Wednesday, February 23, 2005

100 years ago: While crab fishermen were expecting a poor start to the season due to the bad weather, a monster king crab, whose measurements of two feet and seven inches across were said to constitute a record for the variety caught in the North Sea, was found earlier in the week in a hole on Filey Brigg, by a fisherman. The king crab was sometimes dragged up from deep water by the steam trawlers, but it was seldom found near land, and appearances pointed to the Filey capture having been washed up by Saturday's heavy weather. The specimen, which created considerable interest among the local fishermen, was secured for a Liversedge gentleman who collected marine curiosities.

50 years ago: During the last cold spell, the Evening Press printed a photograph of gulls circling the bridges of York, searching for food. In the days following the appearance of this picture, the unusual site of women coming into the city with their shopping baskets full became commonplace. Crusts of stale bread which would otherwise have been thrown out were left on the bridges, to be seized quickly by the diving birds. Mr Nobody agreed that diving seagulls were not always a welcome sight, "as any seafarer will tell you, but their graceful movements are a warming sight on a cold winter's morning". A reader, signing herself Bird Lover, asked the columnist to remind people of the gulls' plight, and so he asked that next time readers came into the city, they popped a crust of bread in their pocket.

25 years ago: Residents of Skelton near York, who had watched their local common frogs' annual struggle to survive, became amphibians themselves to clean up their croaking friends' home. They took to a dinghy to clear the large pond in Burtree Avenue of rubbish and weeds, which had been called the "most important frog breeding ground in the district". The villagers joined forces in a last-ditch stand with their local frogs because the common frog was fast becoming the uncommon frog, so the pond at Skelton would be used as a refuge, and when the frogs woke up in spring "they will find their cause is not so hopeless as it seemed".

Updated: 16:14 Tuesday, February 22, 2005