This week we hark back to the days just after the First World War when a little girl called Muriel Fothergill - now Muriel Perry - was growing up in Micklegate, just inside the Bar Walls.

A family portrait, taken in the photographers' studio of Edwin J Fox, shows a two-year-old Muriel sitting on her mother Annie's knee.

Standing proudly beside them in his First World War Hussars uniform is her father, Frederick.

He served throughout the war in Belgium and France, Muriel, now almost 85 and a grandmother herself, recalls - and never actually saw Muriel until she was a year old.

She can't remember that first meeting, of course - but she does know her father was called up into the Hussars because he was a farmer's son and had his own horse. "He used to go to gymkhanas and that" she says.

She does recall her early life as a young girl in Micklegate as York began to boom in the post-war years.

The family lived with Muriel's grandparents, Thomas and Ellen Oldfield, in a large, four-bed semi-detached house in a courtyard at St Martin's Court, Micklegate. The name is still carved into the stone above the Micklegate door that led through to her courtyard, but the houses inside have gone now, says Muriel.

Micklegate was entirely cobbled, back then - and compared with today's busy streets, was very quiet. The only traffic was pedestrians, cyclists, and horse-drawn carriages. Even so, when Muriel and her little brother Frederick went out to play, it was only into the courtyard, not the street itself. There, they played hopscotch - or, inside, snakes and ladders. "In those days, we didn't have any other form of entertainment," recalls Muriel. "You were thankful for small mercies."

The little girl regularly did her granny's shopping - and she remembers one particular duty especially vividly. "There was a pork butcher on Ouse Bridge in those days called Wrights," she says. "My granny used to give me a shopping bag, which was called a bass, which was made of something like canvas.

"I remember - and laugh when I think about this - my granny used to put a basin in the bottom, and send me to Wrights for some hot pigs' feet in gravy. I used to walk up Micklegate Hill with the bass trailing on the floor and my gravy running out!"

Another shop she remembered was the old CWS - where the Co-op was later, in what was then called Railway Street - where regular customers were able to get 'divvys'.

Further afield were the bigger shops. In Coney Street, there was Borders - not the American-style bookstore, but a treasure-house of fine teas and coffees. The aroma of the fresh coffee could be smelled half way down the street, says Muriel. Also in Coney Street there was Leak and Thorp, York's first department store, which had opened in Parliament Street in 1848 and moved to Coney Street in 1869. A selection of ladies' hats and ladies' and gents' outfits often adorned the ornate display windows.

Another shop Muriel recalls vividly is Rowntrees, which she says was in Pavement, where Lloyds Bank is now. "There used to be halves of bacon hanging outside, whole half pigs, with lots of flies and bluebottles buzzing around," she recalls. "But you never seemed to catch anything, in those days."

When she was five, Muriel went to school. It was a short journey, up Micklegate and just through the bar walls to Micklegate Primary School - where the Citizens' Advice offices are now. She wasn't there for long, though. The family moved to Castleford when her father got a job in the glassworks, and she spent most of her schooldays there.

She still used to return to her grandparents' home in Micklegate every summer for the holidays. She, her brother Frederick, and her three younger sisters, Doreen, Valerie and Shirley, were all baptised in St Martin cum Gregory church.

The family did eventually return to live in York when Muriel was 14 - but in Haxby, not Micklegate.

A lifetime has gone by since those early days in Micklegate. Muriel has married, had a daughter, Jennifer, and two grandaughters, Julie and Sarah. Her husband, Henry, died a few years ago.

Many things have changed in York since the days of her childhood. The streets are choked with traffic now. "It's not safe on the streets any more. I don't know what my grandparents would think to it," she says.

Many of the old shops she grew up with have disappeared for good but beneath the superficial changes, York is still York. "The appearance of some of the streets has altered," says Muriel, who now lives in a bungalow in Huntington. "But the outline is still there. It's still my home town, is York, and I wouldn't live anywhere else."

But there is one thing she would like to know. Muriel believes that, at almost 85, she may be one of the oldest people still around who was actually born within York's historic bar walls.

Yesterday Once More, of course, would be delighted to hear from anyone else whose memories stretch back as far, or further, than Muriel's.