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Subject: Next week's Oxfordshire FHS meeting
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 17:13:45 EST

Colleagues

The next meeting of the Oxfordshire Family History Society will be held on
Monday 27 February 2006 at the usual venue at Exeter Hall, Oxford Road,
Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1AB.

Doors open at 7.15 pm for coffee, help with both genealogy and computers,
bookstall, library and exchange journals.

The subject of the talk at 8.00pm is "The Shipton-on-Cherwell Railway
Disaster". This will be presented by Linda Haynes, an archivist at the Oxfordshire
Record Office.

The story begins :-

"At 12.15pm on Thursday 24 December 1874, the GWR London to Birkenhead
Express departed from Oxford station. It was packed with almost 500 passengers who
were looking forward to spending Christmas with their families and friends. The
weather was freezing and the train was already an hour late when it pulled in
to Oxford Station. Amidst the hurly-burly and hurry, nobody noticed that a
rather elderly, shabby carriage was being added to the front of the train or
that routine maintenance checks were being carried out too hastily.

When the train left the station, the guards were sorting the mail, too busy
to look out the windows. As the train approached the tiny hamlet of Hampton Gay
and the bridges over the River Cherwell and Oxford Canal, the front carriage
began to lurch violently".

But what happened next ?

All members, potential members and their guests are welcome.

For directions as to how to get there, please see :-

http://www.ofhs.org.uk/ExeterHall.html

For a list of future OFHS meetings, please see :-

http://www.ofhs.org.uk/meetings.html

Any queries, please contact me off-list.

Paul Gaskell
Minutes Secretary and Publicity Officer
Oxfordshire Family History Society
Web : www.ofhs.org.uk
E-mail :

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