A PENSIONER was delighted to dust down the first paid-for edition of the Oxford Mail ever to go on sale.

Long-time Headington resident Dorothy Dodd unearthed the paper while rummaging through a drawer of keepsakes last week.

The 86-year-old said the newspaper, which offered a glimpse into life in 1928, was in surprisingly good condition.

The December 12 edition followed 14 previous free, trial editions before it went on sale on December 12, 1928, at the grand price of one penny.

Mrs Dodd, who lives in London Court, Headington, said: “I was emptying a drawer under my bed which I keep a lot of keepsakes and things like that in and I had stuff sprawled all over my bed.

“When I put it all back, lying on the bed was the newspaper, but I can’t remember taking it out of the box.”

The great-grandmother said she had no clue why her mother Irene Preddy, who would have been recently widowed in December 1928, bought the paper or how it had come to be kept in pristine condition for such a long time.

She said: “It’s the only thing from that era I’ve collected other than a few photographs. All I can think is my mother was looking for a job perhaps.”

On the front page was a story about a serious plane crash near Bicester, and the recovery of King George V in hospital.

Mrs Dodd was six at the time of publication, living in Warneford Lane and a pupil at East Oxford Primary School.

She said: “Oxford was vastly different to today. The roads weren’t as busy, there were horse and cart deliveries and I remember my grandmother used to go out with a bucket and shovel up after them.”

Still a regular reader of the Oxford Mail, Mrs Dodd said she believed the paper was “vastly improved” in recent months.

She said: “There are better stories, and it’s better laid out with more in the paper.

“It’s just sad they all have to be murders or people being killed, they all seem to be very sad stories these days.”

Mrs Dodd, who has two daughters, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, said she planned to show the 80-year-old broadsheet to her family — but was at a loss as to what to do with it after that.

She said: “I thought there might be someone who was interested in having it, maybe someone interested in local history or a collector. It seems a shame to just ditch it.”

Anyone who would like the paper can contact Mrs Dodd via the Oxford Mail newsdesk on 01865 425500.