Tuesday, November 9, 2004

100 years ago: A correspondent wrote that he had recently visited the "old moorland town of Kirbymoorside (sic)", and on going to the post office he was glad to recognise the same polite and pleasant official who had performed the duties of postmaster for, he believed, the past 31 years. He understood that the official in question was known as 'out-aged', and though he continued to perform his duties faithfully and well, no pension would be forthcoming when he retired. This seemed a thing to be deplored, for the writer understood that prior to his long service as postmaster, the official had driven the mail cart from Pickering to Rosedale, and then a break took place before he became postmaster of "Kirbymoorside", the break in the long service unfortunately disqualifying him for a pension. The old man told him, with vain regrets, as age was creeping on him, and he had been obliged to relinquish part of his duties, that of delivering the town letters, and this meant a considerable diminution of salary. The correspondent hoped that by bringing this injustice to the attention of the readers, some support may be raised for the postmaster.

50 years ago: The Newsprint Supply Company announced that in view of the end of the dock strike, the cut in paging of newspapers would be withdrawn at the end of the week, and morning and evening newspapers may assume normal paging from then. The Yorkshire Evening Press, which had been restricted in size for a week, would be back to normal on the Monday, having had to cut certain features during the time newsprint was rationed.

25 years ago: Working in the dark could soon be a thing of the past for Pickering gravediggers, thanks to a pneumatic drill. Underneath the cemetery was limestone rock, and often it had been a race against time to get graves prepared. Successful recent experiments with a pneumatic drill could well mean the end of traditional methods of gravedigging at Pickering, which had seen two men take 20 hours each to dig a grave using picks and shovels. Often they had two days or less to dig them, and so this meant they had to work until ten o'clock at night. The new method, using a drill, would halve the time taken to get the ground ready.

Updated: 12:20 Monday, November 08, 2004