Invoice from M Long & Sons funeral directors to Mr Alex Townsend for Mrs Elizabeth Townsend's burial

Photograph of Bampton Children enjoying a show or pantomime in the WI Hall (Village Hall) in 1963.
The children are numbered in the second photo and named as follows:

1. Angela Brooks
2. ?
3. Patricia Preston
4. Lyn Beckley
5. Esther Green
6. Raymond Bradley
7. Sharon Foreshew
8. Richard Shepherd
9. Shelagh Danford
10. Roy Clarke
11. Fenella Quick
12. Maureen Clarke
13. Andy Clarke
14. Ann Jackson
15. ?
16. Mrs Edie Foreshew
17. Jean Cole
18. Lorraine Barber
19. Francis Barber
20. Neil Anderson
21. Kevin Bradley
22. ?
23. Jenny Bishop
24. Teresa Taylor
25. Lyn Wheeler
26. Darryl Hirons
27. ?
28. Anthony Collett
29. Ann (Biz) Cole
30. Tish Cole
31. Dougie Forshew
32. Penny Shergold
33. Pearl Paintin
34. Bridget Shergold

Mrs Rogers lived in Brook House on Bridge Street where she sold sweets and newspapers. Bampton is 18 miles from Oxford and 18 from Swindon and somehow, Mrs Brooks managed to get a sugar allowance during WWII from both Swindon and Oxford which enabled her to make and sell lots of sweets.

Brook House is the one on the left of the picture, across the road.

She is on the left in this picture with Mr and Mrs Albert Townsend from across the road at Castle View Farm. They are standing just inside the wall of the farm.

Stan Hawkins and Mavis Horne were married in Bampton. They had two sons David and Michael and they lived on the Aston Road.

The wedding of George Frederick Lomas and Lillian Frances Ody at St Mary The Virgin, Bampton c1938. They lived in Belgrave Cottages, Church Street until the late 1990s when Fred, then a widower moved to a bungalow in Manor View.

While the title of this piece refers to the Shirt Race, which started as a celebration of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, this articles talks about many people and is a lovely snapshot of social life in Bampton in 1959. People mentioned include:-

Albert Chandlers, saddler and leather worker and chairman of the parish council and still working hard at his leather work aged 81. Reference is made to the 100 or so council houses built in Weald since the war but there have been no council houses built in Weald, they were along New Road and the area north of New Road.

Percival O Money, "bespoke and surgical boot maker where everything was done by hand, even stitching when repairing footwear. Mr Money was a founding member of the debating society and secretary of the bowls club (which was in the grounds of Weald Manor.)

John Quick, one of the founder member of the SPAJERS - The Society for Ancient Junketer - who organise the Great Shirt Race and other events to raise money for Bampton's senior citizens while providing fun for all.

Mr & Mrs Arthur Scott-Norman licensee of the Elephant and Castle Inn in Bridge Street, knew each other in their school days then bumped into each other again in Tanganyika, never to be parted again. During the war Mr Scott-Norman was in the RAF and later in the Colonial office in Dar-es-Salaam and Mrs Scott-Norman was matron of the Aga Khan Hospital in Dar-es-Salaam.

There is much more of interest in the articel.

Emmie (Emily) Papworth, nee Bishop and her son Tom.

Newspaper article in Oxford mail mentioning local pubs. In Bampton, The Malt Shovel and Elephant and Castle; The Strickland Arms in Ducklington and The Horse and Jockey in Black Bourton, The Plough at Alvescot, and the Lamb at Filkins. John Kent, 85, was the Landlord of the Malt Shovel for 34 years, he originally came from Suffolk and was a gamekeeper in Lincolnshire and Bradwell Grove. The Malt Shovel was in Lavender Square and there is an inscription on the chimney showing the date of 1659. It used to be a Malt house. The Elephant and Castle in Bridge Street was about 350 years old and had a thatched roof at this time (1957), the landlord was Clarence Dalton, ex RAF, who had another pub in London, The Prince of Orange at Greenwich. In 1957, the Landlord of the Talbot Hotel, an old coaching inn in Market Square, was a Mr Flood, and the inn itself was about 500 years old. The New Inn (now Morris Clown) was also a coaching Inn and the landlord was W.F. Wagner. The landlord of the Horse and Jockey at Black Bourton was Mr Alan George Burgess and the landlord of The Plough at Alvescot was Mr Leonard Killick, and the landlord of the Lamb at Filkins was Cyril Clements.

Long before the days when everyone had a TV and many IT toys and gadgets, the WI Christmas Party was much enjoyed my many children. This group photo was taken 1956 at a Christmas party given by the WI.