On this day....

TEN YEARS AGO

2007

EIGHT CCTV cameras are likely to be installed in Cowley Road, Oxford, to try to prevent antisocial behaviour after reports that one night, 2,000 people were in 'various stages of intoxication'.

MORE than 100 people queued for up to three hours to meet pop icon Jason Donovan at a book signing in Borders bookshop in Magdalen Street, Oxford.

20 YEARS AGO

1997

STUDENTS at Oxford Brookes University are holding an emergency meeting to discuss a housing crisis that has forced dozens of them to stay in bed and breakfast or unexpectedly share rooms.

COPIES of Andrew Morton’s controversial updated biography of Diana, Princess of Wales, are selling like hot cakes throughout Oxfordshire, following her death.

30 YEARS AGO

1987

THE number of passengers using the Oxford-Bicester rail service will have to double from 40 to 80 per day if the line is to stay open, says British Rail.

ANTI-APARTHEID campaigners are boycotting Aladdin, the pantomime at the Apollo Threatre, Oxford, because of remarks about South Africa allegedly made by its star, Marti Caine.

40 YEARS AGO

1977

THIEVES smashed their way into the History of Science Museum in Broad Street, Oxford, and snatched antique watches worth up to £80,000.

THE church clock in Benson, famous for its two XIs instead of IX and XI, is being silenced from 11pm to 7.15am so that villagers can sleep.

50 YEARS AGO

1967

IN THE biggest raid of its kind in Oxfordshire for 20 years, more than a million cigarettes were stolen from William Lees, wholesale tobacconists, in Parsons Street, Banbury.

PEMBROKE College, Oxford, has praised Oxford City Council for allowing it to build its new north quadrangle across Beef Lane, off St Aldate’s.

60 YEARS AGO

1957

INFLUENZA continues to spread – 84 nurses are ill at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, and chemists have had a rush of customers for throat tablets and other medicines for colds.

POTATOES will be dear in the Oxford district in the New Year – this season’s yield will be below average because of unfavourable weather and blight.