OFF-DUTY police officer John Woodcock was praised after grappling with a youth who fired blank shots at the Queen.

He had gone with his family to watch Trooping the Colour in London when a volley of shots rang out nearby.

In seconds, he had launched himself through the crowd and grabbed hold of the gunman, 17-year-old Marcus Sarjeant.

Sergeant Woodcock was among a number of people commended for their quick action by Lord Lane, the Lord Chief Justice, at the Old Bailey trial in 1981.

We were reminded of his courage by fellow former policeman Chris Payne, of Bicester, who spotted him in the reunion pictures of Old Southfieldians (Memory Lane, October 19).

Sergeant Woodcock, then aged 45 and based at the Thames Valley headquarters in Kidlington, had gone to Trooping the Colour on a family day out with his wife Sheila, daughter Naomi, 13, his mother-in-law and a friend.

He said at the time: “We were spread out about 30 yards apart to get a good view. I was standing about four yards back from the front of the crowd. When the parade went by, I heard a bang and saw the man with the gun.

“He had been at the front of the crowd about 10 yards away. The crowd moved back and I pushed my way to him and grabbed the nearest bit of him.”

Other quick-thinking people also grabbed hold of Sarjeant and lifted him over the barrier away from the angry and shocked crowd.

Sergeant Woodcock added: “I did what I thought I should do. I was more afraid that the Queen had been hurt.”

The gunman, who was said in court to have a morbid interest in assassination, was jailed for five years.

Sergeant Woodcock was working in the criminal records department at Kidlington at the time. As a cadet with the Metropolitan Police, he was on duty at the Queen’s Coronation in 1953. After retiring from the police, he became well known as Oxfordshire’s gipsy liaison officer.

He appeared in the two pictures we published of old boys of Southfield Grammar School, Oxford, attending reunions in 2002 and earlier this year.

The ‘Class of ‘47’ has held annual reunions since 1997 but, with all of them now 80 or approaching 80, they have decided to meet twice a year “while we are still capable of doing so”.

As we recalled, Southfield opened off Glanville Road, East Oxford, in 1934 and merged with the City of Oxford High School in 1966 to form Oxford School, on the Southfield site. It is now known as Oxford Spires Academy.