Some firsts (1890 onwards)

The first telegraph wires connecting the Sibford district to the outer world were fixed in 1896. The first motor-car came in the same eventful year; so did the first recital by Edison’s phonograph (gramophone) at the Friends’ School. In 1898 the School diary records: “First cinematograph: pictures of babies quarrelling, a pillow fight, etc.”

There was no bus service with Banbury until after the First World War, and the casual visitor to our villages might have imagined them to be sleeping through the years, as he looked at the thatched cottages and drowsy horses.