The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #59890 Message #956782
Posted By: MikeofNorthumbria
21-May-03 - 05:40 AM
Thread Name: Origin: Oxford Girl (Oysterband)
Subject: RE: Is there a story Oxford Girl (Oysterband
I seem to remember hearing John Jones saying, when introducing this song on radio, that he'd made the whole thing up. However, the story does have some remarkable resemblances to a real-life murder case in Oxford in the late 1960s. As far as I can remember it went like this:
A young married woman disappeared. Shortly afterwards her husband also disappeared. The police had some evidence that led them to believe he had killed her and then run. They arrested his father, and his younger brother, and held them in custody on suspicion of being accessories to murder(though I think the charge was later reduced to withholding evidence).
There was a quite a stir about this in the local press at the time. The father spoke very little English (the family were Asian immigrants)and for some time was unable to understand clearly what was happening to him, and what his rights were. The younger brother was 19, and a student at Oxford College of Further Education. I taught him there for a year, and remember him as a quiet, polite industrious young man who seemed most unlikely to have been involved in any criminal act. But I suppose he might have felt that loyalty required him not to tell all he knew (or suspected)about a crime possibly committed by his brother.
Eventually the father and son were released, and the charges against them dropped. The younger brother completed his course successfully, and (if I remember rightly) became president of the college's student union the following year. As far as I can recall, neither the missing man, nor the body of the missing woman were ever found.
Rumour had it that this was an 'honour killing' - Arranged marriage - unhappy wife - husband suspected she has a secret lover ... etc etc... the usual story. But I think that nothing was ever proved. (Of course, they didn't have Inspector Morse at Oxford CID in those days.)
Is it possible that John Jones had some fragments of this real-life story lurking at the back of his mind when he wrote "Oxford Girl"? Stranger things have occurred in the history of song-writing.
Wassail!