IN 1949, I was doing my basic police training at Eynsham Hall. At 8.30am, on the morning parade, we were all ordered to attend the main hall at 7pm, minus our tunics and left sleeve rolled up.

We did so and found the floor had a large number of camp beds and a numbers of very pretty nurses in attendance. We then found that all 320 of us had ‘volunteered’ to be blood donors (May 12).

We lay down and I gave my pint of O rhesus negative. This was followed by two digestive biscuits and a cup of hot sweet tea.

A numbers of those nurses later married officers who had donated.

In later years, the chief constable ordered us not to give blood as an officer fainted while on traffic duty, as he gave two pints in one session.

The May Day dance at East Oxford school shows me in the dark top holding up the May Pole. We had to dance around it, holding the coloured ribbons to form a pattern. My two left feet caused a massive tangle, so I had to help hold the pole up. The teacher was Miss Dale.

I met her again in 1964. I attended a burglary at her home in Old Road, and she remembered me with words to the effect: “I’m glad those big feet were put to good use.”

Sixty years later, those size 11s are still working, despite arthritis and pounding the beat.

Roger Tucker, Kingsway Drive, Kidlington

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