YOU should never look back, they say. No good comes of it. Try telling that to Avril Webster Appleton. The York author has been peering over her shoulder in print for several years, bringing back many happy memories for local people in the process.

Her books Looking Back At Heworth and Looking Back At Layerthorpe both proved popular. They combined historical research with personal testimony and are an invaluable record of the way people used to live.

Last week, Avril launched her latest work, Looking Back At Monkgate And The Groves. The formula is the same: oral and written history interweave to take the reader on a tour of York's most neighbourly boroughs in bygone times.

The book boasts more than 70 photographs. Early chapters chronicle the origins of these areas through to Georgian and Victorian times.

As well as many distinguished buildings, the Victorians also constructed a "grim and forbidding" place: the new workhouse in Huntington Road. It replaced the one on Monkgate in 1849.

Men and women were still segregated, Avril writes, and "there were separate wards for men, boys, idiots and vagrants as well as an Industrial School for boys".

"Conditions in the workhouse were still very bad. A report by the Board of Guardians stated that the inmates were only served potatoes that were black and soapy."

As York grew during industrialisation, so did this suburb. "Before the demolition of many of the small houses in the 1960s in the Groves, this area was criss-crossed with small streets containing numerous shops of every description," Avril said.

"Many of the inhabitants had large families and were quite poor but there was a close community spirit."

Among the local characters was Bill Fairless, the landlord of the Castle Howard Ox pub, Townend Street, in the 1930s.

"He was so huge, 23 or 24 stone, that he filled the doorway of his pub and could down a gill of beer at one go."

Other local traders bore the scars of the First World War. Mr Millard, the newsagent from Garden Street, had one good arm and another which was only a stump, under which he tucked his newspapers when he delivered them.

The barber Mr Nicholson had a badly ulcerated foot and used a swivel chair while cutting the hair of his customers.

Reading the memories of older residents of Monkgate and The Groves, you are transported to another world. Rose Webster grew up in Lowther Street in the 1920s. At that time there were few cars, and a bicycle was a status symbol.

Horse-drawn carts frequently came round the Groves. "There was the man who sold herrings, 12 for a shilling, the coal man who rang a little bell, selling coal at two and six, and the rag and bone men who gave goldfish for payment for rags. There were also the shops where you could get a halfpenny on a jam jar and fourpence on an undamaged rabbit skin."

Richard Fowler's dad Frank grew up in the Groves and was a celebrity in the Twenties. He was an excellent boxer.

"He attributed his prowess at boxing to the fact that he was once set on in the Groves by a rival gang from the Walmgate area. He obtained his revenge by tackling each one as they left work.

"He also took part in blind boxing matches in the York Gala. He did a lot of his training at the back of the Exhibition pub at the corner of Bootham and Gillygate."

Mr Fowler remembered other colourful people and incidents. One lady was so annoyed by the noise from late-night revellers that she emptied her chamber pot on them. Sid Haw, who owned a garage, was bow-legged from riding in speedway races, he recalled.

But the undoubted neighbourliness did have a darker side, as Mr Fowler told Avril. "Many immigrant families lived in Union Terrace in the early years of the 20th century, families like the Kaisers, Morris and Steigman.

"He remembered his aunt telling him that once, in the First World War, she had to pull Mrs Kaiser off the road and take her into her house to escape demonstrators against German families.

"He recalled that a Mr Tasker had been found dead in suspicious circumstances in a house in Providence Place. This house was well known as a gambling den and a lot of money changed hands here, and it was often raided by police."

Civic life was recalled by Mr C Hutchinson. His grandfather Charles lived in Park Grove and was Lord Mayor in 1937/38.

"When Alderman Hutchinson was elected in 1937, one of his first duties was to help distribute food parcels to the unemployed.

"Four tons of tea, margarine, sugar and liver were given out to unemployed people who had to queue in Exhibition Square.

"In December 600 poor children were given a Christmas treat. They saw a western film, Laramie, at the Grand Cinema in Clarence Street and were given sweets and toys."

Soon war broke out, and the area was hit by bombs from a number of air raids. Park Grove School and the gasworks were damaged in a raid in December 1942.

That night, Amos Watson was returning from choir practice with his wife. They had just opened the door to their Monkgate home when Amos was flung forward by the blast of the gasworks bomb.

He was unharmed, but his hat had vanished.

It was not until spring cleaning the following year that it was discovered neatly perched out of sight on the top of the grandfather clock in the hall. Just where the blast had carried it.

Looking Back At Monkgate And The Groves by Avril Webster Appleton costs £6.95. It is on sale in York at the Barbican Bookshop, Fossgate, London's Newsagents, Heworth, Mr Lake, the butcher, Lowther Street, or direct from the author (add 50p p&p) at 18 Whitby Drive, Stockton Lane, York YO31 1EX.

- YESTERDAY Once More on August 26 featured an appeal by Pete Horton, who is tracing former classmates at Dringhouses Primary School. It ran alongside a picture of Mr Goodall's class trip to Fountains Abbey in 1959.

Unfortunately, the contact details were omitted. Apologies. They are: Pete Horton, 20 Witherley Road, Therstone, Warks CV9 1NA, or email him at petehorton@hotmail.com

Updated: 12:32 Monday, September 09, 2002