When Lloyd Hughes Owens created a series of albums in the late 1970s and early 1980s there were people alive who could remember seeing Fred Able in Bampton with his little cart, two donkeys and his dog.
Over the Bank Holiday weekend at Whitsun 1985. Ian Baker and Ivan Lomas won the fancy dress competition held prior to the Shirt Race. Reg Hall enjoyed a pint between playing on the Monday. Terry Rouse danced in as the fool outside the Horse Shoe.
May Bank Holiday 1986 the two visiting sides with Bampton Traditional Morris Men under squire Francis Shergold were Rumworth also called Manley Morris and South Downs. Most of these pictures are of Rumworth, the last two are South Downs.
Marion and Ted Lay lived in Bampton all their married life and as Jamie Wheeler says
"They were the loveliest people you could ever meet. I claim a slight family association as their daughter Marjorie married Jim Brooks. It was a second marriage for them both and Jim had previously been married to my Auntie Joyce. I always regarded him as my uncle. Ted was a Morris dancer years ago and we always did one dance outside his house on Whit Monday and for Mrs. Lay after Ted died. Mrs. Lay was sister of Harry Pocock whose name crops up on this site quite often. He died the day I was born (or so Mrs. Pocock used to tell me)"
In May 2012 our papershop known as Emmies, run by Tom and Silvia Papworth closed for the last time. The letter gives a history of the shop, the people who ran it. It documents not only the passing of the papershop but records the very active part both Sylvia and Tom have played in Bampton's life, for which those of us lucky enough to have known them, their families and their shop will always be very grateful.