A Foundation stone for the new 550,000 training centre and county headquarters of the Oxfordshire St John Ambulance was laid yesterday in Kidlington, writes Katherine MacAlister.

Hugo Brunner, Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire, laid the stone for the new centre, which will boast a two-storey building and three training rooms, and should be finished by February, 2001.

The new St John Ambulance building will be built on the site of the previous pre-fabricated building in Kidlington, which has been the home of the service since 1994. There are 12 adult units, 12 cadet units (10-18 year-olds) and nine badger units (six to ten year-olds) in Oxfordshire.

A St John Ambulance spokesman said: "The new headquarters will mean we are able to offer our volunteers better training and meeting facilities and an overall more efficient service."

And from this centre, new training programmes, including Care In The Community, Manual Handling and Risk Assessment courses will be starting up.

More than 100,000 has already been raised towards the new building, and the charity has launched it's Buy A Brick Campaign for the centre, with each brick costing 10, to help boost funds.

At the ceremony was St John Supt Alan Walton, who first joined the St John Ambulance in 1962 and remembers being directed to an old shack at the end of a muddy road.

He recalls: "The weeds were shoulder high and I wondered what I was letting myself in for. But when I arrived I got such a warm welcome. It was the best thing I did," the 62-year-old retired teacher says.

Mr Walton, from Kidlington, joined after witnessing a motorbike accident where someone broke a leg.

He says: "I just didn't know what to do for him. I felt so helpless."

Fifteen months of dedicated training later, he was made divisional officer and hasn't looked back since, having attended hundreds if not thousands of events as a volunteer.

"It's great when you really help someone and they recognise you and thank you afterwards," he says. "I remember a rugby match where a man injured his spleen and we rushed him to hospital. A few months later I was in Oxford and he stopped me in the street and said, 'thank you so much you saved my life.'

"St John Ambulance gives you peace of mind because wherever you are, you will know what to do, and I have made so many friends over the years."

St John Ambulance makes 900 annual appearances in Oxfordshire at county shows, fairs, carnivals and balls, with volunteers covering everything from the Henley Regatta to Oxford United football matches.

The charity also provides primary health care for the homeless and trains homeless workers, as part of its community projects, which volunteers devote over half a million hours of care to, every year.

As the leading First Aid provider, it trains over half a million people each year, on courses for the public, children and the workforce.

Half of these volunteers are under 18, and as a major youth organisation, it encourages them to develop their personal and social skills along the way.

But apart from funding, new recruits are also needed.

Anyone who would like to volunteer should call 01865 378228.