Thursday, July 29, 2004

100 years ago: York's streets were looking empty in the evening, which was attributed to the closeness of the atmosphere, which had driven an odd thousand or more into the country on wheel, and the rest, judging from the railway station at a few minutes to eleven, by train. It was almost a Bank Holiday crowd that poured through the doors on the arrival of the Scarborough excursion the previous day. The train was one of the longest yet run this season, and being Wednesday, it was packed. There were hundred of youngsters all thoroughly worn out and tired, and those mothers who found husbands awaiting them with perambulators had reason to thank their lucky stars. One might have been pardoned for believing that a perambulator show was in preparation, for outside the station there were three of four long lines of them, empty and ready for action. The mothers for the most part seemed as fagged as the children, but for all that TT noted they preferred to push the "prams" themselves, with one accord telling their spouses to hurry on home and get the kettle on.

50 years ago: A doctor friend of columnist Mr Nobody who practised over towards the West Riding told him of an unusual case he had recently - in fact in 38 years - as a GP he could remember nothing like it. A woman brought along her six-month-old baby with an inflamed swelling on one side of his face, "rather like a chilblain." The symptoms appeared after the child had been given ice cream two days before, and so the mother thought the ice must have disagreed with the child causing the reaction, but this didn't sound very feasible to the doctor. When pressed for more details the mother revealed that the child had been given the ice in a cornet while sitting in the pram, had fallen back with the ice cream lying on its face, and had not been discovered in this position until some time afterwards. It was only then that the diagnosis clicked. The doctor was able to tell the mother that the complaint her baby was suffering from, in the middle of summer, was frostbite!

25 years ago: A giant lobster was caught by a diver off Flamborough Head, weighing seven pounds, making it the largest one he had seen in nearly 20 years of sub aqua diving. Most lobsters in shops were little more than one pound in weight, and at the current rate his whopper would be worth about £24. The diver had found it in forty feet of water, where it was captured after a few minutes of battling with it. When asked what he was planning to do with it, he said he wouldn't be selling it, as it would feed his family for a week.

Updated: 09:14 Thursday, July 29, 2004