CHRISTMAS spirit was a scarce commodity in some quarters 50 years ago.

Bus drivers called a two-day strike, professional footballers were threatening to walk out, shops ran out of turkeys and mistletoe and there were snowfalls and fierce gales.

Even a group of bellringers were caught up in the misery – they were banned from delivering a festive peal after a row with their vicar.

Oxford bus crews refused to run services on Boxing Day and December 27, 1960.

Their leader, Arthur Gillians, attacked the company’s “mean attitude” after it refused to allow the men a day off for working over the holiday.

All 90 buses stayed in the depot – the only one that ran was a nurses’ special to the Radcliffe Infirmary.

Meanwhile, professional footballers, led by Jimmy Hill, were bracing themselves for strike action in a row with the Football League.

Bellringers at Culham arrived at the parish church to practise for Christmas to find a note pinned to the belfry wall.

It read: “You ring bells to call people to church. If you have no intention of coming yourself, don’t ring the bell. Go home.”

John Greenwood and his eight young pupils were puzzled – they all claimed to be regular churchgoers.

The vicar, the Rev Halewood, refused to comment. “This is none of your business,“ he told an Oxford Mail reporter.

On Christmas Eve, there was bad news for families who had left their food shopping until the last minute. Demand for turkeys had been so great that butchers had sold out.

Shops also reported a severe shortage of mistletoe.

Other Christmas activities, however, succeeded in lifting the gloom.

Thirty deprived children, who were not expected to get a Christmas present, were invited to a party at the Ritz cinema, in George Street, Oxford, to receive toys.

The toys had been donated by wellwishers after an appeal by the managers of the Ritz, Regal and Super cinemas.

More than 300 children of employees at the Amey group attended a party at Oxford Town Hall, where they took part in community singing and were entertained by conjurer Ken Plested.

East Kidlington Social and Welfare Association organised a children’s party at Gosford Hill School, with films, records and a “gigantic hokey-cokey”.

Seventy members of Marston Good Companions in Oxford listened at their party to Charlie Smythe with his monologues and Adrian Judge on his accordion.

Despite unemployment and short-time working at the Cowley car factories, shops were enjoying bumper trading, equal if not better than the record set the previous year.

A treat was in store for pantomime lovers, with Richard Hearne (Mr Pastry) starring at the New Theatre in Dick Whittington.

There was even Christmas joy for a prisoner on remand at Oxford Prison – he was allowed out on Christmas Eve to marry his fiancee at Oxford Register Office, before being whisked back to his cell.