HAZEL Bleay’s lifelong ambition has been to write a book – and now she has done it.

The result is a fascinating collection of memories and pictures of Oxford shops through the ages.

Mrs Bleay left East Oxford School at 14 and became an apprentice hairdresser at Harrisons in Queen Street, run by Lionel Harrison, mayor of Oxford in 1961-2.

During her work there and later at Grimbly Hughes, the Cornmarket Street grocers, she became familiar with many city centre establishments.

One of her favourites – and the one that inspired her to write the book – was the Cadena, the cake shop and café in Cornmarket.

She recalls: “The Cadena was a lovely shop and restaurant and I remember the smell of the coffee beans being roasted in the basement, wafting up through the grid below the windows at the front of the shop as you walked by.

“A most delicious smell, which tempted you to stop and buy coffee beans, which were ground for you fresh from the shop, or to go into the café on the ground floor for a cup of their lovely coffee.

“My late mother-in-law, Eva Bleay, used to take me to the restaurant for afternoon tea for a special treat.

“The restaurant was upstairs and I remember a lady playing a cello and a gentleman in his dress suit playing the piano – very posh – with nice china tea cups and saucers and a three-tier cake stand with an assortment of gorgeous small cakes to choose from.”

Memories of the Cadena live on at her home in Thame – she has recreated the shop and restaurant in a dolls’ house.

Another dolls’ house is modelled on the cottage she and her late husband Sid lived in at Old Marston.

Dozens of other shops – some now distant memories – are featured in the book.

l Memories of Bygone Oxford Shops, published by Robert Boyd Publications, of Witney, goes on sale tomorrow at Blackwells in Broad Street and Bookhouse in Summertown and at 93 High Street, Thame, price £9.95.