Who remembers Southfield Grammar School and its offspring, Oxford School, tucked away off Cowley Road?

Southfield opened at the top of Glanville Road in 1934 and became Oxford School in 1966 when it linked with the former City of Oxford High School on the Southfield site.

Schools there under different names have taught generations of pupils in their near 90-year history.

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Picture 1 will bring back memories to numerous pupils – it shows some of the teachers who served the schools over the years. It was taken at a reunion in 1999.

Among them, third from the right in the middle row, is Sydney Brookfield, who was head of mathematics at Southfield.

Oxford Mail photographer Jon Lewis took another picture of Mr Brookfield twisting a colleague’s ear and wrote in his caption, tongue-in-cheek, that he (Mr Brookfield) could still keep an unruly class in order!

Picture 2 dates from 1984 when staff and pupils were staging the German tragi-comedy, The Fire Raisers, by Max Frisch.

Oxford Mail:

It told the story of a wealthy businessman, Biedermann, who lets two shady characters into his home. The pair are suspected of starting fires in the area and try to do the same to Biedermann’s home.

The play was produced and directed by Mike Harrison, deputy head of the English department.

Biedermann was played by 14-year-old Steven Dunne, seen sitting down with, left to right, Jez Metcalfe, Dhiraj Kallie and Kate Leach.

In Picture 3, we see pupils preparing for three plays, two by Tom Stoppard, Dogg’s Hamlet and Cahoot’s Macbeth, and a third, Burn-Up by Derek Bowskill.

Sean Burke, 17, left, of Normandy Crescent, Cowley, and Tim Luteijn, 16, of Harding Road, Abingdon, are in Picture 4 preparing for a sponsored motorcycle ride.

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They rode from Oxford to Hayling Island in 1984 and raised £100 for research into multiple sclerosis.

Headmaster Dick Procktor is seen in Picture 5 congratulating pupils at the school’s annual prizegiving in 1984. They were, left to right, Rejin Dayanandan, Benjamin Devenish, Aneenuddin Alvi, Malvindar Singh, Richard Everitt, David Pill, Graeme Blackwell, Stuart Cherrie, Philip Kerry, Michael Wise and Julius Tsai.

More prizewinners appear in Picture 6 – they were all third-year pupils in 1986.

They are, back row, left to right, Simon Braham, Richard Davies, Stephen Brown, Bobby Novakovic and Stuart Barson, middle row, Jonathan Rees, Ivor Christou, John Williams, Darren Finley, Stephen O’Brien and Aman Alvi, and front, Andrew Lawson, Ranjiv Angrish, Michael Clarke and Rejith Dayanandan.

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About the author 

Andy is the Trade and Tourism reporter for the Oxford Mail and you can sign up to his newsletters for free here. 

He joined the team more than 20 years ago and he covers community news across Oxfordshire.

His Trade and Tourism newsletter is released every Saturday morning. 

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