A FORMER employee of the Witney Gazette, and Oxford Mail and Times has passed away aged 92.

Bryan Lloyd died at Bradbury Court, a residential care home for people with dementia, in Malvern, Worcestershire on Thursday, January 16.

Mr Lloyd was born in Church Lane, Cogges, Witney and lived in the town his whole life until he had to go into residential care in 2018.

He married Marna Lloyd (nee Pennie) in June 1952, having met at a dance where Mr Lloyd was playing in a band.

He is survived by Mrs Lloyd, 86, and they had two children, Ian and Karen.

After leaving school aged 14, Mr Lloyd started an apprenticeship as a compositor at Usher’s printing works in Witney and learnt how to operate a printing press, design posters and leaflets, and cut paper on a guillotine.

National service in the RAF interrupted his apprenticeship, however in 1951, he took on the role of intertype operator at the Witney Gazette offices in Marlborough Lane.

At the time, the paper consisted of only four pages and sold about 300 copies.

Mr Lloyd and a colleague produced the paper single-handedly and delivered it to newsagents in the town.

In 1953, Mr Lloyd became general manager and renamed the business Witney Press, which grew steadily and employed about 25 people by the time he left in 1968.

The press also printed a variety of other publications, including: Oxford University’s student newspaper, the Faringdon Advertiser, and the Brize Breeze, a magazine for the US Air Force stationed at Brize Norton.

The paper was one of few privately owned weekly newspapers in the country.

When he left the Witney Press, Mr Lloyd joined Oxford & County Newspapers.

The Oxford Mail & Times bought the Gazette, and Mr Lloyd would eventually move out of the Witney office to Osney Mead as a sub editor and later sports sub editor for the Oxford Times.

Mr Lloyd retired on his sixty-fifth birthday and was presented with a spoof double page of the Gazette.

Just one year later, Mr Lloyd returned to the Oxford Times as a part-time sports sub editor for about 19 months.

Mr Lloyd was a keen musician, playing the saxophone, trombone and piano, and an enthusiastic spectator of all sports, but playing golf was a passion.

He joined Burford Golf Club in 1963 and played as often as he could.

Mr Lloyd’s funeral took place in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire on Tuesday, February 11.