Way we were

100 years ago: One night recently those in the gods at the Theatre Royal were exceptionally incensed at some clumsy member of their fraternity who dropped his stick. Someone said "shish", a lad indignant at the "shish" cried "horder", and another replied from the opposite side "horder yorself". The fat was in the fire at once, according to the journalist who had been there, as everybody wanted order, and everybody joined in disturbing it. It was very objectionable and annoying, but once the ebullition was over he was pleased to notice the way in which the lads followed the play, and "horder" was eventually restored.

50 years ago: The licensee of the Fleece Inn at Bishop Wilton retired after 50 years in the trade, and shared some of his reminiscences with columnist Mr Nobody. He was elected to go to a school in London maintained by the Yorkshire Society and all the pupils thus came from all the Ridings, their dialect both puzzling and annoying the schoolmaster, who was a Londoner. Addressing the boys one morning in class he touched upon their dialect and told them he intended to teach them to speak King's English "as it should be spoken", and ended up by saying: "You know, boys, I want to be a father to you." At lunch the meat served up did not suit one of the boys so when he got outside, he pitched it over a wall. Unfortunately, the schoolmaster was passing on the other side of the wall and the meat hit him in the face. When the time for afternoon class arrived the master came with the piece of meat in one hand and a stout cane in the other. He looked at the boys sternly and bringing his cane down sharply down on the desk shouted: "Sons of the Devil!" The boys, remembering his remark from earlier in the day, found that vastly amusing: the master, not surprisingly, did not.

25 years ago: A photograph of a possible new weapon in the fight against "withering" oil supplies appeared in the paper. It was of an old Ford car with an immense canvas balloon strapped to the roof, which was used as alternative petrol tank. The tank was filled with coal gas, could run the car at normal speeds for an entire day, and a gauge wasn't needed as the driver could tell by the sagging how low he was on fuel. They were not a new invention, the picture having come from a reader and was taken when he was working for the Gas Board at the start of the last war.

Updated: 15:31 Tuesday, July 20, 2004