Archive

  • Road rage attack on A34

    A woman was left shaken after suffering a road rage attack on the busy A34 dual carriageway. Police want to speak to anyone who saw a red Nissan Micra pursuing a burgundy Vauxhall on the stretch of road between Bicester and Kidlington. The woman driving

  • Driver plucked from blaze cab

    A driver was plucked from his cab after his earth-moving machine overturned and burst into flames. Ken Bowler, of Wantage, survived unscathed thanks to the efforts of a contractor worker at the site, who helped release him from the vehicle. The incident

  • Disgust over rude letters

    Police have been bombarded by complaints about obscene letters delivered to dozens of addresses in Harwell. One householder in Gaveston Road, who did not want to reveal his name, told the Oxford Mail: "I was already at work when my wife phoned to tell

  • Man tried to lure child away

    Detectives are hunting a man who tried to entice a young girl into his car in a village near Bicester. The incident took place near the village green in Fringford at 6pm last night when a group of youngsters, who are of primary school age, were playing

  • Stubborn Cornwall deny Oxon first win

    A STUBBORN partnership by Cornwall's ninth pair Kevin Wilcock and Carl Gazzard thwarted Oxfordshire's hopes of their first win in the Minor Counties Championship at Christ Church yesterday. When Gazzard joined Wilcock, it looked odds-on a home win with

  • The Oxford English Dictionary's weirdest contributor

    James murray was a snowy-whiskered Victorian multi-linguist who spent half his life compiling and editing the Oxford English Dictionary in a 50ft corrugated shed at the bottom of his Oxfordshire garden. The OED is arguably the greatest lexicon of the

  • Windass jets in for talks

    DEAN Windass caught the shuttle flight from Aber-deen Airport to London today for a medical and talks at Oxford. And he feels confident his £450,000 transfer will go through by the weekend to enable him to begin training with Oxford United next Monday

  • The buzzard's back - but that'd be talon!

    Forget the wide-open prairies of the mid-west. If you want to find the meanest, hungriest buzzards around, hunt no further than the quiet suburbs of Cowley in Oxford, writes REG LITTLE. Pensioner Ron Smith learned to his cost that the buzzard is the latest

  • Friend on four legs helps keep school on right track

    A new face is doing his bit to improve standards at a failing primary school. He's not a teacher, nor an authority on education. But his damp nose, glossy coat and tail which never stops wagging have won him many admirers among the children of Blackbird

  • Breast cancer author had the disease

    Ann McPherson is used to seeing the inside of a doctor's surgery. But when she discovered a lump in her breast, the GP had to get used to life as a patient. The biggest irony was that the discovery came just as she was writing the chapter on breast cancer

  • £2.5m search for new antibiotics

    CHEMICAL software company Oxford Molecular is investing £2.5m in a new company being set up by a university professor, writes Maggie Hartford. Professor Jeffery Errington aims to find new antibiotics - urgently needed because bacteria continually develop

  • Road crashes kill two

    Two men died in separate road accidents in Oxfordshire last night. In the first incident, a man in his 20s died after his Vauxhall Astra car collided with a Leyland Daf lorry on the A418 in Tiddington, near Thame, shortly before 5pm. The driver, who is

  • Police warning over conmen

    Conmen posing as water board officials tricked their way into a woman pensioner's home and stole her husband's war medals and her wedding ring. Two bogus officials struck at Cranham Street, Jericho, on Tuesday and tricked their way into the 82-year-old

  • Debt-hit centre to reopen

    A crisis-hit community centre is set to make a fresh start - and could be back in business by next month. But only 40 residents turned up to a meeting to discuss the relaunch, despite a leaflet campaign targeting 1,600 people. Residents began efforts

  • Sleaze-row Liddle was council boss

    Roger Liddle, the man at the centre of sleaze claims against the Government, is a former deputy leader of Oxford City Council. Mr Liddle is now being strenuously defended by Tony Blair against claims that he offered businessmen access to ministers. The

  • Suicidal man saved 'Bruce Willis' style

    Former security guard Martin Meredith modelled himself on Lethal Weapon star Mel Gibson and talked down a suicidal man about to leap from Oxford's Folly Bridge. Martin, 26, of Buttercup Square, Blackbird Leys, was walking home during the early hours yesterday

  • Cracking English, Gromit

    Eh-up, Gromit. Fancy helping a few of them foreign types to talk proper English? Well then old lad. It's no use prevaricating about the bush. Wolf down that Wensleydale and let's get over to the Oxford University Press, sharpish. Even in the crazy clay

  • Avon's calling on granny Gene to be a model

    Gene Culley may not be your usual idea of a model. But the 70-year-old has just been picked from hundreds of entrants to represent the UK in Avon's global photographic project celebrating women around the world. Residents in Gene's home village Childrey

  • Phillipa's garden gets TV makeover

    When Phillipa Orme got back from a business trip and joked, "Alan Titchmarsh hasn't been to do the garden, then," little did she know... The camera crew for BBC2's Ground Force programme had actually been to her West Hanney home to check it out. And her

  • What price your trash?

    DIY enthusiasts are finding that dumping on the cheap is costing them a whole lot more. Getting rid of DIY waste used to cost nothing. But now Oxfordshire County Council has started charging - £31 per tonne PLUS VAT. The council noticed a large increase

  • Step aside for the DKV Dance Company

    Gemma Simms meets the three would-be stars who are just...dance crazy! Forget the nifty moves of the Spice Girls and B*Witched - this stunning trio of dancers are THE girls to watch out for in the county. They call themselves DKV Dance Company - which

  • Morrells Brewery up for sale

    Oxford's Morrells Brewery is selling its 132 pubs and historic city brewery. The company's 77 workers face redundancy with the St Thomas' Street brewery almost certain to be closed and the site sold. Workers reacted in stunned silence to the news of the