A CHARITY shop is celebrating 30 years of serving a community with companionship and a stash of second-hand goodies.

Oxfam is marking its pearl anniversary at its Stert Street branch in Abingdon, which has so far raised more than £3million to help banish poverty, disease and hunger from across the world.

Longest-serving volunteer Roger Baker helped set up the shop in the town's High Street in 1969 before it moved to its current premises, where customers can rummage through clothes rails and comb bookshelves for bargains.

The 84-year-old said: "I thought it was going to be a campaign group but at our first meeting with Joe Mitty (Oxfam's first paid employee), he told us we were setting up a shop - and he saw that we did."

The retired physics and maths teacher was working at Abingdon School at the time, taking on the voluntary role of cashier and tallying up the contents of the till after a full day at work.

His support for the charity followed in the footsteps of his father Wilson Baker, who sat on the original Oxford Committee for Famine Relief which set up the first Oxfam shop in Oxford's Broad Street.

He said: "People from the churches and university were concerned about the hardship with the famine in Greece.

"As long as I am able to I will continue volunteering. It's become a habit. It's got a very nice atmosphere and I always want to feel useful. We are fortunate that people in Abingdon are very generous."

Grandfather-of-four Mr Baker, who lives in the town near Albert Park, said members of Abingdon rock band Radiohead were among some of the shop's regular customers.

His fellow long-serving volunteers include Anne-Marie Banks and Felice Armstrong, both of whom have been at the Stert Street store since it opened at the end of November 1986.

Shop manager Debbie Dent said: "We have gone from strength to strength and have fantastic volunteers. It's really quite an exciting environment, everybody shares in its success.

"It's a bit of a community shop, we have people in here every morning - tired mums who have just had a baby who need to sit down and put their feet up, or people who are lonely. We try to offer a bit of companionship. It's a shop you can stroll around and feel comfortable in, whether you are buying or not.

"This is the best crowd of people I have ever worked with, they are really committed. We have volunteers here as young as 14 and as old as 90."

The shop has raised more than £3million in support of Oxfam's mission to banish poverty, disease and hunger from the developing world.