100 years ago

At Bow Street Police Court, Siegfried Schneider, alias Fred Taylor, 18, wearing the khaki uniform of a British soldier, was charged as an alien enemy with travelling more than 5 miles without a permit, and further with failing to notify his change of address.

The prisoner pleaded guilty to the first charge, but not to the second. A detective-sergeant said that he had found the prisoner acting as orderly of the General Military Hospital near Boulogne.

Schneider remarked, “Everyone in the Red Cross Society knew me to be a German.”

In his possession the detective-sergeant found a British passport in the name of Fred Taylor.

On being asked to account for his possession of this the prisoner said that when enquiries were first made for volunteers for the Red Cross Brigade he was one of the first to offer his services.

He was taken to Devonshire House, where he signed an application form in the name of Fred Taylor.

Replying to the magistrate, the detective-sergeant said that he was going to show later that Schneider enlisted, was enrolled, and served in the British Army. On a remand being ordered the prisoner applied for bail, which was refused.


50 years ago

The great wheel of Raindale Mill, the 18th century North Riding watermill which had been rebuilt stone by stone beside the River Foss near Castle Mills Bridge, York, had turned for the first time for 50 years.

As it did so, men of the City Engineer's Department which had been responsible for the rebuilding were inside the mill excitedly watching the first flour come trickling down from the massive grindstones.

Afterwards they scooped up the flour to take away as souvenirs.

The object of the operation was to discover how much water was required to work the mill and so determine the size of the pump which would be needed to deliver it.

The Fire Brigade pumped water from the Foss for the test. When the mill was open for visitors - it would be an adjunct of the Castle Museum - the wheel would be turned by water taken from the river and pumped into a tank hidden in the slope of the ground at the rear of the mill.
 

25 years ago

Groups throughout the region were organising events to mark World Aids Day. And the region's AIDS coordinator had warned there was “no room for complacency.”

Official figures for individual districts were still not being released, but charities knew of 22 people in the York and Harrogate areas diagnosed as HIV-positive.

The first case had been diagnosed only two years before and numbers were expected to grow.

In the Yorkshire region, 12 children were currently among those with full-blown AIDS.