Friday, July 2, 2004

100 years ago: Columnist TT was call-ing for Scarborough Corporation to make more of the Manor of Northstead, which along with the Chiltern Hundreds was one of the two places a Member of Par-liament could applied for the Mastership of when he was "weary" of his work in the House of Commons. The field was part of the Duchy of Lancaster, and lay abutting the beach of the North Bay at Scarborough, and was "barely large enough to swing the proverbial cat round in". If MPs could be induced to apply for Northstead, TT thought the exercising of the privileges which custom gave them would be a great draw in the summer season. In the middle of Northstead was a conical mound with the ruins of a stone building, said by some historians to have been the Manor House, by others to have been a magazine. The Lord of the Manor had the right to spread and draw a net through the water from the point to which he could throw a bow shot from the mound, taking as his own all the Royal and specially-protected fish that may come within the meshes.

50 years ago: After 14 years of meat control by the Ministry of Food, freedom of choice was restored to the housewife when meat rationing ended. When the first sale of fatstock by auction was held at York Cattle Market, butchers were able to buy the stock most suited to their particular trade, and through them, the housewife was able to exercise her choice. In preparation for the first auc-tion, several alterations had been made at the cattle market, and in order to im-plement the Government's promise to the farmers of a stable market, a defi-ciency payment scheme was in operation, which guaranteed to the producer a minimum price for each animal.

25 years ago: A fifty-foot long replica of a Viking longship, called Odin's Raven, was nearing the end of its 1,500-mile journey from Trondheim in Norway to the Isle of Man for the millennium cele-brations there, when columnist Pressman let slip that not everything on board was authentic. When the 'Vikings' woke up each morning, rather than grabbing the nearest elk skin, they all had special labels attached to their clothes to avoid confusion. The reason this had become known was that the la-bels were printed at William Sessions Ltd in York.

Updated: 09:12 Friday, July 02, 2004