In the summer of 1955, following the death of my mother, I came to live with my aunt and her family at Masons Road on the Wood Farm Estate. I was five years old and would live here for the next four years before we moved out of the Oxford area. There were six of us, I being the youngest; Frank and Sandra, twins, were two years my senior and Jen was the eldest aged 12 when I joined the family. We lived at No. 29, in the corner next to the recreation ground – swings, an old tractor cemented into the ground, and a few other things to play on. To the front of our house there was a grassy area between us and the road: this was a communal play area for the kids in the road. Here we could play marbles or whip and top. Hula-hoop was another favourite, also jacks or five-stones, and we could pedal around on our trikes, scooters or roller skate. Traffic in those days was light so we were quite safe.

Street traders toured the area from time to time, the Corona lorry selling pop, a travelling knife sharpener, the laundry service would collect and return sheets and things mum had sent to be cleaned (not many washing machines back then). The rag-and-bone man came round with his horse and cart calling “Rag and bone” and would exchange a goldfish in a plastic bag, or perhaps sixpence, for some unwanted clothing.

Round the corner at the junction of Old Road and Titup Hall Drive stood the Crown and Thistle pub where we would sometimes go in the evening to buy crisps and pop from the off-licence. Across the road was Tilly’s shop, an Aladdin's’ cave of sweets for us kids. The shop was the front room of this little house, and behind the dark wooden counter the wall was lined with shelves filled with large glass jars of sweets of every description. It drew us in like a magnet on pocket-money day; how would we spend our precious pennies? A Jamboree bag? A sherbet dip? Perhaps a Wagon Wheel (the size of a dinner plate, I’d swear!). Or we would just scan those jars, asking poor Tilly to mix a couple of these with a few of those and so on, rounding it off with a penny bar of chocolate (flying saucers, blackjacks and fruit salads also available). In front of the shop were a couple of machines into which you could insert a penny and get a gobstopper, or four aniseed balls.

Each morning Frank, Sandra, and I would trudge off to school picking our way round the roads past Rock Edge, where we might stop to play on the way home, to Margaret Road Junior School. Boys and girls through separate entrances, of course, but I was an infant and went to a different part of the school. There I was taught to read and write, at first writing on a slate with chalk. Progressing to the junior school the day would start with Assembly, a song, and a prayer. We would also sing “Happy Birthday” to anyone celebrating such an event. I recall a lovely teacher – Miss Dorothy Shrimpton. Occasionally she would let one of us sit on her lap as she played the piano and we all sang. Mrs Pymm was less warm-hearted and would make us queue outside the classroom in silence before we could enter. Woe betide anyone who spoke. Mrs Pymm had a wooden ruler and any boy caught talking at this time would feel the sharp rap of it on his bare calf! Another punishment used for us naughty boys was to be sent to spend play-time in the girls playground (boys and girls were segregated at playtime). Never quite understood this, as I was quite happy to spend my break with the girls. I remember the team-work us boys put into creating a slide across the playground in the winter snow. We would set to work compacting the snow to form a long strip of glass-like ice which we would run at and slide along. I suppose, in this day and age the ‘safety police’ would have a fit seeing us do this!

Come the weekend we might all venture up to Shotover and spend a morning or afternoon having great fun in the woods. Care would be taken to avoid bumping into the “Slade Park Gang” or there would surely be a violent clash between us. (Part of the old Slade Camp complex was still being used as post WWII temporary or emergency accommodation.) We might otherwise be taken to Bury Knowle Park where there was (as I saw it) an enormous slide. It was not far from here, somewhere on London Road, that mum could collect our National Health orange juice allowance, Oh what wonderful stuff!

No child of that time would forget the afternoon matinées at ‘Headington Flea Pit’ – the New Cinema in New High Street. Entry cost 6d and was a good afternoon’s entertainment.

If you are a child of the fifties perhaps my reminiscences may have sparked memories of your own from those days before computers and mobile phones. I hope you enjoyed those times and places, and recalling them now; they have helped shape the person you are today.

Tim Blackmore
November 2021