In the rest of the book, Stanley Crooks contrasts Doreen’s story of rapid change in the 20th Century with the leisurely pace of evolution in the earlier years of the two millennia now coming to an end - of ancient houses, great and small, rich in history; of a church still thriving more than a thousand years after the first Christians arrived. Twyford emerges as a village with a fascinating history of its own, but always aware of its place in a wider world, from Roman settlement to support for American Independence; sending emigrants to Australia, missionaries to Africa or its sons to fight for freedom.