OTD 1976: ATV Today meets Oxford’s ‘Old Tom’

ATV Today caught up with Wally Thomas, nicknamed ‘Old Tom’ who has looked after dons and undergraduates at Queen’s College at Oxford University for over sixty years.

The report coincided with an ATV Network documentary Flights of Fancy: A Day Return to Oxford which aired on ITV later that evening.

We see Wally Thomas riding his bike through the city before ATV reporter John Withington catches up with Wally (Old Tom) about how life at the university has changed since his arrival shortly after the end of the First World War. He comments that students no longer wear gowns in the 1970s. He also talks about the north/south divide that still exists at Oxford University at that time.