Wednesday, December 1, 2004

100 years ago: Tribute was paid to the North Country factory girl in Chamber's Journal, which a columnist quoted for the benefit of those girls in York whom it referred to. "It is no doubt true that even today factory workers are looked askance at by those who pride themselves upon their ultra-refinement. To such as these the everyday language of the factory workers will sound shocking, and their general behaviour appear coarse and vulgar, but it is not so in reality. True, they have not that softness of speech which is said to be possessed by Londoners, but they have plenty of grit and backbone in their characters. To an outsider the ordinary speech of factory workers will sound terribly vulgar, but the girls mean nothing by it; to them it is nothing more than their everyday mode of speech. As far as personal experience goes, I have always found that in the humble lives of factory workers: 'Two things stand like stone: Kindness in another's trouble, Courage in their own'."

50 years ago: A York Corporation tenant who offered to pay the full economic rent of his house was thanked for his offer but was told it couldn't be accepted. The retired civil servant told the Press: "I offered to pay the full economic rent because I feel I should pay it. I can afford to pay it. Other people are having to pay the subsidy on my home and it might well be that they are worse off than I am." He was paying 15s 2d a week for a small, cosy flat on the new estate on Cornland's Road, and said he would willingly pay £1, or even more. A few years previously he tried approaching a York builder to have a home built for just him and his wife, but the builder wouldn't build the small house we wanted, saying it would spoil the look of the estate.

25 years ago: Wallflower plants worth several hundred pounds were saved at Bridlington each winter by recycled fences. The plants were being protected from the gales by old wattle fencing being put alongside the flower beds. The Director of Parks for North Wolds said that they had about 20,000 wallflower bedding plants set out as soon as the summer flowers had died, adding: "We would have lost thousands of plants last winter without these. But we never lost one."

Updated: 14:08 Tuesday, November 30, 2004