Way we were

100 years ago: After complaints had been made of excessive charges by cab drivers to persons hiring cabs and hansoms to and from the racecourse on Knavesmire during the race meetings, the Watch Committee stepped in. They asked the Evening Press to print their recommendations that in future the maximum charge for either a cab or hansom to or from the racecourse be fixed at 4s, but in case five persons are carried in a vehicle at one time, an additional charge of 1s may be made. This special charge to be applicable only to the days of the races.

50 years ago: Off-ration butter was on sale in York shops, and some shops had branded margarine on sale, but shopkeepers reported that after 14 years of butter and margarine rationing, there was no rush to buy. One of the directors of a Coney Street shop said that he thought the price of butter would vary from 4s 4d to 4s 6d per pound, but it was too early to tell whether there would be any great demand for butter. Lipton's of Coney Street were selling butter at 4s 2d per pound, an increase of 6d on the ration price of 3s 8d, the manager adding that during the first hour his shop was open only one customer had asked for a pound of butter. There was, he said, plenty for everybody.

10 years ago: An ambitious university had failed to raise £300,000 to save a piece of history, as Bradford University tried to buy one of the famous RAF Fylingdales golfballs. The three distinctive early warning radomes were being demolished by then Ministry of Defence as they had been replaced by a £160 million computerised radar pyramid, and the university wanted a radome for a planned museum of technology in memory of Bradford's Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sir Edward Appleton, who pioneered radar. A member of staff at the museum had been told that it would be cheaper to buy a new radome than to have saved one from Fylingdales, and so the money raised would go towards that instead.

Updated: 16:26 Tuesday, May 18, 2004