BUSKERS had the sense to realise they couldn’t compete with the band of about 20 protesters in Cornmarket Street on Wednesday. Clucking hens commanded the airwaves.

Some dressed in chicken costumes or wore hats and masks of a fowl nature. They were having a no-holds-barred attack on Liberal Democrats – or rather the Fib Dems as they described the coalition partners – for breaking manifesto promises.

Most were students, livid at increased tuition fee plans, while others were job-endangered public sector workers. However, their principal target was Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. He had cancelled a visit to the city that day – hence the cries of ‘Chicken’.

But full marks to rally members for their responsible if noisy action and a similar score to the police, who although few in number (a chief inspector plus two others, one carrying a camera with lens attachments that could highlight an incident of fowl pest at 800 yards) looked on to see peace was retained.

“Are you coming with us?” invited one girl protester.

“Where to?” I asked.

“The Fib Dem offices,” she said enthusiastically.

Millbank Tower and raining fire extinguishers came to mind. So, as the saying goes, it was then I made my excuses and left.

  • WHEN it came to writing letters for publication, Mrs Joyce Gascoigne had few equals. She always hit the nail on the head in a few well-chosen words. For years the Oxford Mail letters page was host to missives ranging from animal welfare to unlawful imprisonment and poverty to politics.

About three years ago, this long-serving parish councillor for Middleton Cheney, near Banbury, became a page three girl – her description – in the Oxford Mail when the story of her successful fight against breast cancer was told. It was inspirational. Her battle had been fought when she was over 80.

Mrs G – as she was affectionately known – died suddenly on November 2, aged 86. The funeral was on Tuesday and I was invited to attend. Naturally it was a sad affair but she managed to inject a little mischievous humour by stipulating in her final letter, setting out her funeral arrangements, that everyone should eat a doughnut at the end of lunch.

  • CHIVALRY is alive and well and living in Oxford. The small elderly woman was caught in the rain as she made her way across Frideswide’s Square on her way home to Botley. She was looking uncomfortably wet and cold.

Enter three students, one a fresh-faced young man wearing a Brasenose College scarf and armed with an umbrella. Spotting her plight, he immediately handed over his umbrella. Although grateful, she protested, but he would hear none of it.

“I wouldn’t want my mum to get wet,” he said cheerfully before dashing to catch up with his friends.

Warms the cockles of your heart, doesn’t it?