The finishing touches are being made to a booklet of the memories shared by a group of women aged between 70 and 90.

The booklet will be launched by the senior citizens, who meet every week at Wood Farm Health Centre, Oxford, during Adult Learners Week, which runs from Saturday to Friday, May 16.

Betty Pegram, 79, of Picket Avenue, used to work at the former Morris car plant, now the BMW factory.

She said: "When I was young everyone helped everyone else, people were much friendlier then.

"The estate where I live now was part of what was known as 'three fields'. It was all fields, we used to walk across to Shotover for a day out."

Margaret Thomas, 81, of Masons Road, said she had no gas and electricity when she was very young.

"We had to light a fire under a copper for heating water," she said. "It was a rather hard life really."