Thursday, December 9, 2004

100 years ago: The Lord Mayor of York made an appeal to property owners and employers of labour for the Christmas period, through the pages of the Evening Press. He wanted to call the attention of employers of labour, property owners and others in the city, to the unusual number of men who were "compulsorily (through no fault of their own) out of employment at the present festive season of the year". He also wanted to most respectfully and urgently appeal to all classes of his fellow citizens to give help in assisting them by providing work as far as possible, in doing "odd jobs, repairing and cleaning property, and in any other way during this abnormal period of depression".

50 years ago: For the past three years, the sole provider of money for the British Tunny Club Charity Fund at Scarborough was a business man from Teddington in Middlesex. During that time he had been the only angler to land a tunny fish by rod and line to be displayed in a charity exhibition at the resort, the sum raised by his efforts being £775. This summer he caught three fish totalling 1,861 lb and, last year, two fish weighing 1,182 lb. In eight days in 1952 he caught and landed seven tunny, totalling 4,581 lb. This year, £240 was raised in aid of Scarborough charities, the distribution of which was £100 for the Mayoress's Parcel Fund, £20 for the Red Cross, £20 the newly-formed Lifeboat Memorial Fund and £10 each to ten other local organisations.

25 years ago: Ancient carved stones in the Yorkshire Museum collection at the Hospitium, badly damaged by floods the previous winter, were inspected by an expert from the Victoria and Albert Museum. Many of them had been seriously defaced when they were submerged under four feet of flood water, and restoration of them was deemed "probably impossible". The expert recommended that the carved stone exhibits, including early coffins and terracotta objects, needed to be removed for prolonged drying out treatment, as the humidity was too high for them to dry out at the Hospitium. The Hospitium itself had been noticeably eroded below the waterline, as had carvings on the stone, at a speed that was "one of the most worrying features" of the problem.

Updated: 13:24 Wednesday, December 08, 2004