Members of Appleton Cricket Club staged a special salute to their former team captain at his funeral.

They raised their cricket bats aloft when John Revell’s coffin was brought into the church.

A full team of 11 people, mainly featuring players from the 1980s, made the salute.

John Revell was born at Wolvercote, Oxford, in June 1939.

Oxford Mail:

John Revell

He had a very happy childhood on the farm until his father died suddenly when John was only nine years old.

His mother carried on with the farm with his brother Tony, aged 14 years at the time. John went to Oxford High School for boys in New Inn Hall Street.

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He missed Wednesday sports afternoons to help his mother on the farm. On other occasions he often played truant from school to go to the Ritz cinema next door.

He decided he wanted to join the Army and started training at home. At 17 he joined the Grenadier Guards and after his initial training at Catterick Garrison and on the Yorkshire moors, he began duties from Wellington Barracks in London, including guard duties at the Bank of England.

Oxford Mail:

A year after joining up he was posted to Cyprus for two years. This was a very troubled time with EOKA terrorists carrying out bombings and attacks on British forces.

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When he returned to the UK in 1959 he tried his hand at various jobs, including helping on the farm, until 1961 when he joined Robert Moss Plastic Injection Mouldings in Kidlington, where he worked in sales for the next 30 years.

In 1964 he married Jennie King and moved to Appleton, next door to her parents. He had worked on building their bungalow with Jennie’s father, since 1963.

Son Mark was born in 1966 and his brother Jonathan in 1969.

Mr Revell enjoyed many good holidays over the years; in Devon when the boys were young, and he later took them to Cyprus. John and Jennie went back several times and made many friends in Pissouri on the South West of the island.

In 1985 Mr Revell was sent to South Africa to set up a unit for Robert Moss. They were asked to move out as a family, but a state of emergency was declared, and they were no longer under obligation to go.

The couple had trips to Canada and the United States; went on safari in Zimbabwe and Kenya and enjoyed the relaxation of boating on the canals in France.

In later years, they enjoyed various cruises to the Mediterranean, Baltic, Norway, Adriatic, Canaries and around Scotland and Ireland. When M r Revell became ill, they were due to go on a trip to Iceland, but lockdown and his illness prevented this. Mr Revell loved children and was proud of his four grandchildren; Rosie, James, Matthew, and Stanley.

Oxford Mail:

In the recession in the late 1980s he left Robert Moss, taking an early pension, and turned his hand to gardening.

He was a skilled gardener and worked on gardens until he retired aged 75. The former salesman loved sport and was active in village cricket, first in Wolvercote and then Appleton.

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He was village captain for years and also worked hard as groundsman at the sports field.

He died aged 81 on July 17 at the Churchill Hospital with Jennie, Mark and Jonathan at his side.

The funeral was held at St Laurence Church on Thursday, August 6.