SEEING the microscope in the photograph of Professor John Goodby (The Press, March 5) reminded me of the days when York was a industrial city and not just the archaeological curiosity it is now.

The only remainder of York’s industrial past being the vastly reduced, once-great Rowntrees, once so so big it had its own railway system.

In the 1950s I was an apprentice at Cooke, Troughton and Simms (CT&S), makers of the finest optical and scientific instruments in Britain; now, alas, gone.

The litany of Industry in York is a good indicator, too, of the way Great Britain was in those far-off days.

York had Gansolite, (button-manufacturers), Adams Hydraulics, (iron foundry), Rowntrees, Terry’s, Craven’s, (confectionery makers), C.T.&S. (microscopes, theodolites, tank-periscopes etc.), carriage and wagon works, (rolling stock for British Railways), British Sugar, (sugar factory), Ben Johnson’s and Sessions, (printers), Armstrong Patents (shock absorbers).

Those factories employed very many people, who would be seen three times a day when York was thronged with hundreds of bikes as staff cycled to work and back home for their dinner, back again for the rest of their working day, then the final ride home for tea.

How our once-great country has fallen behind.

Philip Roe, Roman Avenue South, Stamford Bridge, York.