We patrolled ten times during June and July. On one occasion we met a distressed lady who was walking in the road, crying. We brought her to the pavement, gave her tissues and asked if we could do anything to help. She had had a disagreement with her friends and was feeling let down by them.

Although we are no longer experiencing large groups gathering, there were a number of smaller aggressive situations that we were able to help calm down, including preventing two groups of people from aggravating each other.

One night, a prankster had moved traffic cones and a road sign into the middle of the road in Wantage, so we moved them to where they should be – and did it again later that same night!

At the end of one of our patrols we were standing outside a pub when a lady frantically rushed back to the pub, hoping to get in and saying that she had lost her mobile phone. We offered to call her number and found that her phone was in her pocket all the time! The poor lady was very apologetic – and a little embarrassed!

We spent time chatting to people and hearing about the different situations they face, including a man whose family business had lost lots of money during the pandemic lockdowns and a young man who had recently come out of prison and was starting to get back to work. We also met a man who had been a drug addict and was doing ‘the 12 steps’ to recovery. It’s a privilege to hear about people’s lives, to spend some time with them and encourage them for the future. We prayed for one young man who was nervous about going on a date. He called his friends over and asked us to pray for them to have the peace of God – so we did!