100 years ago

The suggestion that bananas were conducive to gout was denied by a banana shipping firm. A ripe banana, they said, was practically all glucose or grape-sugar, a highly nutritious substance which had no deleterious effects.

It was easily digested and beneficial to the liver. The highest medical authorities recommended a free use of bananas and less meat as a certain method of alleviating gout and rheumatism. The starch of the unripe bananas turned to grape-sugar as maturity was reached, and if the public would eat bananas only when fully ripe they would appreciate the food value of the most popular fruit in the world. Among native tribes who lived on bananas gout was unknown.

50 years ago

Jerry Lee Lewis was one of the stars visiting York Rialto the following week. It was five years since Jerry Lee Lewis had left Britain, part-way through a tour.

He was now 27 and despite setbacks which might have eclipsed some artists, Jerry had managed to sustain a large following in America. Talent, of course, was recognised. And Jerry knew his way around a piano keyboard. Record-wise, he hadn’t been too active in Britain since his last visit, but coinciding with his current tour his disc company had issued a new ‘single’ Jerry revived Good Golly Miss Molly which Little Richard boosted into the hit parade five years before.

Jerry’s version was typical of his style... racing piano and groovy saxophones. Coupled with it was a mid-tempo ‘rocker’, I Can’t Trust Me.

25 years ago

Knaresborough could become a Blackpool-by-the-Nidd, a national environmental group feared. The Council for the Protection of Rural England had backed a local campaign fighting the redevelopment of the Dropping Well site in the Nidd Gorge.

The council was also worried that Knaresborough could lose its medieval charm if massive expansion took place at Mother Shipton’s Cave, the tourist attraction owned by TV magician Paul Daniels. Mr Valentine Gausden, chairman of the Yorkshire and Lower Dales branch of the environmental group, said it would be willing to give evidence if a planning inquiry was called. He believed that Knaresborough, to attract visitors, should concentrate on its history and become a “more relaxed centre of tourism”.

“Our concern is that a little rural town should remain rural, rather than becoming a sort of Blackpool-by-the-Nidd,” he said. “We feel the proposal to put some kind of pavilion at the Dropping Well site is the thin end of the wedge. I would hate to see the town pushed in the wrong direction.”