DICK Anderson built a fishing boat in his back garden, but then hit a snag – it was landlocked!

The passage beside his house in Masons Road, Wood Farm, Oxford, was too narrow and there was no other way out for Oxonian I.

A solution was finally found when a small army of volunteers lifted it over a fence into a neighbour’s garden, then hoisted it over a 6ft high concrete wall on to a trailer in Mr Anderson’s front garden.

He said: “I suppose it did cross my mind that we might have difficulty getting it out, but you know how it is when you are full of enthusiasm.”

Oxonian I was a joint project in the late 1960s by Mr Anderson, a painter at Morris Motors, his brother Clive, a painter at Pressed Steel, from Blackbird Leys, Jim Shaylor, a maintenance foreman at Morris Motors, from Wood Farm, and David Townsend, an apprentice draughtsman at Lucy’s, from Stonesfield.

Mr Anderson explained at the time: “We had formed ourselves into a club called the Oxford Individuals and we were spending a lot of time and money sea fishing, so we thought it would be a good idea to buy our own boat.

“One day, I was sent home sick from work and I read about this Newfoundland dory which you could build yourself from a kit. On the spur of the moment, I sent for the plans.

“The other chaps were quite enthusiastic. I told my wife it was either a case of not seeing me for nine months or letting me build the boat in the backyard.”

Working in their spare time, under a makeshift plastic hangar in Mr Anderson’s back garden, it took the four men 460 hours spread over six months to build the 15ft long, 6ft boat. The cost of building and equipping it was just £185.

Mr Anderson said: “One of the reasons we called her Oxonian I is that we hope our effort will encourage other keen sea anglers to join Oxford Individuals and team up to build similar boats on their own.

“Who knows, before long, Oxford might have its own fishing fleet.”

After the picture above was taken in April 1969, he and his team were planning to take the boat to Shoreham in Sussex for sea trials.

Were they successful, and where is the boat now?