CHILDREN were always generous when it was harvest time.

They would raid their mums’ larders and bring a variety of vegetables, fruit, food tins, cakes and other goodies to school, as these pictures from the Oxford Mail archives show.

Picture 1 was taken at Millbrook Infants School at Grove, near Wantage, in 1983 when a sale of harvest produce brought in £62.50.

Pupils gathered around after presenting a cheque to Penny Hurtley, regional organiser for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC).

Children at Wood Farm Junior School at Headington, Oxford, are seen in Picture 2 carrying tomatoes, grapes and bread, to add to gifts brought by other children in 1965. They are, left to right, Laura Curtis, Dulcie Townsend and Derek West.

Pupils invited 18 pensioners to New Hinksey First School in Oxford in 1975 for a harvest tea.

They baked cakes, made jellies and paid for other tea-time treats. Earlier, they had entertained their visitors to a concert of harvest songs and poems.

The pensioners – some are seen in Picture 3 being served by the youngsters – went home all smiles, each clutching a box of harvest produce.

Picture 4 shows pupils at Headington Middle School in Oxford with some of their harvest offerings in 1991.

Meanwhile, in Picture 5, Cutteslowe First School in Oxford celebrated harvest in a different way, with pupils dressing in different national costumes to mark One World Week in 1985.

The children took part in projects emphasising Britain’s dependence on other countries for much of its food.

Memory Lane this week

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