Tuesday, April 12, 2005

100 years ago: Progress was being made with the erection of the county memorial in Duncombe Place, York, in honour of the 1,500 natives of Yorkshire who fell in the recent South African War. At the time, although a brick foundation of over seven feet in height had been laid down in the excavation that had been made in the grass plot, no suggestion of the handsome design, which the memorial would on completion, had appeared. So far, a pit had been filled with concrete, with a centre foundation of practically solid brickwork, fourteen feet in diameter, and seven and a half feet high. The total diameter of the memorial on the ground level would be about 30 feet and the space between the core of brickwork and the outer circumference would be occupied by the steps which would form part of the design of the memorial.

50 years ago: On the night of April 16, 1746, a young lieutenant wrote to his cousin giving him a brief account of the Battle of Culloden, and the next day he sent word to his mother that he had survived. The ink had faded to pale sepia, but these letters written by Lieutenant William Aitkin of the 14th Foot told the story which lay behind two crossed swords in the military section of the Debtors' Prison Museum at York. Hurriedly written, the letters formed part of a bequest to the 1st Battalion by a descendant of Aitkin. On April 15, Aitkin told his cousin of the events leading up to the battle, but before he had time to despatch the letter he heard the whistle of shot and smelled the drifting of powder smoke. Displayed in the Museum were his commission papers, the Culloden medal, his dress sword and the sword he carried through the battle.

25 years ago: A warning was given that Yorkshire would be under attack the following week, as hundreds of NATO planes would be raiding RAF bases as part of an exercise called Elder Forest 80, which would reach from the Orkneys to Suffolk, testing defences for a day and a half. Among the targets was RAF Staxton Wold near Scarborough, as it was a radar installation, and would have to face raids from the Americans, Belgians, Canadians, Germans, Dutch, Norwegians, Danish and French aircraft from the air, as well as ground units of the RAF regiment trying to sabotage the base.

Updated: 08:48 Tuesday, April 12, 2005