Way we were

100 years ago

If the tremendous tide of Liberal victories at the polls continued as it had begun, the House of Commons would not be large enough to seat all the Government supporters on one side of the House. Already more than half the whole House of 670 members had been elected, and, presuming that the Liberals gained seats at the same rate as had been experienced, the composition of the House of Commons would be something like, Liberals 410, Nationalists 81, Labour 44, and Unionists 135. The Liberal majority over all other parties would be 150, and the Liberal, Labour, and Nationalist majority over the Unionists would be 400.

50 years ago

Drivers who were summoned at York Magistrates' Court for causing obstruction by parking cars in the city streets were being convicted every time, but there was very rarely any real evidence of obstruction having been caused, said Mr I Witcomb, representing a driver at the court. The Bench should not automatically convict drivers unless there was something unreasonable about the way in which the car was left, he said. Mr Witcomb said his client left his car for 45 minutes while he went shopping. He had not chosen a narrow, congested street such as Coney Street, but a wide thorough-fare - The Stonebow. He was perfectly entitled to leave his car there. Mr Witcomb's client was one of eight motorists fined £1 for causing unnecessary obstruction by parking on the Stonebow. Evidence was given that difficulty was caused to bus drivers by the cars being parked there.

25 years ago

York University had been bitten by the Space Invaders bug. Hundreds of students were addicted to the video games. Mike Donaldson, aged 20, said: "It got so bad with me that, having asked my friends to stop me playing by force if necessary, I was sneaking down in the middle of the night to use the machines." Susie Hutchinson, aged 21, said that the craze might not last long but at present "in some colleges they are virtually having riots if the machines break down." Junior common room committees which hired the machines, were making a small fortune. All six colleges had three or four machines in their games room and each was taking more than £100 a week. The junior common rooms' cut was about 50 per cent. "It has given a tremendous boost to our finances," said Rodney Cowen, aged 20, treasurer, of Derwent College junior common room. "The committees are used to being in the red or barely solvent but now we have about £1,000 to play with." Some of the junior common rooms had been buying new disco equipment or subsidising concerts with the cash.

Updated: 16:10 Wednesday, January 18, 2006