Owen Gower
@owentg.bsky.social
Doing comms for a charity tackling health inequalities at a hyperlocal level. Recovering museum professional. Historian of vaccination, smallpox, and Edward Jenner. Life between Bristol and Gloucester. Personal account, own views. He/him.
owengower.co.uk
owengower.co.uk
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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...
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...
November 20, 2025 at 1:13 PM
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...
At Frank Matcham’s @everymanchelt.bsky.social tonight. I’m sure I’ve said it before but isn’t it just glorious?
November 7, 2025 at 7:10 PM
At Frank Matcham’s @everymanchelt.bsky.social tonight. I’m sure I’ve said it before but isn’t it just glorious?
Painswick churchyard by moonlight.
November 6, 2025 at 7:11 PM
Painswick churchyard by moonlight.
Reposted by Owen Gower
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
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
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
Applications open lifelong-learning.ox.ac.uk/courses/a-pl...
Reposted by Owen Gower
Vaccination Nation, a class I co-teach with @bachynski.bsky.social ,is featured in a story about innovative classes in the latest edition of Muhlenberg Magazine!
Knowledge in Action - Muhlenberg Magazine
Does AI still need humans? Is fentanyl airborne? How did certain vaccines and monuments become so polarizing? Questions like these lead to engaging discussion directly tied to issues currently facing ...
magazine.muhlenberg.edu
November 1, 2025 at 11:32 AM
Vaccination Nation, a class I co-teach with @bachynski.bsky.social ,is featured in a story about innovative classes in the latest edition of Muhlenberg Magazine!
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.
November 1, 2025 at 11:16 AM
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.
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.
October 31, 2025 at 7:54 PM
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.
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.
October 31, 2025 at 2:45 PM
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.
Reposted by Owen Gower
👻 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 🎃
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
👻 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 🎃
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 🎃
Reposted by Owen Gower
'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...
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
'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...
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...
Reposted by Owen Gower
👻 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
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
👻 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
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
Reposted by Owen Gower
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...
UPRISING: THE CIVIL WARS
My new podcast - available wherever you get your podcasts podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/u...
October 31, 2025 at 1:20 PM
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...
UPRISING: THE CIVIL WARS
My new podcast - available wherever you get your podcasts podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/u...
Reposted by Owen Gower
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.
October 31, 2025 at 11:46 AM
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.
Reposted by Owen Gower
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
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.
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
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...
Reposted by Owen Gower
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]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4m3we4apbjayclzcnhwe3pfp/bafkreib7lt736b6rmzinml5s7kxjdaapo2a36xp4d4lssypimx3taqicdm@jpeg)
October 31, 2025 at 9:02 AM
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...
Reposted by Owen Gower
October 28, 2025 at 7:16 AM
Reposted by Owen Gower
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?...
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
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?...
You should watch it too, it's very good!
Who We Were - reclaiming the history of Sound Common, Cheshire:
youtu.be/i1H-u6240NE?...
Reposted by Owen Gower
Minnie Pallister now out in paperback. Lovely job...thanks @parthianbooks.bsky.social
October 24, 2025 at 8:25 AM
Minnie Pallister now out in paperback. Lovely job...thanks @parthianbooks.bsky.social
Reposted by Owen Gower
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.
BLACK IN THE FRAME
12-5pm - Wednesday 22th through Saturday 25th October
12-3pm - Sunday 26th October
Love to see you there.
October 24, 2025 at 5:19 PM
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.
BLACK IN THE FRAME
12-5pm - Wednesday 22th through Saturday 25th October
12-3pm - Sunday 26th October
Love to see you there.
Sunshine and showers on today’s autumnal lunchtime stomp. I love walking these same routes through the changing seasons.
October 24, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Sunshine and showers on today’s autumnal lunchtime stomp. I love walking these same routes through the changing seasons.
Some memorial inscriptions that caught my eye during my lunchtime stomp around the churchyard.
October 22, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Some memorial inscriptions that caught my eye during my lunchtime stomp around the churchyard.
Reposted by Owen Gower
![1
Nurse:
It’s become a real problem in this area
2
Nurse:
We’ve seen the whole community lost to addiction
3
Show a building sign posted:
Westminster ‘X’ Addiction Clinic
With various Westminster people or looking at their phones outside it
Nurse:
Ministers, Spads, Researchers…
4
Nurse:
Most mornings we’ll get a call about someone acting strangely
[Nurse on phone taking a call]
Ok - we’ll be right over
5
Nurse:
We just have a gentle chat
[Nurses approach a minister –Robert Jenrick? - standing in the Palace of Westminster
Minister:
I understand your concerns…
6
Nurse:
Are you OK love?
Minister:
Yes I’m just hearing legitimate concerns from real voters
7
Nurse:
That’s a robot, a Nazi and a poorly-disguised Russian
[Show that the people he is talking to are precisely these characters]
Nurse 2:
Give us your phone, love
8
Nurse:
At the clinic we put them in a Grass-Touching Pod, with a real voter to talk to
[We see them back at the clinic, holding the minister's head and pushing him into a glass isolation booth with a grass floor. And it is a baffled looking woman, on a chair, ready to talk to him.]
9
Minister:
YOU MUST BE WORRIED ABOUT THE COMING CIVIL WAR
[woman looks baffled]
10
woman:
I just want a bus service
Minister:
LOOK AT MY FLAG
[produces a St George's flag]
[ends]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4m3we4apbjayclzcnhwe3pfp/bafkreicahofq6s4xow7vowj7dx6odw6ejdwr4kwcmzta7qwi4hg2nvywji@jpeg)
“I’m always the tallest person in the room,” announced the person sitting down in front of me at the gig.
October 17, 2025 at 6:17 PM
“I’m always the tallest person in the room,” announced the person sitting down in front of me at the gig.
The view over towards Downham (or Smallpox) Hill from the Cotswold Way this morning. I’m aiming to walk the whole 112 miles of this long distance path to raise funds for Gloucestershire Action for Refugees and Asylum Seekers. You can sponsor me here: www.stewardship.org.uk/pages/cotswo...
October 17, 2025 at 11:22 AM
The view over towards Downham (or Smallpox) Hill from the Cotswold Way this morning. I’m aiming to walk the whole 112 miles of this long distance path to raise funds for Gloucestershire Action for Refugees and Asylum Seekers. You can sponsor me here: www.stewardship.org.uk/pages/cotswo...