We have derived abundances of O, Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Fe, Ni and Ba for 43 metal-poor field stars in the solar neighbourhood, most of them subgiants or turn-off-point stars, with iron abundances [Fe/H] ranging from -0.4 to -3.0. About half of this sample has not been analysed spectroscopically in detail before. Effective temperatures were estimated from uvby photometry, and surface gravities primarily from Hipparcos parallaxes. The analysis is differential relative to the Sun, and carried out with plane-parallel MARCS models. Various sources of error are discussed and found to contribute a total error of about 0.1-0.2dex for most elements, while relative abundances, such as [Ca/Fe], are most probably more accurate. For the oxygen abundances, determined in an NLTE analysis of the 7774{AA} triplet lines, the errors may be somewhat larger.