JANUARY

IT WAS to be a year that would see British servicemen and women suffer heavy losses in Afghanistan. But in January, Oxford mourned the death of William Stone, one of the last three surviving veterans in Britain of the First World War. Mr Stone, who lived in Watlington for more than 20 years, died at the age of 108.

Wesley Smith, the man who had read the news for so long, now found himself in it. The popular broadcaster was one of the casualties of a major reorganisation in ITV regional news programmes, having been a television personality in Oxford for more than 20 years.

The trial of a husband accused of killing his wife in a frenzied attack collapsed after he was found dead in his prison cell. Father-of-two Russell Yeates, 49, was found dead in Bullingdon Prison, near Bicester. The carpenter was discovered by prison guards just hours before he was due at Oxford Crown Court. He had been accused of threatening to kill his wife Debbie Smith, before chasing her through the street and slitting her throat in their home in Bell Lane, Wheatley.

In Broad Street a giant nude statue made of metal took up his position as a new city landmark. The statue by Antony Gormley, the creator of the Angel of the North, was put up on the roof of the Blackwell’s Art and Poster shop as a new addition to the Oxford skyline.

February

The county was brought to a standstill after seeing the heaviest snow falls in years. Hundreds of schools closed and thousands were unable to get to work.

Shock waves rippled across the county after BMW’s announcement that it was cutting 850 jobs at the Cowley plant. BMW had been forced to close its Cowley plant for a week and announced that agency workers would lose their jobs as a result of the plant moving from a three-shift to a two-shift pattern.

An animal rights activist who waged a terrorist campaign against Oxford University was jailed for ten years for plotting two firebomb attacks. A court had heard that Mel Broughton had been behind the planting of bombs to try to force the university to abandon the building of its £20m animal testing factory in South Parks Road.

To mark the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birthday, the famous Oxford debate between Thomas Huxley and Samuel Wilberforce on the theory of evolution was restaged in the scene of the original battle at Oxford University’s Museum of Natural History. Only this time it was the former Bishop of Oxford Richard Harries taking on Richard Dawkins, with Jeremy Paxman refereeing.

The county was shocked and saddened at the death of David and Samantha Cameron’s disabled son Ivan. The six-year-old son of the Tory leader and Witney MP had suffered from a rare epilepsy condition, and severe cerebral palsy.

March

Magdalen College School, one of the country’s leading public schools, announced that it would be taking girls for the first time.

There was disappointment for Oxfordshire’s main hospitals, whose bid to become a groundbreaking academic super trust with Oxford University was rejected.

A 101-year-old war veteran was robbed in his own home. Kazimierz Michalski, who fought in the Second World War, was befriended by a man posing as a builder during a Polish Mass. There was outrage, too, about a graffiti attack on Oxford’s oldest war memorial, The Tirah Memorial, in Bonn Square.

The Bodleian Library revealed it would be building a £25m book storage facility in Swindon, shifting millions of its books to an industrial estate on the edge of the town. The university last year was thwarted by Oxford City Council in its plans to build a book depository on the Osney Mead industrial estate.

April

Tributes were paid to an Oxford public school pupil killed in a crash that left a young man fighting for his life. Grace Hadman, 17, a boarder at St Edward’s School in North Oxford, died when the Toyota Yaris she was a passenger in veered off the A34 between Pear Tree and Botley.

An Oxfordshire primary school achieved the best Key Stage 2 results in the country. All 118 pupils at Combe Primary School reached level five in science and maths.

Oxford woman Fabia Cerra said she had no regrets about performing a striptease in front of 11.7m viewers. The 35-year-old from Greater Leys said she was shaking with nerves as she performed for the Britain’s Got Talent judges.

Oxford United’s dream of earning a place in the Blue Square Premier play-offs ended with a 2-1 home defeat against Northwich Victoria.

May

Health officials moved to reassure parents after news came of the county’s first swine flu victim, who was a pupil at Sandhills Community Primary School.

A six-year-old at the school contracted the illness on a holiday in Mexico.

A man was being questioned by detectives over the murder of an Oxfordshire couple on holiday 20 years ago. The bodies of Peter and Gwenda Dixon, of Witney, were discovered on a coastal path at a Welsh beauty spot in July 1989. Both had been shot dead.

A lurid sex dossier sent to women across Oxford resulted in the withdrawal of the Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott from the race to become Oxford University’s new professor of poetry. Ruth Padel, who would have been the first woman in 301 years to hold the position, resigned after being elected as the new poetry professor after it emerged that she had emailed journalists about allegations of sexual harassment made against her rival.

Royal Marine Jason Mackie, 21, from Bampton, died in Afghanistan when the vehicle he was travelling in struck an explosive device.

June

The Tories tightened their grip at County Hall by sweeping to victory in the county council elections. The Conservatives increased their majority from 44 to 52.

A man who carried out three armed robberies in just six days began a six-and-half year jail sentence. Jon Shirley, 23, admitted four charges of robbery and two counts of possessing an imitation firearm.

An Abingdon man and a boy, 15, died after a glider and light aircraft collided. RAF instructor Mike Blee, from St Mary’s Green, and Nicholas Rice, from near Reading, died after their Grob Tutor aircraft and a glider collided above Drayton.

A drunken man who burst into his elderly neighbour’s Botley home threatening him with a knife “got what he deserved” when the pensioner left him bruised and bleeding. Gregory McCullum, 23, was jailed for four-and-a-half years for aggravated burglary. But his intended victim, Frank Corti, 71, a former amateur boxer, punched the intruder twice, leaving him with a black eye and swollen lip.

July

Villagers paid tribute to Lt Col Rupert Thorneloe, the highest ranking army officer to be killed in action in more than 25 years. Kirtlington man Lt Col Thorneloe MBE, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, was killed by an explosion in Afghanistan.

Plans to build a 15,000-home eco-town near Weston-on-the-Green were rejected by the Government.

Instead, it backed a smaller eco-settlement on the north-west of Bicester as one of its four flagship eco-town schemes.

It was announced that new 20mph speed limits were to be introduced throughout Oxford.

August

Great City Attractions applied to erect a miniature version of the London Eye in the Worcester Street car park.

But the idea of creating a 20m high wheel would be a “monstrous carbuncle” said county council leader Keith Mitchell.

Villagers in Horspath were less than pleased to hear of plans for a massive wind turbine between the Cowley works and their village.

Yusuf Islam, the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens, helped make the Cropredy Festival one of the best in recent years, with Steve Winwood also performing.

September

Two new models of the Mini are to be built at the Cowley factory, it was announced, a move which would secure hundreds of jobs.

There was relief too in West Oxford with news that a proposed major probation centre was not to be built at the bottom of Mill Street.

The Oxford-based family of J.R.R. Tolkien reached a settlement with the Hollywood studio said to owe them millions for the Lord of the Rings films.

The threat of legal action at one stage had threatened to hit the proposed films of The Hobbit.

Oxford Brookes University’s £150m scheme to redevelop its main Headington campus was controversially rejected by city councillors. Later in the year, Brookes submitted a fresh application having reduced the height of buildings.

A blow, too, was delivered to the historic Godstow Bridge, which was closed to traffic for a month after it was damaged by a car.

October

Nine climate change protesters scaled Didcot Power Station’s 200m-high chimney, only returning to earth after two days.

Planning applications to build incinerators at Sutton Courtenay and Ardley were both rejected by the county council’s planning committee after two strong local campaigns against the giant waste burning plants.

The £200m buildings that will form the centrepieces of the new city centre quarter on the former Radcliffe Infirmary site were unveiled by Oxford University.

The new £29m Oxford Heart Centre opened its doors, in a year that also saw the city’s new cancer hospital opening on the Churchill Hospital site.

November

The county mourned the death of a Didcot-based bomb disposal expert who died on the final day of his five-month tour in Afghanistan.

Staff Sgt Olaf Schmid, of the Royal Logistic, Corps, died instantly after a bomb exploded in Helmand Province.

Soldiers at Vauxhall Barracks, in Foxhill Road, where 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment is based, were faced with coming to terms with the third death the regiment had suffered during operations in Afghanistan.

There were tributes to Norman Painting, who had played Phil Archer in the BBC4 radio show The Archers since 1950. He died aged 85 at his cottage in Warmington, near Banbury.

Plans were unveiled to transform Oxford’s rail station which will see it expanding to the other side of Botley within the next two years.

Abingdon School, one of the country’s oldest public schools, announced it is to have a woman head for the first time in its 753-year history. Felicity Lusk is headteacher of Oxford High School.

December

The Queen officially opened Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum following its £61m redevelopment. Colombian pop princess Shakira also caused a stir when she addressed the Oxford Union.

A year of vicious crime in Oxford drew to an end with the illegal immigrant Robert Chin being given an 18-year sentence for the murder of a rival drug dealer.

In May, his victim Devon McPherson had staggered to The Regal nightclub with a stab wound.