Easter has been celebrated over the years in Oxfordshire with bonnets and eggs of all shapes and sizes, writes Eva Emendoerfer.

It may not take long to eat them, but decorating them can be a long and painstaking process, as the picture (1) shows.

Mr EW Tarrant and Joyce Hern are pictured in 1962 preparing some of the thousands of Easter eggs sent out by the Oxford firm of George E Weeks and Co.

In picture (2), Tracey Andrews, 11, drools over a giant Easter egg which Banbury Borough Bowls Club was raffling to raise money for research into heart disease in 1977.

Tracey was the daughter of the club president, Joe Andrews.

If she had won it, she would no doubt have had to share it with her nine brothers and sisters.

Waitresses at Brown's restaurant in Woodstock Road, Oxford, let the Easter spirit go to their heads with stunning displays in 1981.

Linda Thomas and Teresa Lebeck, seen in picture (3) serving Easter cake with a feathery flourish, made their creations themselves for the restaurant's Easter parade.

Easter bonnets were much in evidence at the Salvation Army citadel in Oxford in 1989.

Picture (4) shows Vernon Luker, Roy Henry and Queenie Henry getting into the Easter spirit.

Kim Barrington-Hines borrowed a Little Bo Peep costume and Enery, the little lamb, so she could wish Oxford Mail readers a Happy Easter in 1982.

Kim, 17, came third in the Miss Oxford contest that year.