AN exhibition tracing the history of the town’s fire service was one of many eye-catching displays at an open day at the fire station in 1985. Kay Linnington, nine, of Hitchman Drive, Chipping Norton, is seen sitting on top of a 1952 Dennis fire engine.

Regulars at the Red Lion pub raised £1,500, mostly by going on a 10-mile sponsored walk, to buy a wheelchair for Castle View old people’s home in 1987. Pub landlady Sheila Brooke, on the right, is seen in the second picture handing the cheque to head of home Beryl Briggs. The little boy is Joe O’Brien, Mrs Brooke’s three-year-old grandson, the youngest person to take part in the walk.

Hungarian entertainer The Great Kovari specialised in sawing people into bits, then putting them back together. When he appeared at The Little Theatre in 1987, administrator Tamara Malcolm volunteered to be the victim of one of the magician’s most alarming stunts.