WHEN Julia Berg got lost on the country lanes of Oxfordshire, she didn’t bank on the county’s friendly folk to step in and save her – and restore her faith in humanity. She tells us why she has fallen in love with the area all over again...

It had been almost 10 years since I was last in Oxfordshire. Leafy, lovely, one of those rather genteel shires with a different kind of beauty from my home county of Sussex with her South Downs, chalk cliffs, noisy seagulls and their attendant mess.

I remembered the gentler downs, the birds of prey that always seemed to be hovering over the roads I had chosen. I recalled Oxford’s wonderful Ashmolean, the food market, performances at New Theatre and had stopped by in Didcot, Grove and somewhere near Abingdon.

This time I was heading for a place I had never heard of: Little Wittenham and the internet told me that Abingdon wasn’t far. Easy, I had been somewhere there before.

I had been invited to look at a project called Earth Trust which seemed to wrap her arms around conservation, nature, education, environment, preservation – and beauty in a riot of unspoilt green. Quite something and I was looking forward to it.

I am a freelance journalist and often have to discover remote or hidden places. My mantra is “smile and stay calm”. My car is like a vintage red wine, forever smooth (or so I tell her), a 19 year-old Mercedes with no satnav and this driver useless looking at maps on mobile phones.

At my laptop the evening before, it looked pretty simple. A whizz round the M25 (praying that the gods of gridlock were on their holidays) and then straight up the M40. I had planned to drop into a service station when I was close and ask a local for directions. Old fashioned maybe yet it always works for me.

“Could you tell me the way to Little Wittenham please?”

Silence and polite glances from three cashiers at Welcome Break off the M40 at junction 8a. I looked around repeating my question. Silence from people to my right and my left. Complete and utter silence. A man appeared telling me he was a lorry driver and knew “everywhere”. He spoke with a broad Scottish accent saying I should aim for Swindon. I kept smiling. No calm now.

“Surely someone knows where Little Wittenham is, it isn’t far from Abingdon?”. This silence was painful.

And then he stepped forward from behind the coffee machine. “I know exactly where it is, I’m a taxi driver and have some spare time, follow me. See you outside”. Gary Thorpe who drives for Courtesy Cars of Oxford told me that he could not guide me all the way (due to another job) but he would show me a place “and you can’t go wrong from there”. I followed him through residential areas, into the middle of nowhere and out again, past thatched cottages and houses of striking silvery-yellow stone.

We stopped outside the Coach and Horses in Chiselhampton. Gary’s directions sounded clear , and I wondered whether he was joking about the Golden Balls roundabout!

I gushed my thanks and told him he was wonderful. He gave me his card and then he was gone.

I must have missed that “very sharp left turn” because everywhere there were just fields. Endlessly. No sign for Earth Trust or for anywhere at all and not a single building. Not a dog walker, not a soul. I was completely lost. Again. Something glinted away to my right. If the sign had said “welcome to hell” I would have happily turned in there.

Glass buildings. Was this a nursery? Surely someone must work there tending the plants. Nobody. Just a small office block. I pressed the buzzer, blurted out that I was lost and could anyone please help me. Then he was there in front of me, a smiling man who started to try to explain how I should reach Earth Trust adding “it isn’t straightforward”. Perhaps it was the wild look in my eyes that did it when I heard those words again “follow me” as he jumped into his car. Ten minutes passed then red brake lights. He announced “this is it”. Smiling (calm now restored) I asked “and who are you, thank you so very much?”. He was Jeff Silcock, director of Exubia Ltd who had left his desk like a rocket, to help me, a stranger.

My visit to Earth Trust blew me away. Oxfordshire is going to have something truly exceptional.

Later that day, as I drove past the famous Brighton pylons marking the city boundary I thought again of Gary and Jeff, who had surpassed themselves for ‘Julia, Lost in Oxfordshire’. In 2021? Just extraordinary. I wondered if everyone there was as generous and welcoming.

A few evenings later, I met a couple of girlfriends at a wine bar. Over chilled Chablis. Patricia started to moan about men (her favourite pastime) citing their grim behaviour. “I’m going back to yoga, I’ve had it with men. Knights in shining armour are of fairy tales, they don’t exist.”

I told my story, recounting that, in just a day, I had recently found not one, but two modern-day knights in shining armour. I said I knew their names and they lived in a place called Oxfordshire, around two hours away. Perhaps there are more? I’ll be back.