BAKER Roy Gibbons's family business looked certain to close nearly 140 years after it was founded by his great, great grandfather.

The oil-fired oven at Oxford's oldest family bakery, in Hertford Street, east Oxford, had broken down for the third time in a week - but this time repairmen said they could not fix it.

A despondent Roy and wife Diane delivered notices to 200 customers telling them of the bakery's imminent demise due to 'oven failure'.

But customers, many of whom see the bakery as a focal point of the local community, refused to accept its fate and set about tracking down an engineer with the skills to repair the 50-year-old brick oven.

After a string of frantic phone calls, Steventon-based firm F Church sent veteran service engineer Ernie Oakman, 67, to the scene and he managed to repair the oven in the nick of time.

Now Roy and Diane are thanking their customers for saving the business. Roy, 51, said: "If the oven had been off just a few hours longer, I would not have been able to bake at all because the brick would have shrunk too much and cracked. "When I put the notice in the window I genuinely thought it was all over. We were both devastated. It was repaired just in the nick of time.

"I do not know how to express my thanks."

Gibbons Bakery is one of only two remaining traditional family bakeries in Oxford and was formed by Roy's great, great grandfather in Cowley, in the mid-19th century. Roy's father William opened the 'new' bakery in Hertford Street 38 years ago.

An oil blockage caused the oven to shut down on Saturday. Roy's usual repair firm told him the oven needed replacement spare parts which are now obsolete - and he should give up.

Customers tracked down F Church and engineer Ernie - who discovered the problem was not as bad as first thought - after trawling through the Yellow Pages directory.

Among those to help was Casper Henderson, of Percy Street. He said: "Luckily, they had a man who was in the Oxford area at the time and he was able to help.

"There is a lot of support for the bakery around here and we wanted to do everything we could to prevent it closing."

George Monbiot, also of Percy Street, added: "Gibbons Bakery not only bakes some of the best bread in Britain, it is the hub of the local community. People were walking around in shocked at the thought of it closing."

Mike Matthews, contracts manger for F Church, was delighted his firm could help. He said: "Ernie is beyond retirement age but keeps working - he is probably the only one of our staff with the traditional skills to repair an oven like this. Fortunately he was also in the Oxford area at the time."

Roy now hopes to produce his first fresh loaves since the break down tomorrow.

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