THESE huge earthmovers helped build the M40 through Oxfordshire.

Peter Forbes, of Headington, captured this impressive picture of the giants when he walked on to the motorway construction site near Tetsworth one Sunday in the early 1970s.

The machines sat idly in a line waiting for the crews to return to start another week’s work on the project the following day.

This section of the motorway – from Stokenchurch to Wheatley – opened in 1974. The Wheatley-Wendlebury section followed in 1989 and the final part from Wendlebury to Birmingham in 1991.