Friday, May 19, 2006

100 years ago

Farmers in North Yorkshire and parts of Durham were discussing the advisability of giving farm servants half a day holiday in the week. This was, perhaps, more in response to a growing demand amongst the farm men for Saturday afternoon to themselves than with a view to popularise farm service. Some large farmers had found it much easier to get good, skilled labour by the inducement of half a day's grace in the week. The innovation could have been the commencement of a new state of things in rural districts, produced by circumstances which plainly showed work on the farm had to be made brighter and more attractive.

50 years ago

Few of the new films showing in York the following week could be called outstanding. The reason was that Whit week marked the opening of the holiday season, when the best of the new films were reserved for the holiday resorts. At the Odeon The Conqueror was showing in Cinemascope. It cost £2,000,000 to produce, and had a cast of 64 speaking roles, plus 5,000 extras. The finished product was a gaudy slice of mangled Mongolian history. John Wayne, complete with drooping moustache and a fur hat, which might have caused an upset in the market for Davy Crockett headgear, starred as the young Genghis Khan, fighting his way across the Gobi Desert in pursuit of world conquest. En route, he trampled on the Tartar tribesmen, kidnapped a princess (Susan Hayward), was taken captive and tortured, and escaped to rise again as the undisputed dictator of the Eastern world.

25 years ago

Operation Spring Clean Up had begun at Haxby. Members of the parish council, armed with black plastic bags, set a good example and took to the streets clearing litter from the village. "The rubbish is mainly cigarette packets and fish-and-chip wrappers," explained Councillor Jeffrey Thornton, chairman of Haxby Parish Council. The council started its annual spring clean the previous year. This year a competition at the three village schools to design anti-litter posters was again held and winning posters were given out for display in shop and house windows. "It was an attempt to make more people aware that we have an attractive village but that parts are spoiled by litter louts," continued Councillor Thornton. "Even so, I think people are taking more and more pride in the village than they used to."

Updated: 16:20 Wednesday, May 17, 2006