Owen Gower
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owentg.bsky.social
Owen Gower
@owentg.bsky.social
1.2K followers 1.1K following 150 posts
Doing comms for community action. Recovering museum professional. Sometime historian of vaccination. Life in Gloucestershire. Attempting to navigate a hopeful path amidst the chaos. Personal account, own views. He/him.

owengower.co.uk
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owentg.bsky.social
Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · Oct 15
Our local refugee charity, which does such important work welcoming people fleeing persecution, is facing an uncertain future. Over the next six months I’m walking the 112 mile Cotswold Way to try and raise money for them. I’d be thrilled if you’d sponsor me: www.stewardship.org.uk/pages/cotswo...
Owen, with brown hair and glasses, smiling, wearing a rucksack and a green jumper, and standing in a field
owentg.bsky.social
CAUTION // LIVE BEES
Paved area outside a building with glass-walled ground floor and brick first floor. A small bright green box has “caution, live bees” written on the side.
February 6, 2026 at 3:59 PM
owentg.bsky.social
It’s the opening night of our town panto (“oh no it’s not”, etc.)
Programme for Alice in Pantoland held up in front of a room full of people and a stage
January 29, 2026 at 7:23 PM
owentg.bsky.social
Don’t need any, but ok!
Sign reading “please take nappies home”
January 16, 2026 at 7:38 PM
owentg.bsky.social
Berries, winter sunshine, Berkeley Pill, and a different view of St Mary’s courtesy of today’s lunchtime walk.
Close up of red berries in a roadside hedge Fields in the background with trees and hedgerows silhouetted in the foreground Berkeley Pill with trees and bushes to one side and a field with a single tree to the other View of the west door and window of St Mary’s Church with the church tower, separate, in the background
January 16, 2026 at 2:11 PM
owentg.bsky.social
Almost tripped over a crouching Tom Baker in Boots.
bolt451.bsky.social Frey has a free writing Patreon @bolt451.bsky.social · Jun 13
Right folks. Feeling rather down at the moment so bringing back an oldie

Please Quote this with your most minor celebrity interaction
December 30, 2025 at 6:21 AM
owentg.bsky.social
I’m at the start of the Cotswold Way and the start of my journey along it raising money to support refugees and asylum seekers in Gloucestershire. Find out more about what I’m doing and please consider sponsoring me here: www.stewardship.org.uk/pages/cotswo...
Circular paving stone in Chipping Campden with inscription marking the start of the Cotswold Way
November 20, 2025 at 1:13 PM
owentg.bsky.social
At Frank Matcham’s @everymanchelt.bsky.social tonight. I’m sure I’ve said it before but isn’t it just glorious?
The proscenium arch, boxes and ceiling of the Everyman Theatre.
November 7, 2025 at 7:10 PM
owentg.bsky.social
Painswick churchyard by moonlight.
The tower and spire of Painswick church with the moon behind it. Shadowy yew trees line the path.
November 6, 2025 at 7:11 PM
Reposted by Owen Gower
rebeccarideal.bsky.social
If early modern disease is more your thing, I’m also running this course too.

'A plague o' both your houses': Life and Death in 17th-Century England

Applications open lifelong-learning.ox.ac.uk/courses/a-pl...
'A plague o' both your houses': Life and Death in 17th-Century England
Explore the role plague and disease played in seventeenth-century England. From the lived experience of diarists, plague searchers, victims and medics to its expression in works of literature by Shake...
lifelong-learning.ox.ac.uk
November 3, 2025 at 5:34 PM
owentg.bsky.social
I was really ill with flu over Christmas last year, so I’m not taking any chances this year! With my history of medicine hat on, it’s just amazing to get a flu vaccine a little over 100 meters and 200 years from where Edward Jenner was providing vaccination against smallpox.
Row of shop fronts with Berkeley Pharmacy in the centre. An old pub sign is hanging on the building.
November 1, 2025 at 11:16 AM
owentg.bsky.social
In the grand surroundings of Cirencester’s Bingham Hall for a special @cirenhistoryfest.bsky.social screening of Daisy May and Charlie Cooper’s NightWatch followed by Q&A with @joannadurrant.bsky.social.
A stage with ornate plasterwork surrounding it. Cirencester History Festival is projected on a screen in the centre.
October 31, 2025 at 7:54 PM
owentg.bsky.social
In a token nod to Halloween I took a quick lunchtime stroll around some of the spookier parts of Berkeley. First stop, Berkeley Castle where Edward II was (possibly, but maybe not) murdered. It’s said that you can hear his screams echoing around the town every year on the anniversary of his death.
Berkeley Castle against cloudy skies.
October 31, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Reposted by Owen Gower
paddytracey.bsky.social
👻 We've met some characters on our Heather's "Spooky Tour of Gloucester"
Albert Jones' Handlebar Moustache (and love of beer)
The Watcher of St Mary's Gate
Demaris Deighton and her cellars
And of course Mischievous Maurice and his incontinent ghost dog 🐕
Big Thanks to The Gloucester Civic Trust 🎃
A spooky tour of Gloucester - BBC Sounds
Heather Hughes is shown around by Civic Trust guide Debbie Vass.
www.bbc.co.uk
October 31, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Reposted by Owen Gower
guyshrubsole.bsky.social
'Communities must have the right to own environmental assets'

Great letter from @tomchance.bsky.social of the Community Land Trust Network to @miattafahnbulleh.bsky.social, asking her to amend the Devolution Bill to strengthen Community Right to Buy:

www.communitylandtrusts.org.uk/news-and-eve...
Communities must have the right to own environmental assets | Community Land Trust Network
We have written on behalf of 100s of community land trusts to urge the government to add 'environmental interests' to the definition of Assets of ...
www.communitylandtrusts.org.uk
October 29, 2025 at 12:20 PM
Reposted by Owen Gower
collieryspoil.bsky.social
👻 Meet the Ghost Slug this #Halloween! 🐌

The Ghost Slug (Selenochlamys ysbryda) is a mysterious predator that hunts earthworms deep underground. Its scientific name comes from the Welsh word ysbryd, meaning ghost or spirit - a fitting title for a rather elusive creature!

#GhostSlug #SpookySpecies
October 31, 2025 at 1:46 PM
Reposted by Owen Gower
rebeccarideal.bsky.social
That time the monarchy was toppled.

UPRISING: THE CIVIL WARS

My new podcast - available wherever you get your podcasts podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/u...
Poster for the podcast. The image is of Charles I and battles in the background. UPRISING : THE CIVIL WARS Listen wherever you get your podcasts
October 31, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Reposted by Owen Gower
dranniegray.bsky.social
The last couple of days have been brilliant - meeting the inestimable Tom Herbert of The Long Table in Cirencester, doing a thought-provoking event with Mary Portas for Ciren History Festival (which is just brilliant - kudos to the organisers) and curating my very own display case for the museum.
A glass museum display case with objects drawn from kitchenalia and high streets, including shop signs, culinary moulds and shop tills. A turquoise wall, white fire surround, rusty kitchen range and probable dumb waiter in a cosy looking room. Two people, one of them me, the other Tom Herbert wearing a really natty jacket and trouser set, stand in front of a butcher shop. Picture clearly snaffled from instagram.
October 31, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Reposted by Owen Gower
eleanormaybaker.bsky.social
If you like your Halloween served with a heaped helping of book history, may I recommend ✨Book Curses✨, whose pages are darkened by curses from antiquity to the present day. Come for particularised gory threats, stay for perceptions of the material text. Written by some woman.
October 31, 2025 at 11:37 AM
owentg.bsky.social
Huge thanks to everyone who has donated and shared so far. ICYMI I’m gearing up to take a series of walks in solidarity with refugees and asylum seekers and to raise money for Gloucestershire Action for Refugees and Asylum Seekers. You can sponsor me here: www.stewardship.org.uk/pages/cotswo...
October 31, 2025 at 9:55 AM
Reposted by Owen Gower
stephencollins.bsky.social
If you're a National Trust member, it's that time of year again: Midnight tonight is the deadline. It's a shame people have to keep doing this to keep a toehold on historical truth in this country, but here we are. Voting link: www.nationaltrust.org.uk/who-we-are/a...
[Scene is the entrance cabin to a NATIONAL TRUST PROPERTY AND GARDENS] 1 NATIONAL TRUST EMPLOYEE [inside cabin]: Hello there 2 [A young family - two parents two kids - have arrived at the front desk]. DAD: Hi - do you have an activity trail, for the kids? 3 NT EMPLOYEE: Of course – you’re just in time for the Autumn Gammon Trail! 4 MUM: That sounds fun, doesn’t it kids? 5 NT EMPLOYEE [handing an activity sheet and pencils to the kids]: Every autumn, the Reform Trust gammons flock back to the National Trust for the AGM. Just follow the trail round the grounds, and see how many you can spot! 6 NT EMPLOYEE [hearing something in the gardens]: Listen - that's their call [Calls emanating from the landscape]: tut-tut woke-woke 7 NT EMPLOYEE [showing the family an apparently empty fenced enclosure with some bushes in]: They are extremely sensitive and fragile... But you can bring them out of hiding if you put a little sign down mentioning slavery. 8 KIDS [pointing]: There they are! [Some little red faced PEOPLE wearing Barbour jackets and gilets emerge cautiously from the bushes. They are creeping towards a TINY SIGN in the middle of the enclosure]. [Little people noises]: woke-woke tut-tut woke-woke 9 [Close-up of the TINY SIGN - we can read that it says]: Slavery had a bit to do with building this massive house. [Noises from the little people again as they inspect the tiny sign]: tut-tut woke-woke 10 MUM [pointing]: What's that one doing there? NT EMPLOYEE: Oh, that's so sweet… 11 [We see that one of the people is sat on a rock, with a little laptop open on a tree stump, and they are furiously typing away]. NT EMPLOYEE: I think he's writing a column for the Daily Telegraph… 12 [We see close up to the little person’s screen, it is a word document reading]: Are National Trust scones secretly WOKE? [ends]
October 31, 2025 at 9:02 AM
Reposted by Owen Gower
imhelenj.bsky.social
Welcome to bluesky @fce-cbs.bsky.social

#communityenergy
October 28, 2025 at 7:16 AM
Reposted by Owen Gower
oispooky.bsky.social
My partner's new short film for Pride of Romany, funded by Historic England, was commissioned by, directed and edited by, and recorded for, British Romany people.

You should watch it too, it's very good!

Who We Were - reclaiming the history of Sound Common, Cheshire:

youtu.be/i1H-u6240NE?...
Who We Were Short Film by Pride of Romany
YouTube video by Pride Of Romany
youtu.be
October 24, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Reposted by Owen Gower
alunburge.bsky.social
Minnie Pallister now out in paperback. Lovely job...thanks @parthianbooks.bsky.social
October 24, 2025 at 8:25 AM
Reposted by Owen Gower
stroudsar.bsky.social
Check our our exhibition at Lansdown Gallery, Stroud.

BLACK IN THE FRAME

12-5pm - Wednesday 22th through Saturday 25th October
12-3pm - Sunday 26th October

Love to see you there.
A poster with the words: Black in the frame: We make the art we want to see. Logo of Black Ark Media and Stroud Against Racism
October 24, 2025 at 5:19 PM