IT WAS a celebration to mark 300 years of blanket making in Oxfordshire.

Thousands of people turned out in Witney to join in the fun of a carnival for the tercentenary of Charles Early and Marriott in 1969.

Crowds, often five and six deep, lined the pavements as a procession made its way through the town.

Thirty floats and decorated vehicles assembled on the Leys recreation ground before moving off, headed by the band of the 1st Battalion, Royal Green Jackets.

At the carnival field, Richard Early, the company chairman, invited TV personality Ray Alan (without his usual companion, ventriloquist’s dummy Lord Charles) to open the event.

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He was accompanied by the carnival queen, Anna Hicks, and her attendants, Maureen Cross and Marie Hicks.

The winning float was a tableau entered by the Rotary Club of Witney depicting the manufacturing of blankets in the year 2069. It was awarded £100.

Second prize of £75 went to a 100ft long, 7ft high ‘tercentipede’, described as ‘The Early Worm’. Inside its ‘body’ were members of Witney Round Table.

The celebrations ended with a firework display, culminating with one that read: “300 Years of Progress”.

Thomas Early was the man who started the firm. He began his working life at the age of 14 as an apprentice to a Mr Silman and when Mr Silman died, he left the business to Thomas.

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He and his sons and grandsons put Witney on the map as a major blanket maker, fighting off fierce competition, particularly from Yorkshire manufacturers, and building up a profitable export trade.

Eventually, the firm passed to Charles Early, who built up the firm still further, installing the latest power looms and building new warehouses.

During the Second World War, many former workers came out of retirement to replace younger men called away in the forces.

After the war, business boomed for a while, but in the early 1950s, the firm faced a crisis as sales slumped, the price of wool crashed, heavy losses were incurred and workers were put on short time. It took seven years to pull the business round.

In its heyday, the blanket industry employed 3,000 people and its products were regarded as the best on the market.

But the growing popularity of the duvet and increased use of central heating meant that blankets were in less demand.

Early’s merged with another Witney firm, Marriott’s, in 1960 to become Charles Early and Marriott. It became Witney’s sole survivor when Smith’s Blankets shut in 1975.

Charles Early and Marriott struggled on, but the end to a long and glorious era for Witney came when it closed on July 19, 2002.

The Rotary Club of Witney’s prize-winning float at the 1969 carnival, predicting that the blanket industry would still be going strong in the year 2069, had proved a shade optimistic.

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