Here we look at archive photos from 1977, the year of celebrations for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee.

Apart from the Royal festivities life went on as normal and there were queues outside a bakery following a bread strike - and queues for buses in a snowy Queen Street.

The queue outside Ideal Bakers in Kingston Road, Oxford, was repeated across the county, and across the UK.

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Many bakery workers had gone on strike and that had led to a shortage of bread and the inevitable panic-buying.

Oxford Mail:

The Oxford Mail reported: “All over the county, it was the same story - long early morning queues, rationing and very little bread.

“Store managers used adjectives like ‘chaotic’, ‘hectic’ and ‘at fever pitch’ to describe the scenes outside their shops.”

As the strike began, Tesco in Cowley Road, Oxford, had just 300 loaves and a queue which stretched the whole of its 150ft long frontage.

The bread sold out in minutes.

Some shops restricted sales to regular customers - and would sell them only their “usual amount”.

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One group of housewives found a novel way to beat the strike - 20 signed up for a 10-week bread-baking course at West Oxfordshire Technical College.

Oxford Mail:

Others were equally resourceful, emptying the stores of flour and yeast to bake their own bread and buying crisps and biscuits as standbys.

The strike helped small independent bakers who were able to increase production. Biggers in High Street, Eynsham, baked day and night, while a breathless assistant at Berry and Sons, of Headington, said: “We are carrying on until we drop.”

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After a week of strike action, they were feeling the strain.

Albert Braham, of Ideal Bakers, said: “We are working through the night and it’s taking it out of us.”

Oxford Mail:

Two days later, employers and unions settled the dispute, which had begun over bank holiday pay.

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About the author 

Andy is the Trade and Tourism reporter for the Oxford Mail and you can sign up to his newsletters for free here. 

He joined the team more than 20 years ago and he covers community news across Oxfordshire.

His Trade and Tourism newsletter is released every Saturday morning. 

You can also read his weekly Traffic and Transport newsletter.