March 1

The latest innovation by the British railways was the insurance of passengers’ baggage.

We understood that on and from Saturday, March 1, the North Eastern Company in common with certain other of our leading railways would introduce a scheme under which passengers, on payment of a small premium, could insure their baggage at any of the booking offices throughout the NE system.

One form of insurance covered places in Great Britain and Ireland, the Isle of Man, Isle of Wight, and the Channel Islands, etc, and a second form applied to places world-wide. These insurances covered personal baggage, commercial baggage, etc, and insured against all risks of loss or damage, including fire, damage by water, theft, and pilferage, also damage arising from accident to any conveyance, including passenger steamers.

It was interesting to note the scheme not only applied to baggage during transit, but also to baggage while located in hotels or other dwelling houses.

50 years ago

Teenagers were invited to bring their favourite “pop” records along to a gramophone concert which Councillor L Daley, chairman of York Corporation Entertainments Sub-committee, was organising.

He believed that teenagers took their discs so seriously they should be accommodated in the series of record concerts which his committee had arranged. “We promised something for all music lovers,” he said. Councillor Daley said three pop stars – Frank Ifield, Frankie Vaughan and Billy Fury – had sent discs to be played at the concert, together with their best wishes for its success.

Unlike the others, this session was being held in the Museum Rooms and not the Guildhall as the feeling was that pop records would not be appropriate in the dignified Guildhall.

25 years ago

A 150-year-old fountain was set to make a splash with visitors to Fairfax House in Castlegate, York.

The cast-iron fountain, with its wide bowl held up by three cherubs, once stood in the Museum Gardens, near the multangular tower. But in 1917 it was removed and the pieces were sold off. During the following 70 years their whereabouts remained a mystery until they turned up at an auction sale in York, where they were spotted by a member of York Civic Trust.

The trust, which restored the Georgian Fairfax House, had bought the pieces for £2,200 and commissioned a £610 plinth of Bolton Wood stone to make a base for the restored fountain. Now it was the centrepiece of the terraced garden at Fairfax House, where Mr John Shannon, chairman of the Civic Trust, said he was “delighted” that it had reappeared.