100 years ago

Reporting on the advisability of wearing corsets, a special committee of the Incorporated Institute of Hygiene had issued the following conclusions, the result of a careful investigation:

1. That as an actual fact most English women do wear, and will probably continue to wear, some form of corset or abdominal support.

2. That the requirements of modern dress, and the exigencies of modern civilisation, appear to make the wearing of some form of corset a practical necessity to the majority of women.

3. That many corsets still in use are wrongly constructed, and tend to produce injurious compression and displacement.

4. That owing to the spread of knowledge regarding the importance of freedom of movement, and the need of physical exercise in strengthening the muscles, the objectionable rigid corsets of the past are becoming much less worn and are gradually being replaced by lighter and more flexible corsets, constructed on hygienic lines.

5. That the injurious effects attributed to the wearing of corsets can be greatly minimised, if not entirely removed, by the adoption of properly constructed corsets, and their right adjustment.

50 years ago

There was an added attraction coming for visitors to the Odeon and St George’s cinemas, York, in the shape of an 18-minute colour film of Princess Alexandra's wedding. It had been made by the special features division of the Rank Organisation.

Apart from the wedding scenes, the film would show sequences from Princess Alexandra’s world tours, glimpses of Mr Ogilvy at his City office and shots of Thaxted House Lodge, in Surrey, where the couple would live. The film had involved its makers in a non-stop operation covering two days and a night.

Relays of motorcyclists rushed the film from the Abbey to Denham and the first prints of the completed picture were showing in London's West End cinemas the day after the wedding.

25 years ago

The battle for Rowntree moved to Westminster when the Government was asked to step in.

York's Conservative MP, Mr Conal Gregory, asked for Swiss assaults on Rowntree shares to be investigated by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. Mr Gregory, vice-chairman of the food and drinks industry's committee of Tory MPs, said at Westminster: “Rowntree's are an integral part of York and the history of York.”

This action came after a hostile £2.1 billion takeover bid for Rowntree by the Swiss food company Nestlé. The bid, which was immediately rejected by Rowntree as inadequate and unwelcome, came two weeks after another Swiss group, Jacobs Suchard, netted a 14.9 share stake in the York group in a stock market raid.