PUPILS at Watlington Primary School proudly show off the prizes, certificates and trophies at their annual presentation ceremony in 1963, above.

Meanwhile, schools were practising the art of recycling at least 30 years ago, as seen in this photo below.

 

Oxford Mail:

Headteachers wrote to firms asking them to give their cast-offs to schools instead of consigning them to the scrapheap.

Waste products from business – ranging from timber and metal offcuts to scrap paper and packing cases – gained new life in classrooms.

Kalim Saiyed and Dominique Ritchings, from Carterton Primary School, show how they turned scrap button blanks to valuable use in an artistic collage in 1983.

Oxford Mail:

CHILDREN from SS Mary and John School in East Oxford performed with drums and tambourines at the infants’ afternoon at the Oxford Schools’ Music Festival at the Town Hall in 1956, above.

Oxford Mail:

PUPILS from Bernwood Primary School at Headington learned all about Oxford’s civic life during a visit to the Town Hall in 1984, above.

After lemonade and biscuits with the Lord Mayor, Janet Todd, in her Parlour, the nine-year-olds were given a conducted tour of the building by the Town Hall Keeper, Leslie Boddy.

They are pictured with the Lord Mayor’s deputy sergeant, Sidney Roland, and the civic mace.

Teacher Pamela Heafford said the visit developed from a school project on the City Plate. “So we decided to take the children to see it,” she said.

 

Oxford Mail:

CHILDREN – and one mum – have fun on the wooden climbing frame at Cutteslowe Park in North Oxford in 1976, above.

Oxford Mail:

OPERA lovers formed an orderly queue as they waited patiently for the doors to open at the New Theatre, Oxford, above.

They were pictured in George Street in February 1949 as they prepared to buy tickets for the visit of the Covent Garden Opera Company.

But something on the other side of the road appears to be attracting considerable interest, judging by the direction some of the theatregoers are looking. Whatever could it have been?

Oxford Mail:

IT WAS the end of an era at Charles Early and Marriott’s blanket factory at Witney in 1974 when the last of the old-type shuttle power looms was taken out of service.

Jean Collier is pictured making one of the last blankets using this type of machinery.

The looms had been introduced in 1860 to replace hand-operated machines. At one time, the factory had nearly 200 of the looms.

Oxford Mail:

THIS picture was taken at a dance in Oxford, but we don’t know where or when, and we can’t identify any of the dancers? Can anyone tell us? Suggestions to the usual address by email or letter, please.