When members of the Red Cross started their annual house-to-house collection in Oxford, they found they had been beaten to the door by a rival group.

The Seventh Day Adventists had already called at homes and persuaded families to part with cash.

The mix-up occurred because at that time, in 1969, charities could apply to three different bodies to make house-to-house collections – the police, the council and the Home Office.

While the Red Cross had applied to the city council, the Adventists had been given a Home Office permit valid for the whole country.

The police, council and the Home Office did not communicate their decisions to each other.

Thomas Wadeson, the Red Cross appeals officer, said: “Our takings in Oxford were well known, while elsewhere in the county, collections were up. They had similar tins and people thought we had already collected from them.

“The sooner the Home Office’s power to give this nationwide permission is abolished, the better.”