YOUNG musicians are learning how to become stars of the future. The Bicester-based Oxfordshire Young Artists Project is hosting a week-long Rock School. Dan Deacon, 14, from Bicester, a guitarist of three years, said: “I went to one writing and
NEWS that Marston residents will have to wait yet another year for lights to be installed in their local recreation ground has sparked anger. Just when it was thought a long-running battle for lights in the Croft Road recreation ground had been
COUNCIL planners have recommended approval for a temporary car park off Marston Road. The application by Oxford City Council is for a 76-space car park on land formerly occupied by Government buildings. The temporary arrangement would be put
SILENT Witness star Tom Ward will open Charlbury Street Fair on September 15. The event will feature stalls, entertainment, dancing, an auction, a conga and live music. See charlbury streetfair.org
PEOPLE living in one Bicester estate are being urged to join a community charity fun day to mark the end of the Olympic Games. Bure Park Residents’ Association (BPRA) has organised its own community games featuring Aunt Sally, rounders, tug of
6:36pm Forty minutes until Lawrence Clarke's 110m hurdles semi-final. World champion Jason Richardson is the biggest name in his heat. 6:15pm Before the 110m hurdles, there
A COUPLE who have lived in the same village their entire married lives celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary today. Tony and Nellie Perry met when they were both working as tweed weavers at the Bliss Tweed Mill in Chipping Norton. The couple
CHILDREN and parents made a splash to raise cash at a fundraising event in Oxford. A “water babies” swimathon at Westminster Sports Centre, North Hinksey, raised money for the charity SWAN, which stands for Syndromes Without A Name. And little
THE memory of a beloved grandfather has spurred eight relatives on to raise money for charity. On Saturday, eight cousins from Oxfordshire and Cardiff cycled from Oxford to Bournemouth. They were raising money for Sobell House hospice in memory
STAFF in Witney have helped raise £300 for Children in Need by having their legs waxed. The Debenhams store in Marriotts Walk shopping centre held a week of activities which included a bake sale and staff dressing as super- heroes. The event culminated
THREE intrepid Oxford students are tackling the challenge of a lifetime this month. Joseph Larvin, John Gallacher and Sam Hodgson, all 20, aim to cycle from Oxford to Morocco in a month. The 3,000km ride, which will take them through four countries
BUSINESS leaders hope a new Morrisons which could open in Carterton next year will spur more investment. The retail giant has submitted an application to build the 40,000 sq ft store in the old market site off Black Bourton Road. If planning
A FINANCIAL worker who fiddled credit agreements so he would earn a better rate of commission has been sentenced for seven counts of false accounting. Bienvenu Vandermesh, of Quakers Court, Abingdon, lied about a previous conviction for obtaining
WITH just days to go until the football season gets under way, fans were offered a sneak peek into life at a top Premier League club. The Arsenal interactive roadshow, Gunners on the Road, stopped off in Bonn Square recently. Fans were treated
PROUD great, great grandmother Norah Tyrell welcomed her family back from across the globe to pose for a special photograph to mark five generations of her family. Mrs Tyrell, from Queens Road, Carterton, turns 94 in September and last year became
PEOPLE are being urged to donate chocolate in all shapes and sizes to help raise cash for a women’s charity. Believe, part of Eve Women’s Wellbeing Project, based at Heyford Park, near Bicester, will have a Chocolate Emporium stall at the Banbury
USERS of West Witney Sports Ground have been encouraged to outline their vision for the future of the site. Witney Town Council called for the users to create their five-year plan before the authority spent cash on the Burford Road ground.
A MAZE depicting two of Team GB’s incredible gold-winning rowers is emerging at a field in Abingdon. Millets Farm is claiming to have predicted Great Britain’s medal success at the Olympics after unveiling the shape of this year’s maze. Its
ROWERS say the time is ripe to invest in the sport in Wallingford to create a lasting legacy of the Olympic Games. Town resident Zac Purchase, 26, won a silver medal in the men’s lightweight double sculls final at Eton Dorney last Saturday.
OXFORD: The Leys Area Forum will take place tonight at the Barn in Nightingale Avenue, Greater Leys. Residents are welcome at the meeting from 6.30pm, where discussion will focus on the estate’s community buildings and the groups who use them,
WOODSTOCK: Floral displays across the town will be judged today for a national competition. Woodstock was selected from more than 1,000 entries for the 2012 Royal Horticultural Society Britain in Bloom UK finals. It competes against four other
OXFORD: A family fun day is being hosted by Thames Valley Police on Saturday, August 18, at Oxford Brookes University ’s Gipsy Lane campus. People can get their bikes safety-marked and activities will also be staged by staff from the ambulance
A MISSING 14-year-old girl was found dead in a wooded area of Banbury yesterday. Molly O’Donovan was last seen at her Banbury home at 9am on Monday and was reported missing to police at 2pm. Her body was found in a wooded area near Foscote
ONE hundred years of sporting history is on show at the Museum of Oxford. The museum helped organise the community exhibition, which also features athletic sculptures by adults with learning disabilities. Heritage learning assistant Antonia Harland-Lang
A MANET painting has been saved for the nation after a £7.83m fundraising campaign. THE Ashmolean Museum raised the cash to save Manet ’s Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus. An export ban stopping the Impressionist masterpiece going
REGARDING the proposal of knocking down the building at, Old High Street, Headington. Does that mean cutting down the trees as well? These trees must be left as they are the lungs of that area from traffic pollution. I hope that this scheme
BURFORD: A 59-year-old woman whose body was pulled from a channel off the River Windrush on Friday has not yet been formally named by police. The woman’s body was spotted by a German couple on holiday at about 9.35am on Friday in the Mill Stream
OXFORD: A 23-year-old man from Kennington suffered cuts to his forehead and swelling to his face after a fight near The Bell and Compass pub at 2am on Saturday morning. Part of New Road was cordoned after the incident and police have made no arrests
COWLEY: UK sales of the Mini rose 19.52 per cent in July over the same month last year to 2,914 cars. But year-to-date figures for the Mini from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) show only a 1.4 per cent increase in sales for
AN UNUSUAL sight is greeting visitors to Cogges Manor Farm in Witney. Three fluffy, newborn ducklings are being led around the site by their proud foster mum, a hen named Ping Pong. The three ducklings, named Rubber Ducky, Crispy Ducky and
I WOULD just like to congratulate our athletes in the Olympics. I was slightly concerned about the amount it cost to stage the Games, and while I’m sure it could be spent elsewhere, there has been a real feel-good factor in the last week or so,
NOW that we have enjoyed a week of the Olympic Games and Great Britain has proved herself no slouch in collecting medals, may I ask why no bells, church, hand nor bicycle, were rung last week to mark the opening. In fact, I cannot remember hearing
RIOTS could hit the UK again, an Oxford criminology expert has warned. Violence and looting spread across London, Birmingham, Bristol, Nottingham, Liverpool and Manchester after Mark Duggan was shot dead by the police on August 4, 2011. Summertown-based
A BUSINESS case is being put together to secure the future of a former RAF flying field and create a national military museum. Bomber Command Heritage is in talks with Cherwell District Council over a proposal for the 348-acre site. The two
WHEN the Queen came to the throne, there were two million cars on the road. Now in her Jubilee year there are 27 million. Is it any wonder there are so many incidents of road rage and so many more accidents? Accidents are expensive to recover
I AM a 48-year-old single father, bringing up my two-year-old son. From the age of 15-40, I spent more than 20 years in prison, including a nine-year sentence for armed robbery on an Oxford building society. While serving that sentence in the
A company that specialises in providing geological surveys for oil and gas giants has announced major expansion. Bosses at Neftex based at Milton Park, near Didcot, say they will take on another 50 staff after winning a series of contracts worth
HOW those keen supporters of all bloodsports do love to portray themselves as dedicated conservators of the countryside, (Oxford Mail, View Points, August 2). Is it so impossible for them to imagine that other organisations and individuals could
FURTHER to Glyn Limmer’s letter (Oxford Mail, July 30) regarding diesel fumes, he is 100 per cent correct. In the early ’60s we did police duty at Cowley to see the factory workers in and out. When the night shift left about 7am, cold engines
Oxford City went down 3-2 to Hayes & Yeading in Tuesday night’s friendly at Court Place Farm. The visitors went 2-0 up before Nabil Shariff and Andy Gunn levelled, but Manny Williams snatched Hayes’s winner with two minutes left. Ex-Oxford
Oxfordshire openers Richard Kaufman and Lloyd Sabin broke the the county’s first-wicket record partnership, but rain cruelly denied them a Western Division victory over Cornwall at Great Tew. Kaufman hit 24 fours in his 160, while Sabin finished
POLICE have requested almost £2 million from Oxfordshire councils to help officers manage the impact of new housing. Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show Thames Valley Police asked for £1,855,405 since 2010. The cash can
Today we talk to Verity Westgate, fundraiser for mental health charity Mind WHAT I’M CALLED: Verity Westgate MY AGE IN YEARS: 28. WHAT I DO: I am a reading room supervisor (or librarian) at the Bodleian Library where I have worked
I’m writing to you in hope that you’ll publish my letter about an upcoming event for Home-Start Oxford. We are a local family support/befriending charity and we are currently recruiting for new volunteers. We are running a preparation course
WITH regard to your article about cuts to bed-blocking wards, how can they make more cuts? My mother-in-law was on one of these wards. At times there were no regular nurses on the ward. During handover periods no nurses checked her four-bedded
Jonathan Mills has been confirmed as captain of London Welsh for the coming season. Mills, 28, led Welsh to the Championships last season and is the Exiles’ longest serving player. The back row forward began his London Welsh career with an unbeaten
Lawrence Clarke said he had gone from tears to cheers after reaching the Olympic 110m hurdles semi-finals. The 22-year-old, from Christmas Common near Watlington, produced a very solid race to finish second in his heat and qualify for Wednesday
Bryony Shaw, who learned her windsurfing at Farmoor Reservoir while growing up in Oxford, was quick to look on the bright side after failing to sneak a medal – admitting she deserved to leave the Olympic regatta in Weymouth empty-handed. Shaw
Six Bells C Kidlington put a dent in Three Pigeons’ Premier Section title ambitions with an impressive 3-0 home victory. The hosts won the opener 30-26, before sealing victory with a three-stick shoot-out after the sides were locked at 24-24 and
DANNY Smith always knew he loved film and had a burning talent for making movies. But because he suffered with severe learning difficulties, he also knew he was unlikely to forge a career in what he loved. Now an Oxford organisation is helping
SO Olympic fever is gripping the nation…. As the boy who was always picked last at PE I wasn’t overly excited about the Olympics, but I surprised myself by getting hooked and from the Olympic ceremony onwards, my TV has barely been off. Like
I felt like a cod in a shoal of exotic fish, a bulldog surrounded by poodles, a pigeon blundering into a flock of parakeets. They’re a glamorous lot the French and there was no getting away from it, especially while sat on one of their beaches.
l HAVING worked with council officers while putting together the alternative Green budget this year, I have a clear idea of the costs associated with the retention of Temple Cowley Pool, as well as the savings that would accrue from abandoning the
TRIBAL leader Benny Wenda is celebrating after he was removed from an Interpol wanted list. Father-of-six Mr Wenda, pictured above with his son Michael three, is a refugee from Indonesia and has been campaigning for West Papuan independence.
MANY people regret leaving their book on a bus but Oxfordshire author Liz Harris is delighted it has happened to her first novel. Watlington-based Ms Harris’s debut romantic novel, The Road Back, has been chosen as one of the books to be placed
A “BIZARRE” pervert who repeatedly flouted a court order banning him from approaching young girls will be back on the streets sooner than expected after his sentence was cut on appeal. As part of a strange fetish, Stuart McGhie, 42, pictured, drops
IF East Oxford’s newest graffiti menace wanted the police’s attention they certainly went about it the right way. Officers were stunned to see BWS! sprayed in large letters across a portable building they use for storing gear in Cowley Road.
MOTORISTS who speed in Oxford’s 20mph zones face being fined or hauled before the courts for the first time. Thames Valley Police yesterday announced officers would start enforcing the 20mph limit for the first time since its widespread introduction
LAWRENCE Clarke is targeting glory in the Olympic 110m hurdles tonight. The 22-year-old, from Christmas Common near Watlington, is aiming for a personal best when he competes in the first semi-final at 7.15pm. He hopes that will be enough to
Oxford United went down 2-0 at Eastleigh’s Silverlake Stadium in their penultimate friendly. United, who started with a mixture of triallists and first-team players, including No 1 goalkeeper Ryan Clarke, fell to goals from former United player
FINALLY, after all but three years, Thames Valley Police has agreed to enforce the 20mph speed restrictions in Oxford. One can’t help but wonder, however, why it has taken them so long to act on a scheme first introduced in September 2009.
AN £8m scheme for affordable housing and flats for overseas students has been recommended for approval in Oxford city centre. A2 Dominion Homes wants to redevelop Luther Court, off Thames Street, providing 42 affordable homes and 82 rooms for foreign
A FOOD bank could be forced to close if a new home is not found by the end of the month. The West Oxfordshire food bank, which only opened in March, has been running from Ducklington Baptist Church in Ducklington, near Witney, since April.
BLENHEIM Palace gardens were transformed into a medieval battleground by the Knights of Royal England. Around 8,000 people descended on the Woodstock attraction at the weekend to witness chivalrous acts of jousting, falconry displays and archery
A BID to build two homes on the former Grove House Club site in North Oxford has been launched. Members of Oxford City Council ’s west area planning committee will look at plans for two, two-bedroom homes on the site in Grove Street, pictured
A NINE-week old puppy spent “two-and-a-half hours in pain”with a broken hip after it was abandoned outside a Bicester vets’ in a box. The white and tan coloured Staffy-type dog, pictured, was discovered by staff in the car park of Bicester Veterinary
