The cane, teenage nicknames and dodgy haircuts all feature in a new book about the history of Oxford's Peers School.

The comprehensive school, in Sandy Lane West, Littlemore, will shut its doors next month, after a chequered 40-year history serving the city's teenagers, to make way for Oxford's first academy school.

As part of Peers' closing celebrations, former Cherwell School headteacher Martin Roberts was commissioned to write a book about the ups and downs of the past four decades.

And it has proved to be something of a hit.

Mr Roberts said: "It was a school that inspired a huge amount of affection. Everyone who reads the book will find something about their own school days, which will strike a chord."

A thousand copies of the 64-page book have been distributed to former pupils and staff.

It includes contributions from five previous headteachers of the school, which was named after county councillor Jack Peers in 1968.

It tells the story of how the school - one of the leading comprehensive schools in the country in the 1970s and 1980s - went into special measures in 2005 before being chosen to become an academy.

But as well as laying the blame for the school's decline on the closure of nearby Redefield School in 1982 and Government meddling, Mr Roberts also details some of the school's many achievements.

According to Mr Roberts, during its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s pupils at the school were treated to a gourmet-standard restaurant and Russian opera.

Former headteacher Brian Derbyshire, who was appointed in 1974, wrote a piece for the book about his attempts to end caning.

He described one occasion where he demonstrated the cane on a cushion to frighten a 15-year-old who had sworn at an art teacher, rather than strike the pupil.

Other anecdotes in the book include former pupil Linda Poole, from Chalgrove, who described her first day at the "daunting" school.

Ms Poole, who was later nicknamed Spider, said: "I remember hiding in the toilets one morning, too embarrassed to go into assembly, as I had decided to have my feathercut hairstyle permed and, unfortunately, had chosen an old-fashioned hairdresser, who back-combed my hair 1960s style."

The book also includes a selection of pictures from the archives of the Oxford Mail.