THE men didn’t have it all their own way when they went on a marathon pub crawl.

Betty King joined them – and proved that what men can do, women can do too.

Not only did she complete the walk from the Nelson pub at Cowley Centre in Oxford to the Somerset House at Marston and back.

She drank a half pint of beer with them at all 14 pubs they visited.

Like her male companions, Mrs King, of Gaisford Road, Cowley, was said to be weary but in good spirits after the long walk.

The walkers were led from pub to pub by a Scottish piper, Ron Craig.

Supporters who accompanied them, including Miss Double Diamond, Carole Tebbutt, of Church Cowley Road, collected money for the handicapped and blind.

Derek Prout, of the Exeter Hall public house, was declared the winner, after drinking two pints of water in the fastest time at the end of the walk.

The 1968 charity event was supported by eight pubs – the Bullingdon Arms, Burton Ale Stores, Donnington Arms, Exeter Hall, Nelson, Nuffield Arms, Somerset House and University and City Arms – and by Ind Coope (Oxford and West) brewery and the Cowley Centre Traders’ Association.

In the evening, 500 people packed the Cowley Community Centre ballroom in Barns Road to see the six finalists in the inter-pub talent contest. John Cottell, a yodeller from Burton Ale Stores, won a £25 cheque given by the brewery. The runners-up were Margaret and Sylvia, from the Exeter Hall pub, who received 12-guinea beauty bags.