Saturday, July 3, 2004

100 years ago: The Durham and New-castle Volunteer Engineers were in their annual camp at Strensall. It was sug-gested they might put in a useful week running a light railway line up to the common from the station, as there were plenty of sleepers handy - and a well-travelled set they were too. They had al-ready had a trip to Egypt and back, as they were scheduled to be part of the rail track to Khartoum. For some reason they were never used, and so they came sadly home again. Next, they were sent to Chatham, first by train to Goole then by boat. However, when they reached Goole the boat had already sailed, and they were brought back to Selby where, after running up a bill for storage for a few days they were sent on to Chatham by rail. On their arrival the sleepers were not required and instead of being stored there they returned to Strensall by rail. Columnist TT wondered if they should be awarded the Mediterranean Militia Medal after their volunteering for both foreign and home service, or better yet be used for the often-spoken of light tramway line to the camp, although he suspected that the line would end up being made of sleepers "from Timbuc-too".

50 years ago: York firemen raced to Bradford with brigades from other cities across Yorkshire, but not to put out a fire. Instead the men were taking part in a nuclear defence exercise. It was imag-ined that an A-Bomb had devastated an area within half-a-mile radius of the Town Hall, and the test, Exercise Brownroyd, was designed to try out ex-isting mobilisation, communication and control arrangements. More than 20 fire engines and other appliances took part, and although most of the men and women were spare-time workers, some were regular firemen, who had just fin-ished night duty and voluntarily joined in.

25 years ago: Minerva, goddess of wis-dom and drama, was rather a forlorn 'myth'. For nearly 180 years she had kept her solitary vigil, reclining on a pile of books, over the streets that were once the home of York's booksellers. She was carved in 1801 by local woodcarver John Wolstenholme, and periodically received a facelift, the latest of which was about to be carried out by Bellerby's Ltd after a grant of £300 was given by York Civic Trust.

Updated: 15:42 Friday, July 02, 2004