GOOD to see globetrotting MP Hugh Bayley, New Labour's very own Steve Fossett, pop into Westminster last week.

The York member asked Home Office minister Hazel Blears for information on the number of thefts, burglaries, robberies and violent crimes recorded in England, North Yorkshire and York during the last ten years.

Helpfully, Ms Blears wouldn't tell him. Instead she told her right honourable friend to look it up for himself.

According to the Evening Press's last bulletin on the subject, there are about 5,000 crimes reported each month in North Yorkshire.

It's all a far cry from 50 years ago. We can say this with certainty because the Diary came across the York Chief Constable's report for the year 1955 the other day.

The top cop, Cyril Carter, recorded a total of 1,274 crimes in the city that year, which was down 34 on 1954.

Nearly 70 per cent of crimes were solved.

THE numbers may have been different, but some of the themes were familiar.

Chief Constable Carter was concerned by the rise in juvenile offending (263 offences were committed by 14-21 year olds in 1955, an increase of 80 on the year before).

Much of the hike was due to "simple larceny", commented Mr Carter, and "would seem to give weight to the argument advanced by some authorities that the increase in crime by young people is due to their lack of sense of the value of money, a moral deficiency fostered no doubt by the extremely high wages now being paid to young people in industry".

Mr Carter's thoughts on York congestion and WPCs to follow.

THE latest food scare, about a carcinogenic dye found in certain processed foods, prompted this imaginary shop scenario from Diary friend Simon Eldritch...

Customer: Worcester sauce crisps please.

Shopkeeper: Sorry, can't, it's off the shelves, cancer scare.

Customer: Oh right, Chinese chicken wings?

Shopkeeper: Ah that's the same. Cancer scare.

Customer: Hamburger relish?

Shopkeeper: Cancer scare.

Customer: Sausage and Mash?

Shopkeeper: Cancer scare.

Customer: Cottage pie?

Shopkeeper: Yes. No wait, cancer scare.

Customer: So they're all off the shelves because of a cancer scare?

Shopkeeper: Yes.

Customer: (sigh) Just give me a packet of fags then.

Shopkeeper: Certainly. That'll be £4.50 please.

ANOTHER reader has contacted the Diary to say that they have in their possession some lead from Selby Abbey roof.

This is not some shady, black market deal.

The lead in question melted in the 1906 fire and was turned into coins to commemorate the nave's reopening in October 1907.

Joan Watson, of Wighill near Tadcaster, is not sure how her family came into possession of the coin and would love to know more about its origins.

Can anyone help?

Updated: 09:43 Tuesday, March 08, 2005