Mailbag: December 30, 2013

I AM in the picture of workers at Pressed Steel, Cowley, with the last body of the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow coming off the production line (Memory Lane, December 2). I am on the right, with my hand on the car.

I remember most of the men in the picture by their first names.

Those whose surnames I know are Stan White, in the dark overalls on the left, who sent you the picture, and next to him, leaning on the car, is Brian Chapman.

Behind him is Albert Coster, and his brother Ernie is second on the left of the picture. Above Albert in the glasses is Jock Sutherland.

I think the picture was taken more like 1973 than 1967. It was a sad day for us all as it meant goodbye to piecework.

DUDLEY PENN Downside Road Risinghurst Oxford

Canal service was pre-Suez

KEN Hunt was obviously reminiscing about his service in the Canal Zone in the early 1950s, because the article (Memory Lane, November 25) mentions the Regiment later going to Osnabruck.

The Suez Crisis in 1956 was not connected to the earlier posting in Egypt, but was the reason that we were diverted to Cyprus when we should have gone to Hong Kong.

However, I seem to recall an officer from the Regiment going to Suez as an observer during the conflict in late 1956 when we were in Limassol, and I believe a member of ‘A' Company went as his batman.

ROY BAILEY Hungerford

The whole tooth and nothing but

WE ENTERTAINED our eight-year-old twin grandsons for the weekend recently, and looking at their current teething situation, I was instantly reminded of the time in Marston, Oxford, when a pal’s younger brother was experiencing the same events.

It so happened that the child also found classes in school difficult to endure, due to headaches by the end of the day.

This went on for quite a while until his mum wondered if his problem was due to poor eyesight. In those days, the school ran a clinic where such things were examined, so a word in the appropriate ear resulted in an eye test for the boy.

A follow-up visit to an optician showed that he was long sighted in one of his eyes, and was therefore in need of glasses to correct the problem.

Now the rest of us lads were perhaps more than a little unkind, but we had to exploit the situation, so we teased the boy saying that with his teeth falling out and needing glasses, he was soon going to be claiming his pension.

What dreadful things we did as youths.

BOB REASON Camborne Cornwal

Remembering Lyons’ team room and the pigmen...

DOES anyone remember Lyons’ tea rooms in Cornmarket Street, Oxford? I worked there for a while when I left school in 1966.

My Auntie Frances (Clewley) worked there for many years alongside Sylvia Cox and her daughter Carol.

It was like a meeting place, especially on Sundays because there were not many places to get a cheap Sunday dinner.

The police came in checking up on a few people, but more to get a free cup of tea!

I had to go upstairs to make up a few salads and send them down on the dumb waiter. A lot of things were put in the waiter as a joke just to see the people’s faces when they opened the door!

When you sat down eating your dinner, you had to move over to let the pigmen come right past you to carry two dustbins full of waste out to the lorry for feeding the pigs!

You couldn't make it up and wouldn’t get away with it now.

As I made salads, the pig bins brushed right past me. Yuk!

Bring back the good old days!

LINDA WHARTON Abbeywoods Close Berinfield

Autographed photo of speedway star Danny Lee

FOLLOWING your story about the opening of Oxford Stadium at Cowley (Memory Lane, November 18), I enclose a picture of Danny Lee, the winner of the first speedway race to be held there.

I managed to get his autograph as I worked at the stadium, as a kennel boy helping to train dogs belonging to Bill Davies and later as head lad before being called up for war service.

JIM TANNER Littlemore Road Cowley Oxford

Getting our heads in order

J H BROOKES was principal, not headmaster, of the old Oxford School of Technology, Art and Commerce (Memory Lane, December 2).

The headmaster was Mr A Wainwright – or ‘Wammer’ to us students.

I was a student in the Engineering Department from 1943-5.

GORDON CLACK Witney Road Ducklington

Looking forward to the next 100 years of Witney life

FOLLOWING my earlier letter (Memory Lane, September 30), I enclose more of my memories of Witney in past times.

Like many of the older generation, I remember Bowyers’ sausage factory, Early’s blankets, Edenlites, a greenhouse firm, Crawford Collets and Smith’s Industries.

I ran Secretarial Agency and Services in the town and sent temporary staff to these firms as well as supplying some permanent staff.

It was an exciting time in the 1970s and 1980s.

• Three workers at Charles Early and Marriott blanket factory at Witney in 1976 – left to right, Linda Lanchbury, Denise Smith and Pauline Truman

There were small shops like Claridges, the greengrocers in Corn Street, the small post office and stores in Davenport Road, the butcher in Corn Street (Hamiltons, I think it was called) – all these little shops delivered goods free of charge.

Many of us walked to and from the town centre with prams and babies. Some of us learned to drive and had small cars, but certainly never 4x4s.

When I first came to Witney in 1958, my doctor was Dr Margaret Noble.

She helped me through life with my own children. When my mother was ill with cancer, the district nurse called Brenda would rush round to help in five or 10 minutes. It’s a bit different these days!

At that time, Witney’s population was very low and we newcomers – workers at Smiths Industries and their families – were told we were intruding on their little town.

Since then, more estates have been built and the town has become overcrowded, with too many cars.

When I started work in the 1950s, I think I got about 2s 6d an hour (12½p). My father earned a shilling a week! So here’s to the next 50-100 years, folks!

BARBARA CLEARY Witney

More Queen Mary visit photographs

I WAS interested to see Ann Spokes Symonds’s picture of crowds outside Queen’s College in High Street, Oxford, during Queen Mary’s visit in 1921 and your subsequent article (Memory Lane, October 21 and November 18).

• Excitement: Above, staff and students at Queen’s College and hundreds of people below try to catch a glimpse of Queen Mary during her visit to Oxford in 1921

I enclose a copy of a picture which appeared in the Oxford Journal Illustrated showing the crowds inside and outside the college from a different angle.

Everyone appears to be craning their necks to get a glimpse of the Royal party.

I enclose two other pictures which appeared in the same issue of the newspaper.

PAUL APPLEYARD Thame