They recently gave £300 to Barton Youth Club at Headington to replace cookery equipment which was “well past its best-before date”.

Another grant was given to the Windrush Valley Boxing Club at Bampton, near Witney, to buy extra sparring gloves for young boxers keen to improve their fitness.

The Balliol Boys’ Club Association is still active, with 22 members, plus wives, partners and family members attending the 2025 annual meeting and 18 sending their apologies.

The association’s latest 14-page news bulletin is packed with memories and pictures from the past, including letters written by members on active service during the First World War.

Another item recalls the Bridge family from Mill Street, Osney – brothers Richard and John were keen footballers and boxers.

John played in goal and earned the name ‘Bert’, after goalkeeper Bert Trautmann, who made crucial saves to earn Manchester City a 3-1 win in the 1956 FA Cup final despite suffering a broken neck earlier in the match.

Richard had a trial for Arsenal after being spotted by England captain Billy Wright, but was not within the age range for selection.

Len Tombs writes about his love of cricket, which began in the days “when children were told to go outside and play and not come back ‘till teatime”.

He recalled: “Two or three of us would practise batting, or bowling as fast as we could on a rough piece of ground. Others would join in and suddenly, there were enough of us for informal matches to be arranged.”

John Gaisford (Image: Oxford Mail)

Another member, John Gaisford, grew up in Bridge Street, Osney, in a house “with the usual outside toilet and newspaper on string!”

During his childhood in Botley, he enjoyed many ‘tuppenny’ ice creams, played football on the local ‘rec’ and fished at the bottom of Binsey Lane.

As a Balliol boy, he enjoyed football and cricket, in the latter hitting one mighty six – it appears the ball was never recovered!

Like me, many readers will remember his career as an Oxford Mail sports reporter.

The bulletin records: “He bemoaned the fact that nobody took photographs to go alongside his reports and was told to ‘get a camera then’. Take photos he did and his football, rugby and speedway photographs appeared regularly.

“John’s forte was speedway, not an easy sport to capture. He had his own column in the Mail called ‘Pit Stop’.

“In his time as a photographer, the film was developed at home – in the kitchen or the loft and delivered to the Mail offices the same evening, ready for the Mail the next day. None of this new-fangled stuff taking pictures on a phone.”

A photograph he took of Shipton-under-Wychwood cricketers won him a camera and the club £500 from the Cricketer magazine (see lower picture).

As we have recalled, Balliol Boys’ Club was formed in 1907 in an old sweet factory in Littlegate Street. A meeting of “young gentlemen from Balliol College” had decided to start a boys’ club, to be run by undergraduates, in the deprived parish of St Ebbe’s.

The formation of the club had been announced by the curate, the Rev Marks, at the Sunday afternoon service at Holy Trinity Church hall. The club’s history book records that “a surging crowd of boys besieged the premises on the opening night”.

This gallery shows animals of all shapes and sizes – from cats and dogs, to hedgehogs and birds – being saved and taken in to loving homes.

One image shows an uncommon rescue of a whole crocodile, which was flown to the renowned croc centre Crocodiles of the World in Witney from Malmo, in Sweden, where it had been living unhappily in a greenhouse.

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Others show fantastic action shots of a swarm of bees being rescued by a keeper, and a youngster holding a rescued owl.

Other images show the rescue dogs which, once taken in, became part of the family, and even some that went on to win dog show awards or take part in charity events.

Take a look back through this Oxford Mail archive to see 11 adorable animal rescue shots from Oxfordshire over the years.

The Prime Minister is prepared to “explore every option” to keep Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers in jail, a Government source told the Telegraph on Friday.

The Government has so far resisted pressure to exempt the two killers from its early release scheme, which starts in October in a bid to tackle prison overcrowding.

Mr Burnham said earlier this week he had “pushed to the very limits of what is possible to do without risking the prison system reaching capacity and collapsing” by excluding sentences for “rape, serious child sex offences and other grooming offences” from eligibility.

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Some 5,000 people are expected to be released early under sentencing changes, down from 6,000 after the exemptions announced as part of an urgent review of the scheme.

But under current plans, Cole and Bowers remain eligible to be freed halfway through their 13-year sentences after they were convicted of manslaughter in 2020 following Pc Harper’s death in 2019.

Downing Street has been contacted for comment about Mr Burnham reportedly weighing up options to block their release.

PC Harper was 28 when he sustained fatal injuries while responding to a quad bike theft in Sulhamstead, Berkshire, in August 2019.

He died after getting caught in a strap attached to the back of a car and dragged down a country road as three teenage suspects fled the scene of the burglary.

The driver of the vehicle, Henry Long, received a 16-year sentence and would not be eligible for release.