THE LINK is a local magazine delivered to residents living in and around the village of Sandford-on-Thames, near Oxford, England. For our location see MultiMap or StreetMap or GoogleMaps.

    The Link magazine, is in the form of an A5 booklet, and is published quarterly in March, June, September and December. It reports on current local activities, topics of general interest and gives the dates of forthcoming village events and important occasions throughout the year. It also covers news and services from the local parish church of St Andrews, in the centre of the village.

    These web pages are an attempt to record The Link magazine, and show it in the new up to date format. Hopefully this will make it available to a more people, some who may have moved away and would like to keep contact with the village. It can also offer newer residents a chance to look back through older editions and act as a convenient reference.

    In these pages an attempt has been made to keep as close as possible to the original magazine, and retain the original page layout as composed by the editor. Obviously the electronic version of the magazine will not be exact copy as some differences will be introduced by the conversion process from paper to computer. Changes will also occur due to different computer equipment, and variations in different software, and even computer screen size.
Also despite spell checkers and careful proofreading, errors and inaccuracies can still slip through, so if you do spot any mistakes, PLEASE do report them, so they can be corrected as soon as possible.

    The Link Committee have been publishing the magazine for many years, and have done a wonderful job in providing the village with a valuable service, may they long continue to do so.

The Link web site has been an on going project since February 2000, and has been very much an interesting learning process as the site has developed over the months.
For the record, the following may be of some interest.

This site has been built using an old Gateway PII computer.
The HTML code was hand crafted using the excellent "TexPad" text editor, from Helios Software Solutions at http://www.textpad.com/ which has syntax high-lighting for HTML code, and hotkey integration for...
Validating was by "HTML Tidy", to check the code and keep on top of all the HTML errors, see: http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/.
Graphics were edited, using the good old "Paint Shop Pro" from Jasc.
Scanning was with a HP scanjet http://www.hp.com.
File transfer was by "WS_FTP LE" from http://www.ipswitch.com.
Testing was completed with Internet Explorer 5.0 (more recently with version 6.0) and Netscape Navigator 4.7, and a lot of trial and error!

A major addition occurs four times a year, and minor updates usually happen at least monthly.
My old site had about 188 web pages with 739 images, all using about 8.6 Mbytes of file space.
All this is kept in some sort of order using a homebrew and unpolished VB6 programme, to check all the file links and graphics are all, more or less, up to date.

The whole web site was moved in October 2003, from the old m.hills.BTinternet.com (my home page since May 1997), driven away mainly due to the intolerable levels of spam and the lack of flexibility offered under their basic package. My new host SupaNames now provides much more control, and has been a chance to revamp the old site under the new SandfordOnThames name.

My new site has now been running for over a year now, and has settled down quite well, after the slow migration and update from the old site. In now boasts over 350 pages with over 1090 images taking about 19 Meg of file space, and with the addition of search data and log files the site now totals over 29 Meg!
There is a lot of truth in what is often said, that all web sites are "still under construction", and that only a dead site, never changes.

The site will try to answer any general question about Sandford-on-Thames and The Link magazine. And also attempt to check any details, and queries that may arise from this sites content.

Answers to some of the more frequent questions...

Errors and Omission
With a project of this size some unintentional errors may occur in the conversion process. Any omissions or errors will be corrected an soon as practicable. Any mistakes copied across from the original magazine, will only be modified where the original text is unclear or ambiguous, without changing the editorial content.

Family History
For people with detailed questions about old family history, or past events, which are not easily checked locally, please try one of the more official web sites, set up by Oxfordshire County Council, which can often help with specific queries:

• the new Oxfordshire Record Office, at the converted, St. Lukes Church: http://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/heritage%20research

Local Accommodation:
Sadly, if you need somewhere to stay, there is no longer a local B&B in Sandford, however, there is a very nice four star 'Four Pillars' Hotel in the village. Other accommodation and hotels can be found nearer Oxford.

• The Four Pillars 'Oxford Thames' Hotel is at: http://www.four-pillars.co.uk/

• Accommodation via the Tourist Information Centre can be found on: http://www.oxfordcity.co.uk/accom/index.html

• also there is 'The Longwall' a Beefeater & Travel Inn near by: http://www.travelinn.co.uk/

• and a the new "Express" by Holiday Inn nearby, next to the Kassam Stadium and another Holiday Inn at Peartree Roundabout: http://www.holiday-inn.co.uk/

• also at the Pear Tree Roundabout there is a Travel Lodge, and another at Wheatley by the Harvester: http://www.travelodge.co.uk/

A worry for many people, is privacy on the Internet, so here is a statement for The Link web site:

This site has been built to provide, to any interested people, access to local information about the village of Sandford-on-Thames via the Internet. The site mainly concentrates on reproducing the village magazine, and providing local information, both past and present, about life in the village.

There is limited control over the host server (SupaNames), and there is access to the server logs, but stats produced are not that useful and no personal details are recorded. This site does not collect any personal information, or gather any visitor details.
Thus this site does not have any personal data, of any kind, to use, store or pass on to any third party.

Any e-mails received in connection with this site, will be kept strictly private, and no addresses will be passed on to any third party.

This is non-commercial site and it does not use any advertising, nor does it use cookies, ActiveX, Flash or any other plugins, nor even a 'favicon'. The only javascript used, is a small section, just to return back to the previous page. This site only monitors the server logs just to catch any bad links or page errors and just to see if any people visit!

External links are provided in good faith, but this site has no control over their content.
The site content is suitable for persons of all ages, and has been written to try and make it viewable with any browser, and designed to render reasonably on 800x600 and above, display screens.

Any questions about the content of this site, please use the e-mail me at the address on the contact page.