Nigel Clarke - a Concertino for Flugelhorn & Strings recorded on Toccata Classics by Longbow String Ensemble.
 * An Epitaph for Edith Cavell by Nigel Clarke - a solo violin piece recorded on Toccata Classics by Peter Sheppard Skaerved.

To commemorate the centenary of her death in 2015, work went ahead to restore Cavell's grave in the grounds of Norwich Cathedral after being awarded a £50,000 grant and was completed in 2016. and fourteen paintings by Brian Whelan were commissioned by Norwich Cathedral to commemorate Cavell's life and death. Norwich Cathedral held a memorial service, performed live on BBC Radio 4 on 11 October 2015. In addition to cathedral clergy, guests such as General Richard Dannatt, and actress Matilda Ziegler performed various spoken vignettes organised by Canon Peter Doll. Anto Morra sang unaccompanied his "Edith Louisa Cavell" lyrics to a tune written by Percy Paradise.

The centenary was also marked by two new musical compositions. The 40-minute oratorio Eventide: In Memoriam Edith Cavell by Patrick Hawes premiered in Norwich Cathedral in July 2014 and had its London premiere in St Clement Danes, The Strand, London on 12 October 2015, the exact centenary of her death. The Belgian Edith Cavell Commemoration Group also commissioned a 20-minute-long setting of the Latin Mass by David Mitchell for the centenary - it premiered in Holy Trinity Pro-Cathedral, Brussels on 10 October 2015, in the same choir stalls where Cavell sang in 1915, with Haydn's Missa in Angustiis also performed at the same concert.

Cavell was featured on a UK commemorative £5 coin, part of a set issued in 2015 by the Royal Mint to mark the centenary of the war. On 12 October that year a bust in the Montjoiepark in Uccle, Belgium, was inaugurated by Princess Anne, Princess Royal of Great Britain and Princess Astrid of Belgium. 2015 also saw a tombstone-shaped monument erected in the memorial garden dedicated to her in Inverness.

On the centenary of her execution, an event funded by the University of Salford took place at Sacred Trinity where historian Sir Ian Kershaw and Christine Hallett of the UK Centre for the History of Nursing and Midwifery, spoke.

The memorial on her grave was renewed in 2016. On 4 December 2018 a Google Doodle was created to celebrate her 153rd birthday. The centenary of her repatriation in May 2019 was marked by another half-muffled peal of bells at St Martin's Church in Dover.

title: Edith Cavell


text:
The Patchwork Girl of Oz

The Patchwork Girl of Oz is the seventh book in L. Frank Baum's Oz series. Characters include the Woozy, Ojo "the Unlucky", Unc Nunkie, Dr. Pipt, Scraps (the patchwork girl), and others. The novel was first published on July 1, 1913, with illustrations by John R. Neill. In 1914, Baum adapted the book to film through his Oz Film Manufacturing Company. The book was followed by Tik-Tok of Oz (1914).

In the previous Oz book, The Emerald City of Oz, magic was used to isolate Oz from all contact with the outside world. Baum did this to end the Oz series, but was forced to restart the series with this book due to financial hardship. In the prologue, he reconciles Oz's isolation with the appearance of a new Oz book by explaining that he contacted Dorothy in Oz via a wireless telegraph, and she obtained Ozma's permission to tell Baum this story.

Plot
Ojo, known as Ojo the Unlucky, lives in poverty with his laconic uncle Unc Nunkie in the woods of the Munchkin Country in Oz. They visit their neighbor, the magician Dr. Pipt who is about to complete the six-year process of preparing the magical Powder of Life, which can bring inanimate objects to life. Pipt's wife has constructed a life-sized stuffed girl out of patchwork, and wishes her husband to animate her to serve as an obedient household servant. They also meet another of Pipt's creations, Bungle, an extremely vain talking cat made of glass. The Powder of Life successfully animates the patchwork girl, but an accident causes both Pipt's wife and Unc Nunkie to be turned to stone. Dr. Pipt tells Ojo that he must obtain five ingredients to make a compound to counteract the petrifaction spell. Ojo and the patchwork girl, who calls herself Scraps, along with Bungle, embark on a journey to obtain the magic ingredients: a six-leaved clover, the wing of a yellow butterfly, water from a dark well, a drop of oil from a live man's body, and three hairs from a Woozy's tail. Scraps exhibits a wild, carefree personality, and is prone to spontaneous recitation of nonsense poetry. After several adventures, they meet a Woozy, a blocky quadruped who agrees to let them have three hairs from its tail. But they are unable to remove the hairs, so they take the Woozy along with them.

The party is captured by large animate plants, but they are rescued by the fortuitous arrival of the Shaggy Man. He leads them to the Emerald City to meet Princess Ozma, but warns Ojo that picking a six-leaved clover is forbidden by law in Oz. Along the way they meet the Scarecrow, who is quite smitten with Scraps, as she is with him. Just outside the Emerald City, Ojo sees a six-leaved clover by the road and, believing himself to be unobserved, picks it. When they arrive at the city gates, the Soldier with the Green Whiskers approaches them and announces that Ojo is under arrest.

Brought to trial before Ozma, Ojo confesses and Ozma pardons him and allows him to keep the clover. Dorothy and the Scarecrow join Ojo and Scraps as they continue their search for the remaining ingredients. Along the way they meet Jack Pumpkinhead, the playful but annoying Tottenhots, and the man-eating 21-foot-tall giant Mr. Yoop, before reaching the subterranean dwellings of the Hoppers, who each have just one leg, and the neighboring Horners, who each have one horn on their head. The two groups are on the verge of war due to a misunderstanding, but Scraps reconciles them. A grateful Horner leads the group to a well in a dark radium mine, and Ojo collects a flask of water from it.

The group continues to the castle of the Tin Woodsman who rules the Winkie Country, since yellow butterflies are most likely to be found in that yellow-dominated quadrant of Oz. While talking to the Tin Woodsman, Ojo notices a drop of oil about to drip from his body, and he catches it in a vial. He explains that he now has all the ingredients except one. But when he describes the last one, the Tin Woodsman is horrified at the idea of killing an innocent butterfly, and forbids them from doing so in his realm. Ojo is devastated, but the Tin Woodsman proposes that they all travel back to the Emerald City to ask Ozma's advice.

Ozma tells them that Dr. Pipt has been practicing magic illegally and has therefore been deprived of his powers. But the petrified Unc Nunkie and Pipt's wife have been brought to the Emerald City and as they all watch, the Wizard of Oz restores them to life. Ojo and Unc Nunkie are given a new house to live in near the Emerald City and the Tin Woodsman calls Ojo "Ojo the Lucky".

Development
In reference to The Patchwork Girl of Oz, one of Baum's letters to his publisher, Sumner Britton of Reilly & Britton, offers unusual insight on Baum's manner of creating his Oz fantasies:

"A lot of thought is required on one of these fairy tales. The odd characters are a sort of inspiration, liable to strike me at any time, but the plot and plan of adventures takes me considerable time ... I live with it day by day, jotting down on odd slips of paper the various ideas that occur and in this way getting my materials together. The new Oz book is at this stage. ... But ... it's a long way from being ready for the printer yet. I must rewrite it, stringing the incidents into consecutive order, elaborating the characters, etc. Then it's typewritten. Then it's revised, retypewritten and sent on to Reilly and Britton."

The same correspondence (November 23–27, 1912) discusses the deleted Chapter 21 of the book, "The Garden of Meats". The text of the chapter has not survived, but Neill's illustrations and their captions still exist. The deleted chapter dealt with a race of vegetable people comparable to the Mangaboos in Chapters 4–6 of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz. The vegetable people grow what Baum elsewhere calls "meat people", apparently for food; Neill's pictures show plants with the heads of human children being watered by their growers. (This is thematically connected with the anthropophagous plants in Chapter 10 of Patchwork Girl.) Frank Reilly tactfully wrote to Baum that the material was not "in harmony with your other fairy stories", and would generate "considerable adverse criticism". Baum saw his point; the chapter was dropped.

At least at one point in his life, Baum stated that he considered The Patchwork Girl of Oz "one of the two best books of my career", the other being The Sea Fairies. The book was a popular success, selling just over 17,000 copies—though this was somewhat lower than the total for the previous book, The Emerald City of Oz, and marked the start of a trend in declining sales for the Oz books that did not reverse until The Tin Woodman of Oz in 1918.

Adaptations
Baum wrote and produced a film based on the book, titled The Patchwork Girl of Oz. It was made by Baum's studio The Oz Film Manufacturing Company and was released in 1914.

Baum also wrote a musical stage adaptation of the book, circa 1913, with composer Louis F. Gottschalk; however, this musical was never staged. Excerpts have occasionally been performed at annual conventions of The International Wizard of Oz Club.

Criticism
While Baum's work as a whole is occasionally criticized for using what may be seen as racial and ethnic stereotypes, the Patchwork Girl has come in for particular criticism. Robin Bernstein suggests the Patchwork Girl character was influenced by Topsy in Uncle Tom's Cabin and points out she was created by Dr. Pipt's wife to be a slave. Moreover, the original text included a song (by the similarly animated Phonograph) about "mah coal black Lulu"; the lyric, evocative of minstrelsy, was changed in later editions to "my cross-eyed Lulu". Similarly problematic is the inclusion in the book of a set of creatures called the Tottenhots, likely meant to be a play on the ethnic term Hottentots.

title: The Patchwork Girl of Oz


text:
Gladys Aylward

Gladys May Aylward (24 February 1902 – 3 January 1970) was a British-born evangelical Christian missionary to China, whose story was told in the book The Small Woman: The Heroic Story of Gladys Aylward, by Alan Burgess, published in 1957. The book served as the basis for the film The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, starring Ingrid Bergman, in 1958. The film was produced by Twentieth Century Fox, and filmed entirely in North Wales and England.

Early life
Aylward was born in 1902, one of three children of Thomas John Aylward (a postman) and Rosina Florence, a working-class family from Edmonton, North London. From her early teens, Gladys worked as a housemaid. Following a calling to go overseas as a Christian missionary, she was accepted by the China Inland Mission to study in a preparatory three-month course for aspiring missionaries. Because of her lack of progress in learning the Chinese language, she was not offered further training.

On 15 October 1930, having worked for Sir Francis Younghusband, Aylward spent her life savings on a train passage to Yangcheng, Shanxi Province, China. The dangerous trip took her across Siberia on the Trans-Siberian Railway at a time when the Soviet Union and China were in an undeclared war. She was detained by the Russians, but managed to evade them with local help and a lift from a Japanese ship. She then traveled across Japan with the help of the British Consul, and took another ship to China.

Work in China
Upon arriving in Yangcheng County, Aylward worked with an older missionary, Jeannie Lawson, to help manage The Inn of the Eight Happinesses, a name based on the eight virtues of Love, Virtue, Gentleness, Tolerance, Loyalty, Truth, Beauty and Devotion. There, she and Mrs. Lawson not only provided hospitality for travelers but would also share stories about Jesus, in hopes of spreading nascent Christianity. For a time she served as an assistant to the Government of the Republic of China as a "foot inspector" by touring the countryside to enforce the new law against footbinding of young Chinese girls. She met with much success in a field that had produced much resistance and even violence at times against the inspectors.

Aylward became a national of the Republic of China in 1936 and was a revered figure among the people, taking in orphans and adopting several herself, intervening in a volatile prison riot and advocating prison reform, risking her life many times to help those in need. In 1938, the region was invaded by Japanese forces, and Aylward led more than 100 orphans to safety over the mountains, despite being wounded and sick, personally caring for them (and converting many to Christianity).

She did not return to Britain until 1949, when her life in China was thought to be in great danger from the Communists – the army was actively seeking out missionaries. Settling in Basingstoke, she gave many lectures on her work. After her mother died, Aylward sought a return to China. After rejection by the Communist government and a stay in British-administered Hong Kong, she finally settled in Taiwan in 1958. There, she founded the Gladys Aylward Orphanage, where she worked until her death in 1970.

The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
A film based on her life, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, was released in 1958. It drew from the biography The Small Woman, by Alan Burgess. Although she found herself a figure of international interest because of the film's popularity and television and media interviews, Aylward was mortified by her depiction in the film and the liberties it took. The tall (1.75m/5' 9"), blonde Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman was inconsistent with Aylward's small stature, dark hair, and North London accent. The struggles of Aylward and her family to effect her initial trip to China were disregarded in favor of a movie plot device of an employer 'condescending to write to "his old friend" Jeannie Lawson'. Also, Aylward's dangerous, complicated travels across Russia, China, and Japan were reduced to 'a few rude soldiers', after which 'Hollywood's train delivered her neatly to Tientsin'. Many characters and names were changed, even when these names had significant meaning, such as those of her adopted children and that of the inn, which was named in fact for the Chinese belief in the number 8 as being auspicious. Her own name was changed; in real life, she was given the Chinese name Aiweide ( – a phonetic approximation to Aylward), but in the film, she was given the name Jen-Ai. Colonel Lin Nan was portrayed as half-European, a change which she found insulting to his real Chinese lineage, and she felt that the Hollywood-embellished love scenes in the film damaged her reputation. Not only had she never kissed a man, but the film's ending portrayed her character leaving the orphans to rejoin the colonel elsewhere, even though in reality she did not retire from working with orphans until she was 60 years old. She dedicated the rest of her life to the orphans in Taiwan and was buried in Taipei.

Death and legacy
Aylward died on 3 January 1970, about a month and a half short of her 68th birthday, and was buried in a small cemetery on the campus of Christ's College in Guandu, New Taipei, Taiwan. She was known to the Chinese as 艾偉德. Her ministry in Taipei continues to develop and is now called Bethany Children's Home. The new director, Sharon Chiang, was called from Seattle to develop Bethany Children's Home further for its new vision and new building.

A London secondary school, formerly known as 'Weir Hall and Huxley', was renamed the Gladys Aylward School shortly after her death. There is a blue commemorative plaque on the house where Gladys lived near the school at 67 Cheddington Road, London N18.

A "house" was also named after Gladys Aylward at Fernwood Comprehensive (formerly Secondary Modern) School, in Wollaton, Nottingham.

Numerous books, short stories, and films have been developed about the life and work of Gladys Aylward.

General References

 * Hero Tales by Dave & Neta Jackson
 * These Are My People by Mildred T. Howard
 * The Woman with the Book by M. A. Mijnders-VanWoerden

Archives

 * The archive of Gladys Aylward, including artefacts from her time in China, is held by SOAS Special Collections. Digitised material from the collection is available to view online here.

Videography

 * The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958) – feature film
 * Gladys Aylward, the Small Woman with a Great God (2008) – documentary
 * Torchlighters: The Gladys Aylward Story (2008) – animated DVD for children ages 8–12

title: Gladys Aylward


text:
Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire (abbreviated Oxon) is a ceremonial county in South East England. The county is bordered by Northamptonshire and Warwickshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the east, Berkshire to the south, and Wiltshire and Gloucestershire to the west. The city of Oxford is the largest settlement and county town.

The county is largely rural, with an area of 2605 km2 and a population of 691,667. After Oxford (162,100), the largest settlements are Banbury (54,355) and Abingdon-on-Thames (37,931). For local government purposes Oxfordshire is a non-metropolitan county with five districts. The part of the county south of the River Thames, largely corresponding to the Vale of White Horse district, was historically part of Berkshire.

The lowlands in the centre of the county are crossed by the River Thames and its tributaries, the valleys of which are separated by low hills. The south contains parts of the Berkshire Downs and Chiltern Hills, and the north-west includes part of the Cotswolds; all three regions are Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The county's highest point is White Horse Hill (261 m), part of the Berkshire Downs.

History
Oxfordshire was recorded as a county in the early years of the 10th century and lies between the River Thames to the south, the Cotswolds to the west, the Chilterns to the east and the Midlands to the north, with spurs running south to Henley-on-Thames and north to Banbury.

Although it had some significance as an area of valuable agricultural land in the centre of the country, it was largely ignored by the Romans and did not grow in importance until the formation of a settlement at Oxford in the 8th century. Alfred the Great was born across the Thames in Wantage, in the Vale of White Horse. The University of Oxford was founded in 1096, although its collegiate structure did not develop until later on. The university in the county town of Oxford (whose name came from Anglo-Saxon Oxenaford = "ford for oxen") grew in importance during the Middle Ages and early modern period. The area was part of the Cotswolds wool trade from the 13th century, generating much wealth, particularly in the western portions of the county in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds. Morris Motors was founded in Oxford in 1912, bringing heavy industry to an otherwise agricultural county. The role of agriculture as an employer declined rapidly in the 20th century; currently under one per cent of the county's population are involved due to high mechanisation. Nevertheless, Oxfordshire remains a very agricultural county by land use, with a lower population than neighbouring Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, which are both smaller.

During most of its history, the county was partitioned as fourteen divisions called hundreds, namely Bampton, Banbury, Binfield, Bloxham, Bullingdon, Chadlington, Dorchester, Ewelme, Langtree, Lewknor, Pyrton, Ploughley, Thame and Wootton.

The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, the main army unit in the area, was based at Cowley Barracks on Bullingdon Green, Cowley. The Vale of White Horse district and parts of the South Oxfordshire administrative district south of the River Thames were historically part of Berkshire, but, in 1974, Abingdon, Didcot, Faringdon, Wallingford and Wantage were added to the administrative county of Oxfordshire under the Local Government Act 1972. Conversely, the Caversham area of Reading, now administratively in Berkshire, was historically part of Oxfordshire, as was the parish of Stokenchurch, now administratively in Buckinghamshire. The areas of Oxford city south of the Thames, such as Grandpont, were transferred much earlier, in 1889.

Geography
Oxfordshire includes parts of three Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. In the north-west lie the Cotswolds; to the south and south-east are the open chalk hills of the North Wessex Downs and the wooded hills of the Chilterns. The north of the county contains the ironstone of the Cherwell uplands. Long-distance walks within the county include the Ridgeway National Trail, Macmillan Way, Oxfordshire Way and the D’Arcy Dalton Way.

Extreme points

 * Northernmost point: 52.16849°N, -1.33192°W, near Claydon Hay Farm, Claydon
 * Southernmost point: 51.45965°N, -0.94675°W, near Thames and Kennet Marina, Playhatch
 * Westernmost point: 51.78326°N, -1.71936°W, near Downs Farm, Westwell
 * Easternmost point: 51.50395°N, -0.87055°W, River Thames, near Lower Shiplake

Rivers and canals
From the mid-point western edge to the southeast corner of Oxfordshire, via the city in the middle, runs the Thames with its flat floodplains. This river forms the historic limit with Berkshire, remaining so on some lowest reaches. The Thames Path National Trail follows the river from upper estuary to a source.

Many smaller rivers in the county feed into the Thames, such as the Thame, Windrush, Evenlode and Cherwell. Some of these have trails running along their valleys. The Oxford Canal links to the Midlands and follows the Cherwell from Banbury via Kidlington into the city of Oxford, where these join the navigable Thames. About 15% of the historically named Wilts & Berks Canal, in sporadic sections, has been restored to navigability, including the county-relevant 140 metres near Abingdon-on-Thames where it could, if restored, meet the Thames.

Green belt
Oxfordshire contains a green belt area that fully envelops the city of Oxford and extends for some miles to protect surrounding towns and villages from inappropriate development and urban growth. Its border in the east extends to the Buckinghamshire county boundary, while part of its southern border is shared with the North Wessex Downs AONB. It was first drawn up in the 1950s, and all of the county's districts contain some portion of the belt.

Politics

The Oxfordshire County Council, since 2013 under no overall control, is responsible for the most strategic local government functions, including schools, county roads and social services. The county is divided into five local government districts: Oxford, Cherwell, Vale of White Horse (after the Uffington White Horse), West Oxfordshire and South Oxfordshire, which deal with such matters as town and country planning, waste collection and housing.

In the 2016 European Union referendum, Oxfordshire was the only English county as a whole to vote to remain in the European Union by a significant margin, at 57.06% (70.27% in the City of Oxford), despite Cherwell (barely) voting to leave at 50.31%.

Education
Oxfordshire has a comprehensive education system with 23 independent schools and 35 state secondary schools. Only eight schools do not have a sixth form; these are mostly in South Oxfordshire and Cherwell districts. Oxfordshire has a large number of leading independent schools, including public schools such as Radley College.

The county has two universities: the ancient University of Oxford and the modern Oxford Brookes University, which are both located in Oxford. In addition, Wroxton College, located in Banbury, is affiliated with Fairleigh Dickinson University of New Jersey.

Buildings

The "dreaming spires" of the University of Oxford are among the reasons for which Oxford is the sixth most visited city in the United Kingdom by international visitors. Among many notable University buildings are the Sheldonian Theatre, built 1664–68 to the design of Sir Christopher Wren, and the Radcliffe Camera, built 1737–49 to the design of James Gibbs.

Blenheim Palace, close to Woodstock, was designed and partly built by the architect John Vanbrugh for John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, after he had won the battle of Blenheim. The gardens, which can be visited, were designed by the landscape gardener "Capability" Brown, who planted the trees in the battle formation of the victorious army. Sir Winston Churchill was born in the palace in 1874. It is open to the public.

Chastleton House, on the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire borders, is a great country mansion built on property bought from Robert Catesby, who was one of the men involved in the Gunpowder Plot with Guy Fawkes. Stonor Park, another country mansion, has belonged to the recusant Stonor family for centuries.

Mapledurham House is an Elizabethan stately home in the south-east of the county, close to Reading.

The Abbey in Sutton Courtenay is a medieval courtyard house. It has been recognised by the Historic Building Council for England (now Historic England) as a building of outstanding historic and architectural interest. It is considered to be a 'textbook' example of the English medieval manor house and is a Grade I-listed building.

Settlements

Places of interest
• Museum icon.svg Abingdon County Hall Museum – housed in a 17th-century county hall building

• NTE icon.svg Ashdown House – 17th-century country house in the Lambourn Downs

• Museum icon.svg Ashmolean Museum – Oxford University's museum of art and archaeology

• Museum icon.svg Banbury Museum, Banbury

• Bicester Village

• HH icon.svg Blenheim Palace and garden – UNESCO World Heritage Site

• HH icon.svg Broughton Castle – 14th-century fortified manor house

• NTE icon.svg Buscot Park, Buscot – 18th-century country house and landscape garden

• Museum icon.svg Champs Chapel Museum of East Hendred – village museum in a 15th-century Carthusian chapel

• Museum icon.svg Charlbury Museum

• NTE icon.svg Chastleton House – 17th-century country house (limited access)

• UKAL icon.svg Chiltern Hills – Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

• HR icon.svg Chinnor & Princes Risborough Railway – operated with steam and diesel locomotives

• Museum icon (red).svg Chipping Norton Museum

• HR icon.svg Cholsey and Wallingford Railway

• Museum icon (red).svg Cogges Manor Farm Museum, Witney – a living museum of country life

• Museum icon (red).svg Combe Mill Museum, Long Hanborough – working museum of stationary steam engines

• Zoo icon.jpg Cotswold Wildlife Park and garden, Bradwell Grove, Holwell

• UKAL icon.svg Cotswolds – Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

• HR icon.svg Didcot Railway Centre – museum of the Great Western Railway

• AP Icon.svg Dorchester Abbey, Dorchester-on-Thames – 12th-century church of former Augustinian abbey

• NTE icon.svg Great Coxwell Barn – 14th-century tithe barn

• NTE icon.svg Greys Court, Rotherfield Greys – 16th-century country house

• HH icon.svg Hampton Gay Manor – ruins of 16th-century manor house (no website)

• Harcourt Arboretum, Nuneham Courtenay

• HH icon.svg Heythrop Hall – 17th-century country house: now a hotel, golf & country club

• Hook Norton Brewery – working Victorian "tower" brewery that offers guided tours

• HH icon.svg Kelmscott Manor – Home of William Morris

• HH icon.svg Mapledurham Estate – 16th-century country house and 15th-century watermill

• HH icon.svg Milton Manor House – 18th-century country house

• EH icon.svg Minster Lovell Hall – dovecote and ruins of 15th-century manor house

• Museum icon (red).svg Museum of Bygones, Claydon – private museum including stationary steam engines

• UKAL icon.svg North Wessex Downs – Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

• AP Icon.svg CL icon.svg Museum icon.svg Museum icon (red).svg Oxford

• Museum icon (red).svg Oxford Bus Museum and Morris Motors Museum, Long Hanborough

• UKAL icon.svg Oxford Canal – 18th-century "narrow" canal

• Museum icon.svg The Oxfordshire Museum, Woodstock

• UKAL icon.svg The Ridgeway

• Museum icon (red).svg River and Rowing Museum, Henley-on-Thames

• UKAL icon.svg River Thames

• Rollright Stones – megalithic stone circle and Whispering Knights burial chamber, near Little Rollright

• HH icon.svg Rousham House – 17th-century country house and landscape garden

• Rycote chapel – 15th-century chapel with original furnishings

• St Katharine's church, Chiselhampton – 18th-century parish church with original furnishings (no website, limited access)

• St Mary's church, Iffley – 12th-century Norman parish church

• Country parks.svg Shotover Country Park, Headington

• Country parks.svg Spiceball Country Park, Banbury

• HH icon.svg Stanton Harcourt manor house (limited access), with garden and 15th-century chapel and Pope's Tower (no website)

• HH icon.svg Stonor Park – country house and 14th-century chapel of the recusant Stonor family

• Museum icon.svg Swalcliffe Tithe Barn – 15th-century

• Museum icon.svg Thame Museum

• Museum icon.svg Tolsey Museum, Burford (no website)

• UKAL icon.svg Uffington White Horse, Uffington Castle and Wayland's Smithy burial chamber in the White Horse Hills

• Museum icon.svg Vale and Downland Museum, Wantage

• Museum icon (red).svg Wallingford Museum

• Museum icon.svg Wheatley Windmill – 18th-century tower mill

title: Oxfordshire