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Local share prices on Thursday, May 25, were as follows: AEA Technology 109.5 BMW 2711 Electrocomp 250.5 iSoft 92 Oxford Bio 27.25 Oxford Inst 203.5 RM 174 Reed Elsevier 514.5 RPS 199 Torex Retail 83

A NEW testing kit which will allow police to tell whether drivers are under the influence of drugs has been launched by Cozart, based in Milton Park, near Abingdon. The Drug Detection System uses a saliva test to show whether people have been using

AEA Technology 109.5 BMW 2711 Electrocomponents 250.5 Isoft Group 92 Oxford Bio 27.25 Oxford Instruments 203.5 Reed Elsevier 514.5 RM 174 RPS 199 Torex Retail 83 Courtesy of Redmayne Bentley, Abingdon

AEA Technology 109.5 BMW 2711 Electrocomponents 250.5 Isoft Group 92 Oxford Bio 27.25 Oxford Instruments 203.5 Reed Elsevier 514.5 RM 174 RPS 199 Torex Retail 83 Courtesy of Redmayne Bentley, Abingdon

Visions of mellow stone houses nestling behind gardens full of old-fashioned flowers: such things were the stuff of propaganda films made during two world wars. But what, I wondered, leafing through the excellent Economic Development Strategy for Oxfordshire

Tourists from across the world come to Oxford to pay homage to C.S. Lewis and yet look in disbelief at the 'back garden' that inspired the storyteller It is always tempting to wonder what Narnia could have been like if it were not at the end of a suburban

I don't suppose many visitors to the Champagne Ardenne region of France get much further than Reims. The temptation to meander Sideways-style through the 70-odd Champagne cellars clustered between there and Epernay, only 30 kilometres to the south,

Harry Wyatt, a former chairman of Oxfordshire County Council, has died aged 67. Mr Wyatt, a Liberal Democrat councillor for Eynsham, resigned from the county council in March due to ill health but died on Tuesday morning. Mr Wyatt, a diabetic, had

Government announces new science and innovation campus to be set up at Harwell site The Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC) is one of the largest multidisciplinary research organisations in Europe. It operates the Rutherford

Veteran Oxford Conservative councillor Janet Todd, who has died at the age of 88, was a fierce defender of her adopted city. The former Lord Mayor of Oxford began her political career in the city in 1965, and in 2000 planned a comeback at the age of

The re-opening of Kew Palace in London offers a fascinating glimpse into the lives of 'Mad' King George and his family, writes NICOLA LISLE Kew Palace opened at the end of April for the first time in a decade, following a £6.6m restoration. Visitors

ROGER Hall, who worked for The Oxford Times, has died of cancer, aged 68. Mr Hall, of Southfield Road, Oxford, moved to the city more than 20 years ago with his wife, Anne, to help her parents run the Isis Hotel, in Iffley Road. He then joined The

The Spin marks being named one of the best jazz clubs in the UK, writes PAUL MEDLEY If the Spin Jazz Club in Oxford, celebrating its seventh birthday next week, was a solitary mortal it might just about be riding a bicycle on a public road. But over

ONE of the founders of All Saints Methodist church in Abingdon and the town's operatic society, Dr Geoffrey Long, has died after a long battle with cancer. He was 76. Dr Long, from Chiers Drive, Drayton, was at the first formal meeting of the church

A FORMER secretary of Abingdon Rowing Club, Bill Druce, has died at the age of 76. Mr Druce, from East St Helen Street, moved to Abingdon 20 years ago from Maidenhead after retiring as a director with Honeywell, the international controls technology

STEVE Drywood, the deputy headteacher of Wheatley Park School, has died a year after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease. Tributes have been paid to Mr Drywood, 54, at the school in Holton where he was deputy head since 1987, following his death

Tips for success with a summer essential In the days of the old, walled garden more ground was devoted to growing peas than to anything else. They grew a succession of varieties, most of them tall and long-podded, from March until June. Most peas were

DR Colin McDougall, who made an important contribution to the understanding of leprosy while at Oxford University, has died aged 81. Following his appointment as leprosy specialist to the Zambian health ministry in 1967, he returned to Britain and made

HARRY Wyatt, a former chairman of Oxfordshire County Council, has died aged 67. Mr Wyatt, a Liberal Democrat councillor for Eynsham, who resigned from the county council in March due to ill health, died on Tuesday morning. Mr Wyatt, a diabetic, had

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL Sir John Miller, of Shotover House, near Wheatley, who was a former Crown Equerry, has died aged 87. From 1961-1987 he was Crown Equerry, in charge of the Queen's horses, carriages and cars. He was known for opening up his Shotover

A farmer's ingenuity has solved the problem of rural access for disabled people, writes ELIZABETH EDWARDS Opening a gate that has an awkward catch can be hard for many of us, but for anybody with a disability the difficulty can be insurmountable. Walkers

NICOLA LISLE looks forward to a new production of Don Giovanni, which will be touring Oxfordshire village halls It's one of the defining moments in Don Giovanni. The Commendatore is despatched to meet his maker in particularly cold-blooded fashion

AN OXFORD University graduate who died in a car crash near Banbury was a young doctor who had just started her medical career. Dr Margaret Davidson, 26, from Oxford, was killed in the head-on crash at Deddington, last Thursday morning. Dr Davidson

It's a bit rich, quite literally, of Conservative Party leader David Cameron to bang on about how money should not be the most important thing in people's life, isn't it? In case you hadn't heard Dave wants us to be less concerned about GDP (gross domestic

I was disappointed at the lack of balance in your reporting of the county council's position on threatened local government reorganisation (Oxford Mail, May 18). Perhaps because no reporter attended our cabinet meeting, your resulting coverage will

I write as a disgruntled Sandhills householder, who spends up to one-and-a-half hours each day negotiating the traffic chaos between the Green Road roundabout at Headington and Wheatley. I recently observed, while patiently waiting in the queue, that

Climate change is having real and lasting effects on the world around us. If we ever doubted it, the visit of Environment Secretary David Miliband to our own Wytham Woods should bring it home. OK, so it was a pretty photo opportunity to bolster the

Fears have been voiced that a riverside pub's big screen outdoor showing of England's World Cup games will lead to loud-mouthed, drunken yobbery. But the managers of Wallingford Town Council-owned Boathouse pub have denied there will be trouble. They

A father who suffered a debilitating disease died when his car veered across a road and collided with a lorry. Kenneth Jones, 37, of Dean Butler Close, Wantage, was killed on November 21 last year on the A420 near Shrivenham, when his Toyota Aventis

Swimmers are preparing to take the plunge for the reopening of Abingdon's open air pool on Saturday morning - 15 months after it was closed in a council economy drive. But there's been a warning that it could sink into troubled waters again unless people

New police recruits in Oxfordshire will be trained at "home" in a new move to boost recruitment, particularly among ethnic minorities. Instead of spending months away in one of the national training centres, locally recruited rookies will do their

Residents say they are furious they were not told a travelling funfair had been given the go-ahead to set up on land behind their houses. People living in Hudson Street, Bicester, said the first they knew about the fair was when caravans and lorries

Mariah, Kenzie and Keane - no, this is not the line up for a new music festival but some of the names of the little nippers featured today in this year's Oxford Mail bonny baby contest. Hundreds of entries have flooded in for our annual Baby of the

Places where drug addicts can inject themselves should be introduced in Oxford, according to a leading police officer and a city councillor. Chief Supt David McWhirter, Oxfordshire police commander, and Oxford city councillor Susanna Pressel have both

Residents in a north Oxford village are delighted to be seeing red at last - their post box is back following an eight-month absence. The post box at the Londis store in First Turn, Wolvercote, which is also a sub-post office, was removed last October

Getting a track designated an official footpath has been anything but a walk in the park for Green campaigner Chris Goodall. Mr Goodall, 50, of Navigation Way, North Oxford, applied to create a public footpath on to Port Meadow in January 2002 under

Thugs who conned their way into elderly people's homes in Oxfordshire may be raiding houses across the UK. Det Sgt Chris Biddle, of Abingdon CID, said the raiders had struck twice in Oxfordshire and eight times in the Thames Valley area. Det Sgt Biddle

Viewers may be forgiven for thinking England's World Cup team is getting even younger when they walk out on to the pitch this summer. Christopher West, seven, of Hagbourne Primary School in Didcot and Lewis Harding, six, of Cholsey Primary School near

Environment minister David Miliband yesterday saw first-hand how climate change is already altering the delicate balance of life in Oxfordshire's woodland. Mr Miliband braved the wind and rain for a walkabout of Wytham Woods, near Oxford, where he was

Environmentalists are claiming victory in their campaign to register Oxford's Trap Grounds as a town green. The Law Lords yesterday delivered a 62-page ruling on the future of the land near Port Meadow in north Oxford, in the long running test case

Commuters frustrated by delays on Oxford's Green Road roundabout have been told congestion will not be alleviated by night time roadworks. Motorists stuck in traffic jams caused by work on Headington roads will have to continue to queue up as the county

Lethal weapons have been seized by police in Oxfordshire in their battle to stop violent offenders carrying knives. Deadly Samurai swords and kitchen knives are among the bladed weapons seized from suspected offenders and crime scenes and will be destroyed

NHS chiefs were due today to announce plans to cut 130 beds across Oxfordshire's major hospitals in a bid to stave off predicted £33m debts. At a board meeting this morning, Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust managers were expected to agree a range

We had been meaning to go to the Restaurant La Fontaine in Arncott for a year or more, having been told it was pretty good by The Oxford Times's dance critic David Bellan. His artist wife, Suzanne O'Driscoll, has her studio in the next village, and they

The Royal Shakespeare Company's new production of Much Ado About Nothing is wonderfully acted, imaginatively staged (in a setting that gives us the pre-Castro Cuba of the fifties a land of fiery music, smouldering cigars and smouldering passions), and

This year, thanks to the continuing support of Scottish Power, Ballet Central comes of age. The company consists of the graduate dancers of the Central School of Ballet, who go on a national tour to gain stage experience before looking for jobs. The success

Tiddington, national finalists in 1995, have pulled out of this year's npower Village Cup after fielding an ineligible player. They withdrew from the competition after realising they had breached the rules by playing left-arm seamer John Richardson

Banbury's hopes of progressing in the Cockspur Cup were dashed when they bowed out 5-2 in a bowl-out against West Indian Cavaliers in the second round. With the match at White Post Road cancelled due to a waterlogged outfield, the two sides made their

Oxfordshire were denied a hat-trick of wins in their Middleton Cup Trial matches when they went down 132-114 to Gloucestershire at Frampton on Severn. Having beaten Wiltshire and Northants in their opening two games, Oxon, who weren't at full strength

Oxford City & County A suffered a shock 6-0 defeat at the hands of their B team in the first week of the Oxford & District League Division 1, sponsored by Yarnton Nurseries Garden Centre. Ron Hammond's rink led the way with a convincing 27-12 win as

Would that some other Oxford orchestras were as imaginative in their programming. For its latest concert, the Oxford Sinfonia had the brilliant idea of splitting itself into three sections brass, wind, strings then finding music that challenged and

Some important features of Patricia Highsmith's character are reflected in what occurs in her hugely successful first novel, Strangers on a Train or, at any rate, in Craig Warner's gripping play "based on" it. They include addiction to alcohol, which

STUDLEY WOOD May Medal Div 1: 1 P Rees 80-12=68 (cb), 2 J Muir 80-12=68, 3 L White 78-10=68. Div 2: 1 T Baldwin 81-15= 66 (cb), 2 G McGill 86-20=66, 3 J Upson 94-26=68. May Stableford Div 1: 1 A Walton 42pts, 2 A Corless 40, 3 J Muir 39. Div 2: 1

Oxfordshire riders will be out in force at the Knight Frank Great Tew Estate Horse Trials on June 10 and 11. Recent Badminton competitors Beanie Hughes and Serena Russell, Jo Aston, Cordelia Croft, Julie Tew, Simon Lawrence, Tom Gittins, Kitty Boggis

This was an evening which displayed Russell Maliphant's pre-occupation with light or the lack of it and the way in which highlighting only selected parts of the body can affect the look of the dances he makes. Also typical of this exceptional choreographer

Abingdon's unbeaten middleweight, Jake Guntert, returns to the ring tomorrow seven months after his last fight. The 23-year-old who has won all six of his professional bouts, is on the bill against Gosport's Steve Ede at the York Hall, Bethnal Green

A NEW league is being launched to find Oxfordshire's best amateur player. The UK Championships Golf League is a handicap competition and leads on to regional and national finals. Tournament director Paul Matthews said: "For many years, playing golf

Anaclet Odhiambo netted his 100th goal for The Nelson as they thumped Cold Arbour 11-1 in the Morrells of Oxford League Pete Faulkner Memorial Cup. Premier Division champions Nelson took advantage of a lacklustre performance from the President's Cup

MATT Johnson retained Chipping Norton's Junior Championship after what many believe was the closest and most competitive event in the club's history. Johnson defeated Tim Reynolds at the second extra hole, but that was far from the whole story. In

Keith Sheard completed an excellent season by winning the men's individual final at the Oxford & District League finals night at Rover Cowley Sports & Social Club at Roman Way. Sheard was up against Ray Sturgess in the final, and eased to a 2-0 victory

BORIS Johnson is supporting the Oxford Mail's bid to bring the Solheim Cup to The Oxfordshire in 2011. The Henley MP, whose constituency includes the club, believes hosting the 'women's Ryder Cup' would be a massive boost for the area. He said: "I

It starts to seem as if no crappy movie is complete without a starring role for Sir Ian McKellen (I don't know if he shows Sir Ben Kingsley-style pomposity about the use of the honorific, but I stuck it in just in case). This week's turkey is X-Men: The

BURFORD edged past hosts North Oxford and went top of Section 2 in the Shaw & Co Oxfordshire Foursomes League after a dramatic final hole victory. The contest came down to match three between Burford's Tom Potter and Andy Purdy and Glenn Oakes and Marc

Moreton's Joe Cheong completed a hat-trick of titles when he came from behind to beat Robert Hudson (Drayton) in the final of the Didcot League's Junior Champ- ionship. Hudson started the final well establishing a 10-6 lead in the first game, but Cheong

Banbury GT racer Jamie Derbyshire will head to Brno in the Czech Republic this weekend for the second round of the FIA GT Championship. The Spirit Motor Group-backed driver is hoping that developments to the Balfe Motorsport Saleen S7R will move him

Twin wins in the driving rain brought Weston-on-the-Green driver Graham Fennymore and his Ambitions Racing Team a slender early points lead in the Autosport Caterham Superlight Challengeat Donington Park. Fennymore, a winner nine times from ten starts