THE clink of china and the sharing of stories filled the room at a special tea party.

Contact The Elderly works across the county to bring senior citizens together for afternoon tea at volunteers’ houses.

Pam Thomas, who hosts a tea party at her home in Old Marston about once a year, was on serving duty earlier this month.

She said: “I enjoy it. It’s a lot of hard work initially, getting all the chairs and tea cups together, but some of these older people have very interesting stories to tell that go way back beyond our memories.

“Many of them have lived in Oxford all their lives and I never come away without thinking I’ve learned something about old Oxford or before the war. It’s very, very interesting.”

For more information visit contact-the-elderly.org.uk or call 020 7240 0630.