SO HISTORIAN Roger Jenkins is asking for £5,000 to commemorate the 1,000th anniversary of Oxford being set ablaze by Vikings raiders?

I have no objections to that. But the picture depicting Oxford at that time in the Oxford Museum (Oxford Mail April 6) is wrong.

It shows Oxford with two-to-three storey buildings with slate roofs. But at that time Oxford was all single storey, with buildings made of wattle and daub with thatched roofs, which were easily burnt.

Also he has got his dates wrong. The Danes, under Thurkill, raided Oxford in January 1010, coming up the River Thames from the Chilterns. This was in retaliation for the murder of Vikings in 1002.

Fortunately, in 1020 the Danes and the English were reconciled under Canute in Oxford, and his son Harold I declared his successor with Oxford his capital, where he was crowned and died.

At the Battle of Hastings in 1066, the Danes and the English fought side by side against the Normans.

Oh, and by the way, my ancestors were Danish. Our original name was Hunna and we came from Sunningwell, near Abingdon, which was once called Sunna’s Well.

DEREK HONEY, Queen Emma’s Dyke, Witney