Saturday, July 16, 2005

100 years ago

A serious outbreak of ptomaine poisoning, said to be due to eating ice cream, had occurred. The previous Saturday evening eighteen children, who earlier in the day had purchased and eaten a quantity of ice cream from a street cart in a working class district, were suddenly seized with violent fits of vomiting. They were all removed to hospital, and many of them were detained for treatment. Although several cases were reported to be serious, fatal results were not anticipated. A doctor had, on the same day, at an inquest on a boy named George Redding, said that his death was due to eating ice cream that had been made with eggs that were not quite fresh. The jury had returned a verdict of "Death from Misadventure".

50 years ago

Reggie Dennis, who was appearing at York Empire, gave the English music hall five years at the most - if nothing was done. What he wanted done was its only salvation he said - to allow Sunday opening. The theatres would then be closed on Thursdays, while touring companies travelled, and would start their week on Fridays. Variety people all wanted this, he claimed. "We don't want millions of pounds in Government grants," said Mr Dennis. He pointed out that he could see Humphrey Bogart machine-gunning bandits on Sundays: and he could perform for radio on a Sunday - in a theatre. Twenty-one theatres had closed since January, he said, and people were just not facing up to the fact that an industry was dying. "The music hall must be saved," said Mr Dennis. "It is in the Theatre that the stars and all those further down the ladder make their real living not from radio or television."

25 years ago

Demand for seats on Inter City 125 trains between York and London was so great that BR had added an extra coach on some services. But a BR spokesman in York revealed the system would operate only during the peak summer period. High Speed Trains on the East Coast main line would revert to eight-coach sets the next winter. The extra coaches (on four trains each way from Monday to Saturday) were on a temporary basis. Initially, any move to add coaches to a High Speed Train was thought to be impracticable because the weight of the extra carriage and passengers would slow down the train, affecting schedules. "But we introduced an extra coach on two trains as an experiment and it did not affect timings too seriously," added the spokesman.

Updated: 16:46 Friday, July 15, 2005