Land Army girls had a lucky escape when their luxury hostel caught fire during the bitterly cold winter of 1947.

The blaze broke out at Goodfellows, the former home of Sir Stafford Cripps, at Filkins, near Witney, early on Saturday, February 8.

Bill Law, of Faringdon, has sent in a newspaper cutting recording the dramatic events. The flames spread so rapidly that the girls had to flee in their night clothes.

Several climbed on to the roof and were rescued by firemen, while others jumped from windows. The paper reported: "Some had to walk in the snow without shoes. Villagers found accommodation for them for the remainder of the night and lent clothes.

"Many of the girls had lost most of their belongings."

The cause of the fire was unknown at the time, and damage was estimated at several thousand pounds. Goodfellows, described as a moated grange, was requisitioned as a Women's Land Army hostel during the war.

Earlier, it has been enlarged by Sir Stafford, who was Leader of the House of Commons in Winston Churchill's wartime Government and later President of the Board of Trade and Chancellor of the Exchequer in Clement Attlee's postwar administration.