MEMBERS of St John Ambulance had been protecting communities for 100 years and it was time to celebrate.

Hundreds of people turned out at South Park at the foot of Headington Hill in Oxford to join in an afternoon of fun.

The grand fete, which had been planned for months, included dozens of attractions to mark an important milestone in the organisation’s history.

St John Ambulance brigades and associations from across the county – from Oxford, Witney, Carterton, West Oxford, Kidlington, Hanborough and Freeland, Blackbird Leys, Clarendon Press, Pressed Steel and the Post Office – put on a variety of stalls and sideshows.

They were supported by outside groups, including members of the Vintage Motorcycle Club, the Oxford Western Society, Kidlington Silver Band and Headington Morris Men.

Money raised from the stalls, sideshows and programme sales was used to help run St John Ambulance training schemes, maintain the service of providing trained first-aiders at public functions and help with work in hospitals and home nursing.

The fete took place in the summer of 1977 – research suggested that the organisation had been set up in the county in 1877.

However, nationally, St John Ambulance puts its start date as 1887, although it points out that its roots can be traced as far back as 11th century Jerusalem where the first knights of St John set up a hospital to care for sick pilgrims.

The brigade’s first duties in Britain were to offer medical assistance during Queen Victoria’s jubilee celebrations in 1887.

It also offered medical help during the Boer War, the 1908 Olympics, the two world wars, and King George VI’s coronation in 1937.

Beatlemania in the 1960s brought new challenges as volunteers treated the first cases of hysteria in young women.