100 years ago An official statement had been issued by the directors of the British Radium Corporation, Ltd, in reply to a complaint by Dr Barlow, of the Cancer Research Laboratories at the Middlesex Hospital, that “the high cost of radium is a crying shame”.

According to the statement, one of the members of the company had been working for more than ten years at the problem, with a view to securing a supply of radium from home sources for the benefit of suffering humanity.

The deposit of pitchlands near St Ives, Cornwall, was a guarantee for the assured supply of a large quantity of radium. The extraction of the radium was of necessity a very intricate and lengthy process. Great efforts had been made for reserving the supply of radium for the hospitals in England and as a matter of fact a considerable stock had been held at their disposal for over six months; but owing to delays on the hospitals’ part German buyers had stepped in, purchasing the entire stock at higher prices than were offered by the hospitals here.

The Germans had also entered into contracts with the company for considerable quantities which would keep the works of the company busy for the best part of the current year. However, the company was building new works capable of increasing the output fivefold to meet the ever-increasing demand for radium by English hospitals.

 

50 years ago

York solicitor Mr John Shannon had given his views on how the car parking problem in York could be solved. Mr Shannon, who was chairman of York Civic trust, said car parks should be provided on the city perimeter with an efficient and cheap public service of buses, criss-crossing the city.

The essential character of York which relied on its narrow streets and the views which appeared just around the corner had to be preserved. The voracious appetite of the motorist could never be satisfied, and the only answer was for cars to be left at the perimeter.

 

25 years ago

The death toll in the M1 jet horror had risen to 43 – with many of the 83 survivors fighting for their lives in hospital after being freed from the tangled wreckage.

An air crash expert said sabotage should not be ruled out, and the Army in Ulster confirmed that four servicemen were listed among the dead and three were unaccounted for. The servicemen were among 26 forces personnel on the British Midland Airways' Boeing 737 carrying 126 passengers and crew which had crashed in flames into a motorway embankment in Leicestershire the previous night.

The plane had been just a few hundred yards short of an emergency landing at East Midlands Airport after reporting engine trouble.