Banbury care home residents turn detective

Sheila Palmer, resident, trying to identify what she can feel in the bowl full of squishy water balls, assisted by Angela Talbot, housekeeper

The amateur sleuths were presented with the fictional theft home manager Kate Jones' bedazzled tiara. They completed tasks to obtain the clues that would spell out the name of the culprit and retrieve the tiara.

The tasks involved sensory activities and some code-breaking and were designed by the home’s activities coordinator, Linda Martin, so that people with different skills and abilities could join in and complete at least one challenge.

Vera Powell, resident, who is trying to identify what she can feel in the bag

The sensory activities included identifying different vegetables and fruits in a bag by feel, identifying common kitchen cupboard and household items by their smell and finding and identifying by touch an object hidden in water beads. There was also a challenge to de-code a message.

Each task completed earned the resident a letter of the alphabet and when all the letters were collected they could be arranged to spell the name of the culprit.

Each resident who took part was given a raffle ticket with Pat Slade winning a meal for two at the Cromwell Hotel and Vera Powell winning a cream tea for two at the Whately Hotel.

And who was the tiara thief? None other than activity coordinator, Linda Martin