Memory Lane, the Oxford Mail’s weekly nostalgia section, is celebrating its 20th anniversary. John Chipperfield, who has compiled it throughout, explains how it started and how it has developed over the years into one of the newspaper’s most popular features

It all began with a discussion in the Oxford Mail newsroom.

The editor had been at a conference, where the message to him and fellow editors had been: “Start a nostalgia column – the readers will love it.”

The question was – who was going to write and compile it?

As the editor and I surveyed the newsroom, we couldn’t spot any reporter who had been with the Mail for more than a few years.

So the editor turned to me and said: “I think you’d better do it.”

Having worked for the Mail for more than 30 years, I suppose I was the prime candidate, but would I have time?

I was then news editor in charge of 20-odd reporters and responsible for filling the news pages not only of the Oxford Mail, but The Oxford Times, the Herald series, the Witney Gazette and Bicester Advertiser.

As my daughter Sarah and son Paul will tell you, I rarely say no to anything.

So the job of starting Memory Lane fell to me. My first task was to contact Malcolm Graham, Oxford historian and the then head of the Centre of Oxfordshire Studies, who kindly supplied a list of possible subjects.

With three or four weeks’ articles in the bag, Memory Lane was launched on Wednesday, July 26 1995 with a story about the famous (or infamous) rubber road in Cornmarket Street, Oxford.

A rubber company had produced a revolutionary rubber block which, it claimed, would offer long life, stop vibration and reduce traffic noise.

With the promise of a new road surface at no cost, the city council readily agreed to allow the blocks to be laid in Cornmarket Street.

The blocks did prove to be long lasting – from 1937 to 1954 – but were lethal in wet weather, with vehicles skidding all over the place and shoppers having to scatter.

Memory Lane started as one page, but as its popularity increased, it expanded to two pages, then four, and for a brief period, to eight pages.

In more than 1,000 issues, we have brought you stories and pictures about shops, schools, clubs, societies, pubs, bands, shows and much more. We have also featured hundreds of personalities and recalled many issues and events from Oxfordshire’s past.

It has been a great pleasure to bring readers their weekly dose of nostalgia.

I have had the back-up of the wonderful Oxford Mail library, started by Alec Russell in 1954 and continued through the years by successive librarians and, more recently, by the excellent Chris McDowell.

The Mail library has thousands of pictures and cuttings, from which I have been able to draw.

There has also been a succession of sub-editors who, every week, have taken the raw text and pictures and skilfully designed the Memory Lane pages.

Oxford Mail:

  • Heap: Some of the rubber blocks which used to pave Cornmarket Street, at the Botley store of the Oxford City Highways Department 

Above all, readers deserve credit for supplying so many of their own memories and photographs.

From day one, they searched drawers, cupboards and attics for suitable material and have continued to do so ever since.

Now that Memory Lane appears on the Internet, we receive regular contributions from Oxonians all over the world.

My thanks to everyone – readers, librarians and sub-editors – for making Memory Lane such a success.

I officially retired from the Oxford Mail in 2008, but have continued to compile Memory Lane.

When I suggested recently to present editor Simon O’Neill that perhaps it was time I did finally retire, I was met with an emphatic: ‘No chance!’ So, with your help, it looks as if I – and Memory Lane – will be continuing for some time to come.

* Don’t miss Monday’s instalment of Memory Lane in which John writes about Faringdon Folly’s Lord Berners.