The Churchill Hospital in Oxford benefited from the goodwill of a wide range of wellwishers, and not only at Christmas.
Patients, family members and supporters have continued to raise funds over the years.
Oxford United players and supporters and members of the British Rail Social Club, in Picture 1, combined to present a cheque for £645.50 to the cancer research unit in 1985.
Eve McKeown, whose husband James had died of cancer, presented the money to Dr Robert Twyoron. Pictured at the BR Social Club in Mill Street, Oxford, with Mrs McKeown are, left to right, Ray Graydon, Dave Fogg, Kevin Brock, Mark Jones, Peter Rhoades-Brown, BR Social Club chairman Rory Davies and John Trewick, plus a happy band of young United fans.
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Another cheque for the cancer unit in 1985 came from pupils at Gosford Hill School, Kidlington, who made and sold sweets and cakes, washed cars, sold books and comics and organised a disco.
Senior sister Margaret White is seen in Picture 2 with pupils Claire Wheeler, Sian Jones, Chris Cooper and Robert Williams. Four 10-year-old girls organised a jumble sale in the village hall at Stanton Harcourt, near Witney, and raised £42 for the hospital’s children’s department in 1973.
Picture 3 shows three of them, Karen Bowsher, of Stanton Harcourt, Wendy Hill and Kim Winstone, both of nearby Sutton, with house mother Mrs E M Andrews and young patients.
The fourth girl, Susan Pantry, of Stanton Harcourt, was on holiday.
Hospital porter David Philp spent a year raising money through jumble sales for a breathing machine. He is seen in Picture 4 handing it to charge nurse Frank Dearnley in 1980.
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Members of Abingdon Ladies Circle organised coffee mornings to buy a replica of a Victorian rocking horse. Nicola Stokes, 11, in Picture 5, lost no time in trying out the latest addition to the children’s ward in 1973.
With her are Sister Viola Reade and Circle chairman Janet Thearle. Sewing was said to be good therapy for patients in the Spastics Day Centre.
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They were delighted to receive the sewing machine in Picture 6.
Money for it was raised by the Oxford Central Townswomen’s Guild. Pictured are Una Heape, Emily Jackson, Guild chairman Olga Nichols and centre superintendent, Evelyn Andrews.
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