Do you recognise these Cowley Austin Rover apprentices?

One remembered the picture above showing a team of Austin Rover trainees who qualified for the national finals of the Best of British Skills competition.

We have, left to right, Paul Phillips, 20, of Park Road, Didcot, Chris Oliver, 20, of Sinclair Road, Banbury, Brendan Conway, 20, of Swinburne Road, Abingdon, and Russell Dixon, 17, of Welford Road, Abingdon.

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Paul, a design technician, and Chris, a toolmaker, were taking part in the toolmaking section of the competition.

Russell, an apprentice in Austin Rover’s mechanical maintenance department, and Brendan, who worked in the quality department, were competing in the fitting skills section.

Oxford Mail photographer Peter Farr caught up with the quartet as they prepared to leave for Yorkshire in 1989.

They were heading for Sheffield for the finals of the competition, run by the Engineering Industry Training Board with sponsorship from precision instrument makers Moore and Wright.

They gained their places in the finals by winning south-east regional heats.

Whether they succeeded in Sheffield and proceeded to the next hurdle, the International Youth Skills Olympics, in Liverpool isn’t recorded. Does anyone know?

It is a poignant story from past times when, today, many young people are finding it difficult to get jobs as employers cut recruitment to save costs.

Another reader recalled the Oxford Mail publishing a story of three former Cowley workers being reunited after a gap of 50 years in 1985.

Doris Clarke, left, and Vera Owen

Two of them, Doris Clarke, left, of Poplar Grove, Kennington, and Vera Owen, of Northfield Close, Littlemore, are in the lower picture. Their companion, not pictured, was Peggy Walther, of Haddenham, near Thame.

It was a chance-in-a-million discovery inside a Morris Eight car that led to the get-together.

Car fanatic Frank Whayman, of Hitchin, Hertfordshire, was restoring the car when he spotted the women’s names scrawled on one of the door panels.

They had been put there for fun by Mrs Owen while she and her two colleagues worked in the car factory.

Mr Whayman contacted the Oxford Mail, Mrs Clarke responded to the article and soon the three women met to recall old times at the factory.

The last we heard was that he was planning to offer them a ride in the old car.

The first BMW Mini rolled off the production line at the Cowley car plant in April, 2001, and millions have been assembled since, with exports to about 120 countries.