TWO men arrested following the raid on a jeweller's that left one man dead have been released on police bail. The pair, aged 32 and 31, were arrested after Clint Townsend and an accomplice tried to smash through a window at John Gowing Jewellers
OXFORD Darren Brady, 28, of Green Hill, Greater Leys, Oxford, admitted stealing meat from the Co-op in Oxford on February 11. Also admitted breaching a community order made on January 29 for three theft offences. Given 16-week prison sentence suspended
A DIDCOT resident has celebrated his 100th birthday among 150 of his friends and family. Eric Tappin was born in North Stoke near Wallingford on March 31, 1913, and went on to achieve distinguished military service. Friends and family gathered
A BID to boost recycling rates in Oxford has suffered a blow after funding for food waste collections at flats was denied. An Oxford City Council bid for more than £1m to extend its food waste collection scheme to the city’s flat blocks was thrown
A YOUNG photographer is celebrating after scooping an award established in the name of a former Cherwell School pupil. Emma Valbret, 17, from Sunnymead, in Oxford is this year’s winner of the school’s Dan Hemingway Memorial Award. Dan, a former
THE submission of a planning application for an Oxford estate’s new £3m community centre has been delayed as the city council considers feedback from residents. Proposals for the new Rose Hill centre – in Ashhurst Way on the site of the Rose Hill
OXFORD United's winless run was extended to four games as Jeff Goulding's late header earned relegation-threatened Aldershot Town all three points. The U's were sluggish for an hour and the home side took advantage to build a two-goal cushion. Paul
Taking place at the heart of the glamorous French Riviera, the Cannes Film Festival is the ultimate display of wealth, sophistication and art. It’s a place where the filthy rich rub shoulders with the beautiful people — a heady spring cocktail
There comes a time in everyone’s life when they need a van. This may fill the average motorist with dread as they summon up images of noisy, cumbersome vehicles which are difficult to manoeuvre in everyday traffic. That may have been the case in
Good afternoon and welcome to the Recreation Ground, where Oxford United are taking on struggling Aldershot Town. The U's will be looking to shrug off the frustration from conceding a last-minute equaliser to Morecambe on Good Friday, while the
COMMUNITY groups will be able to work out their impact on the environment thanks to a unique new website launched in Oxfordshire. Groups can upload the details of events, transport and recycling initiatives to see exactly how green they really
CHILDREN learned all about Jesus and his disciples by visiting a Cowley churchyard. The 45 St Christopher’s School pupils from years five and six were re-enacting the last days of the Messiah in an outdoor Easter experience at St James’ Church.
A GROUP of 60 traders have formed Bicester Town Centre Group to promote its best interests. High on the agenda will be a renewed push for free parking. The move comes after Tesco was given planning approval to open a store double the size of
Argentina is making a great name for itself in the world of wine. With the highest vineyards in the world, this is the place to find well made aromatic, floral whites and seriously fruity reds that are the perfect partner for a variety of foods
FREE training is creating confidence among the city’s nervous cyclists. The city and county councils have teamed up to provide ‘Bikeability’ classes for adults in a bid to cut the number of deaths and injuries on the roads. They are provided
TWO teenage girls missing from Blackbird Leys since Thursday have been found in Manchester. Police appealed earlier today for information to help find 15-year-olds Crystal Watts and Chelsea Hutt. Officers were becoming increasingly worried
Stuart Cattell scored a last-gasp equaliser, but Wantage Town missed the chance to put pressure on inactive Uhlsport Hellenic League Premier Division leaders Marlow with a 1-1 draw at Binfield. It was not looking good for Andy Wallbridge’s side
WHEN it comes to headgear, these ladies are in a class of their own. These were some of the eye-catching creations on show at an Easter bonnet parade at Cowley Community Centre in 1970. The ladies are Annie Dean, Doris Cook, Mary Pudner, Ann
Oxfordshire residents suffering from the cold are being given funding to help them install, fix or replace heating equipment. Foundations, the national body for home improvement agencies, has linked up with RWE npower’s Health Through Warmth programme
A CHURCH in Oxford is preparing to celebrate the life and work of one of its most famous parishioners. CS Lewis, the author behind the Narnia series of books, worshipped at Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry for three decades while he was
Danny Bone scored a hat-trick as Old Woodstock Town got back to winning ways with a 3-0 home success against Lambourn Sports in Uhlsport Hellenic League Division 1 West on Saturday. Hook Norton drew 1-1 away to Fairford Town. Danny Poole netted
EASTER bonnets come in all shapes and sizes, as these pictures from the Oxford Mail archives prove. Picture 1 was taken at Berinsfield Nursery School in 1982 and shows Timothy Caswell, left, and Simon Williams sporting their hats. About 80
A POLICE appeal has been launched to find two teenage girls who have gone missing from Blackbird Leys. Crystal Watts and Chelsea Hutt, both 15, were last seen on Thursday. The girls went missing from their Blackbird Leys homes and could be
CAMPAIGNERS hope to list Didcot’s iconic cooling towers in a last-ditch bid to protect them from demolition. Campaign group Save Heritage And Money said Didcot Power Station’s towers were the town’s “dreaming spires”. Didcot A Power Station
SHARKS, dolphins and shoals of fish could adorn roofs in Headington after a new grant pot was created. Oxford City Council has set aside £200,000 for the project and hopes residents will bid for cash to put up large fish tails on their homes.
Abingdon United’s sorry run continued as they went down to their fifth Evo-Stik Southern League Division 1 South & West defeat in a row on Saturday in a 2-1 reverse at Mangotsfield United. Jordan Walker’s strike proved the difference between
Alex Stanley scored the winner as Didcot Town ended a winless run of five Division 1 South & West matches with a 2-1 victory against Clevedon Town at the npower Loop Meadow Stadium on Saturday. With time running out a draw looked likely, only
TWO county areas have been named in the top 10 places to live in rural Britain. Vale of White Horse was placed eighth and South Oxfordshire 10th in the Halifax Building Society’s list of the 50 best boroughs and districts. Waverley in Surrey
FIREFIGHTERS tackled a car blaze on the Oxford ring road yesterday. The fire service was called at 12.18pm to the southbound carriageway between Cutteslowe and Headington. The car was ablaze in one lane of the carriageway, and both lanes were
CHANGES to Bicester town centre’s road network came into force yesterday. The £1.3m scheme, devised by Oxfordshire County Council and funded by developers, aims to cut queues and improve cycle and pedestrian routes. Access to North Street and
NEIGHBOURS were lucky to escape alive yesterday after a devastating blaze engulfed the Cycle King store in Oxford’s Cowley Road. Several residents were led to safety by firefighters as flames tore through the three-storey building early yesterday
Oxford cox Oskar Zorrilla paid tribute to the the crew for the way in which they stuck to their gameplan. The Dark Blues held off a strong Cambridge challenge before winning yesterday’s race in style. “It was really fun,” he said Zorrilla.
Oxford City’s first match for four weeks ended in disappointment on Saturday. A slow start at home to Solihull Moors proved costly as Mike Ford’s men – despite dominating the second half – were left empty-handed in the Blue Square Bet North clash
Albi Skendi hammered a hat-trick as Banbury eased to a comfortable 3-3 win against St Neots Town at Spencer Stadium in the Evo-Stik Soutehrn League Premier Division on Saturday. It saw the Purtitans end St Neots’ five-match unbeaten run. Banbury
THEY are the four stages – from innocent conversation to full-scale abuse – that occur with chilling regularity in child grooming cases. A child is selected and then eased into a “loving” relationship before having their emotions manipulated for
THESE three girls were among the most promising young musicians in Oxfordshire. Alison Webb, and sisters Marilyn and Elaine Wolff played in the City of Oxford Silver Band. They were so keen to improve their skills that they regularly attended training
A TOUR of Oxford’s boundaries by a civic party led by the mayor had plenty of drama. We reported (Memory Lane, April 11, 2011) how the city’s historic mace ended up at the bottom of the River Cherwell and how one part was never recovered. But
ON behalf of our father, Tom Thomas, we would like to thank all our family and friends for attending his 100th birthday on March 3. There were about 90 people at the Burford Bowls Club for the afternoon. Thank you also for the lovely shrubs and
A FEW years ago, in letter to the Oxford Mail, I said that those councillors responsible for the Cornmarket fiasco should have had their genitals removed and pickled in a jar. In the light of the errors made by councillors granting planning permission
I WONDER how many of your readers would agree with me that this country is getting steadily wetter and wilder, and has been doing so since at least the catastrophic summer of 2007. Ever since, Britain has faced a seemingly constant barrage of flooding
DURING the Second World War, most of us were all in it together. Living in a two-bedroom house one was allocated two evacuees and there were five people sharing. Today’s bedroom tax is a further stop toward an authorisation of the Government cuts
IT IS ironic that Didcot Power Station has now closed to comply with an EU directive on global warming. We are enduring the coldest March for decades. Didcot is not a polluting power plant either. If it were, then the residents nearby would be
S o here’s the rub…I die but want to let my nearest and dearest know I’m okay; that life does go on after death. But obviously I can’t just tell them. That would go against all the known laws of the universe. What I have to do instead is communicate
Karl Hudspith celebrated one of the best moments of his life as part of the Oxford crew that beat Cambridge to win the 159th BNY Mellon Boat Race. Oxford, who won the toss and opted for the Surrey station, started strongly to open a lead of two-thirds
Oxford City manager Mike Ford believes his side looked like a team which hadn’t played in four weeks after their 2-1 home defeat to Solihull Moors in Blue Square Bet North on Saturday. City were outfought in the first half of the game and found
North Leigh saw their six-match winning streak in Evo-Stik Southern League Division 1 South & West ended by a 2-1 defeat at home to Yate Town. The Millers were looking to boost their slim play-off hopes, but Yate look to have ended that.
GOSPEL singers in Wantage Market Square performed to hundreds of people on Good Friday. More than 200 worshippers braved the cold to listen to the Croydon Seventh Day Adventist Gospel Choir in celebration of Easter. The group travelled from
Once upon a time I had a desktop computer with an underdesk box the size of an apple carton and a complicated wire maze that joined speakers, keyboard and fluffballs to a monstrously large monitor, the connecting of which could have been a marathon
M Treadwell’s comments on Temple Cowley Pools (ViewPoints, March 27) leads me to write to provide clarification. Oxford City Council has spent more than half a million pounds over the past five years in maintaining and repairing the failing facilities
LONDON Welsh coach Lyn Jones says his team will keep doing all they can to escape relegation – and hopes the Exiles take further action over their five-point deduction and £15,000 fine, writes MARK EDWARDS. Saturday’s defeat at Bath, coupled with
THE recent cold weather has forced the postponement of the annual Fritillary Sunday in West Oxfordshire. The event was due to take place on April 14, but has been put back until May. Every April since the mid-1980s, the village of Ducklington
MORE buses will be running on the city’s two busiest park-and-ride routes from today. Oxford Bus Company’s £750,000 investment means three new red electric hybrid vehicles will operate from Water Eaton to the city centre. Buses will now leave
A CABLE fault at a West Oxfordshire caravan site left 100 mobile homes without power. Southern Electric staff worked to fix the problem after it was reported at 7.40pm on Friday at Burford Caravan Club in Bradwell Grove, Burford. Yesterday
A CRASH between a Land Rover and pick-up truck on the hard shoulder of the M40 blocked two lanes for two hours. Drivers faced delays after the incident at 3.09pm on Saturday on the northbound carriageway between junction 8a for Oxford and junction
A DEATH at an Oxford pub is not being treated as suspicious, according to police. A man was found dead in a locked toilet cubicle at Walton Street music venue the Jericho Tavern at about 9pm on Saturday. A police spokeswoman said the man, believed
Cowley Road reopened this morning after a fire tore through Cycle King yesterday. The road was closed all day yesterday following the fire at 7.30am. The flames in the three-storey building forced residents to escape from neighbouring homes
A 48-YEAR-OLD motorcyclist needed hospital treatment following a crash at the Milton Interchange on the A34 near Didcot at 4.30pm yesterday. The man’s black Kawasaki motorbike and an Audi A6 collided on the northbound slip road. The motorcyclist
JAKE Wright says Oxford United must play for their own pride even if the play-offs are beyond them to avoid a repeat of last season’s poor finish. The U’s head to rock bottom Aldershot Town today looking for a first win in four games. After
LONDON Welsh have three games left to save their season – but if they do go down, it won’t be through the lack of effort. The Exiles showed great courage to recover from a nightmare start at Bath on Saturday, but were unable to turn their fighting
NATASHA Caswell relished the experience of taking on Everton’s stars, even if Oxford United Ladies’ FA Women’s Cup run ended in a heavy defeat, writes DAVID PRITCHARD. The Women’s Super League side ran out 7-0 winners in the fifth round tie at
A NEW era for the NHS in Oxfordshire starts today. But the new GP-led organisation needs to find savings of £25.6m in the first year to meet its budget of £650m – with up to £4m still being sought as the Oxford Mail went to press. Bosses of
A ROBBER who was caught by members of the public during an armed raid on a jewellers at Oxford’s Covered Market has died. Two men, both wearing motorcycle helmets and pushing a green-and-black Kawasaki motorbike, tried to break into John Gowing
THE overhaul of health commissioning across the country is widely regarded as the biggest change to the NHS since its creation in 1948. It will mean that clinicians are now at the heart of commissioning, rather than managers taking the lead for
DAREDEVIL bike stunts, falconry, ferret racing and hare-chasing thrilled thousands in Thame yesterday. The attractions brought in the crowds at the 15th annual Easter Thame Country Fair, at Thame Showground, Kingsey Road, which finishes at 6pm
FORMER care home St Edburg’s House, a library, offices and council depot in Bicester have been sold off and will be bulldozed to make way for new self-build projects. There will be a mix of houses and flats, but the county council has not said
TOOLS dating back thousands of years have been examined by archaeology enthusiasts. Members of the East Oxford Community Archaeology Project – also known as “Archeox” – have been working with stone artefacts found in city around 100 years ago.
