100 years ago

The agitation for women’s suffrage was certainly no mere trifle to be “sneezed at” and yet that was the very thing that the suffragettes themselves were making ministers do.

They had peppered the noses of the cabinet. Nearly every minister had received an unstamped envelope, on which, as an additional indignity, 2d had to be paid. It was marked “Private” and was addressed in the feminine handwriting. Perhaps, scenting a romance, ministers hurriedly tore open the envelope – only to scent red pepper and snuff.

By an ingenious arrangement, these powders were enclosed in a paper that was stuck in the envelope so that when ministers gave an extra tug to get this out they whisked the pepper in their faces. The paper – when their smarting eyes permitted them to read it – demanded with many threats “the vote”. Nearly all the members were more or less affected.

The order had gone forth that all unstamped envelopes in future were to be opened by the secretaries of ministers. A strike of ministerial secretaries was threatened.

50 years ago

For those fine but still cool days of early spring, wool could still be the sensible choice. But a lighter weight wool, a fabric which could adapt itself to the worst, or the best, of weather, was the right choice.

It was a fashion fabric with many natural and many “processed” advantages. It was, too, the basis of one of Britain’s major industries and, to us in Yorkshire particularly, one which played a large part in the community’s economy. Buy wool and you were almost certainly buying British – and very probably buying Yorkshire as well. And it was a nice, easy way of being patriotic, now that the latest modern processors had added to wool’s own natural advantages most of the features of the man-made fibres. Wool could be washable, unshrinkable, moth proof and permanently pleated.

It had a unique variety of weaves, textures and colourings, spanning all seasons with a wide weight range. It was notable for “quality of handle”, wearing qualities and “tailorability”.

25 years ago

Any redevelopment of Harrogate’s indoor market hall would flop unless the town’s car parking problem was solved. Mr Bryan Noon, chairman of the Market Traders’ Association, gave his warning as a string of developers queued up for the chance to redevelop the council-owned market hall.

“I honestly think that if anybody wants to redevelop the site and make it workable then the parking situation has got to be looked at. People are simply not coming into town,” he said. The saga of the future of the market had been going on for years and Mr Noon estimated that it could be some time before the site was redeveloped.