Friday, May 28, 2004

100 years ago: If superstition were not dead, according to columnist TT, one would almost be inclined to regard as a remarkable and expected sequel the story of the lone navigator in the old Scarborough lifeboat, Queensbury. For some reason she was never liked by her crew. She never drowned a man, and she always acted well on trials, but there was an indefinable "something" about her that the men didn't like, and when the excuse of a smashed bow presented itself to clamour for a new craft it was seized with delight. It was felt that some time or other she would take toll of life, and there was a very real sense of relief when the order for a new boat was given. Boats have whims and fancies, TT believed, half concealed dispositions which "like those of women, are not to be accounted for, but they are none the less real". The new owner of the lifeboat, having made her seaworthy again, left the harbour with fine weather prevailing, but was spotted by the skipper of a Grimsby boat a few days later in very stormy weather. The Grimsby vessel approached the boat to take the occupant off, but as he attempted to jump aboard he fell into the sea and disappeared - thus proving the lifeboatmen's suspicions correct.

50 years ago: Found drunk and incapable in a hedge in Tadcaster Road in York, a 60-year-old labourer, of no fixed address, was sentenced to one day's imprisonment by York magistrates, as he was unable to pay an alternative fine of 10s. A police constable who found him said the man had been roused with difficulty, and unable to walk unassisted, his breath smelt of methylated spirits and a bottle of the spirit was beside him. The labourer had four previous convictions for the same offence, each time involving methylated spirits.

10 years ago: North and East Yorkshire were gripped by UFO fever, as the region had reported more than 20 sightings this year from people who claim to have seen strange objects in the sky, and UFO experts were even investigating claims that a York couple were abducted by aliens. This week, two people in York claimed to have seen an onion-shaped object dart over the city, both sightings been made separately, and a student reported seeing what she believed was a UFO hover over a field near Stamford Bridge. The following week, North Yorkshire UFO experts were to lobby Parliament, demanding greater Government involvement in scientific research into reported sightings.

Updated: 10:33 Friday, May 28, 2004