ALL these people could claim to be film stars.

They appeared as extras in the film version of Half a Sixpence, the musical starring Tommy Steele.

They were local people recruited by Paramount, the film makers, for regatta scenes filmed partly on the Thames towpath through Oxford in 1966.

They played the parts of boatered and bustled strollers, lovers on benches and cheering crowds.

For their efforts, they were paid £3 a day, plus as much food as they could eat.

But there was one downside – they had to be up early as shooting began at 6am.

All had been recruited after an appeal for extras had been published in the Oxford Mail.

Two years later, when the film was released, they were invited to a special preview at the ABC cinema in Oxford.

The cinema manager, Mr A T Frost, pictured in the centre of the picture above, handed them photographs showing their contribution to the film. Among those at the presentation was Alice Miles, of Peel Place, South Oxford, who had the easiest job – she played an old lady in a wheelchair.

Half a Sixpence was based on HG Wells’s novel, Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul.

Tommy Steele played Arthur Kipps, an orphan who unexpectedly inherits a fortune and climbs the social ladder before losing everything and realising that you can’t buy happiness.

Where are all the extras now? Write and let me know at memory.lane@oxfordmail.co.uk