Saturday, July 10, 2004

100 years ago: At six o'clock in the morning three torpedo boat destroyers, the Usk, Salmon and Snapper, passed Scarborough on their way south, and anchored in Filey Bay to await the arrival of five other vessels. The boats formed part of the Medway flotilla of torpedo boat destroyers, which were returning from Granton, the flotilla staying at Filey over-night, then proceeding to Felixstowe. It had been a long time since a flotilla anchored in Filey Bay, and the weather being favourable a large number of residents and visitors greatly appreciated the visit. It was anticipated that the flotilla would join the Channel fleet for the summer, and then come north in September, when it is confidently expected that they would visit Scarborough.

50 years ago: Thousands of people had seen the York Cycle of Mystery Plays, but one question still remained unanswered: who wrote the first draft of the Plays? The writer of the Plays that were performed at York Festival this year put forward his theory that the evidence pointed to a monk from St Mary's Abbey in the mid-14th century. He endorsed the view that one man was responsible for the planning of the draft, and assumed it was a member of a monastery, and the place to look was the greatest York monastery, St Mary's Abbey. In 1357 at the order of the Archbishop of York, a monk was commissioned to write an instruction in English which was to contain all the most important points of the Christian faith. This instruction was to be read by parish priests, portion by portion, every Sunday until it was completed, and then it would be started over again. The monk also wrote some plays, and although there was no evidence to prove it was one and the same monk, the argument for this was quite persuasive.

25 years ago: An antiques shop in York was selling swimming costumes circa 1930, bought from a book dealer who had to take 160 of them as part of a job lot with a lot of suitably ancient texts. They consisted of belt-up thigh length breeches with vests for the chaps and low backed and "pretty low front" one-pieces for women, with mini-versions for children. The shop owners had tried them on and deemed them "very comfortable", with a "dark and promising hint" that "when they were wet they must have been a lot more sexy and revealing".

Updated: 11:31 Monday, July 12, 2004