REMINISCENCE boxes to support the elderly who suffer memory loss are being rolled out across Oxfordshire.

Libraries across the county have developed a new Reading Well service, which uses reminiscence boxes to help residents keep their minds active by encouraging them to remember days gone by.

Specially designed boxes have been made available to care homes, community groups and day centres so that residents can use them.

The boxes contain picture books of different themes, scrapbooks of fashion through various decades and items such as old driving licences or ration cards.

Jane Mason, the council’s readers’ service manager, said: “The packs can be used individually or in a group session and the boxes and packs contain a variety of different books and other items.

“We are trying to develop service to help people improve there health and wellbeing by using the reminiscence boxes and packs.

“The field is largely anecdotal as it’s quite a personal thing, it is available in every library and people just have to request to have access to them.”

Oxford Options Health and Wellbeing Centre in Horspath Driftway, Oxford used the reminiscence boxes for the first time last week.

John Hornblow, 78, who lives in Blackbird Leys, attends the centre three times a week and spoke of his career when looking at an aviation book from the reminiscence box.

The former RAF Engineer said: “It’s a nice break and it’s a conversation with somebody else, I enjoy it. You would go mad if you sat in the house all day, so I like to get out.” Mr Hornblow was in the RAF from 1953 to 1976 and worked on Nimrods, anti-submarine aircraft and Shackletons.Pauline White, from Headington, said she started to attend the centre after her husband John died last year.

She said: “I find it quite good, they do all sorts of classes and this is the first time I have done this.

“It took some getting used to but it is enjoyable, you meet some characters.”

Centre co-ordinator Susan McClean said the purpose of the session was to discuss times in the past and allow conversations to start and develop.

She said: “It works really well because they can relate to the books and items in the boxes.

“We can start a conversation on something in the past and then it just goes off onto something else, so if it’s an old wage packet, a conversation on what they were paid when they started their jobs can come up.

“This then develops into what type of job they had and so on.

“It’s really important because it can be shared with everybody, I think it will go viral – it’s fantastic.”