IF YOU believe the Battle of Hastings took place in 1066, think again.

It was held at St Michael’s School, in Marston Road, Oxford, 900 years later, in 1966.

The Oxford Mail revealed at the time: “By some freak of time and tide, one serpent-prowed Viking ship got diverted up the Thames to Oxford and any day now, William will be meeting Harold on an equally muddy school playing field at Marston.

“Admittedly, both of them have shrunk a bit in the wash, not to mention that several of their warriors have changed sex.

“But you can trust the high spirits of Class Five at St Michael’s School that the battle will be fought with equal venom, even though their swords are made of newspaper, not steel.”

The children, aged nine to 11, had spent a term chronicling the Norman Conquest in their exercise books and in pictures and drawings around the classroom walls.

But their teacher, Neville Bush, decided that the story needed to come alive.

So he devised a battle, to be fought with paper swords and a replica Viking ship. He turned an old table upside town, strapped an easel to the legs to provide the basic framework, and the boys and girls set to work with cardboard, paste and newspaper to build the hull.

The children are pictured with their finished ship, with sky blue sail, in the school hall.

The outcome on the school field was predictable – Harold was killed, the Saxons were routed and historians didn’t have to rewrite the history books.

Any memories of the battle? Let us know.