100 years ago

Tramps and tramps' children came in for a good deal of discussion at the session of the Yorkshire Poor Law Conference at Ilkley.

The Rev W Mahon, of Wakefield, said hundreds of children were being dragged about the country by incompetent, unsuitable and inhuman parents, and it was the duty of the guardians to stop at once that source of manufacture of paupers.

Mr FH Bagenal, Local Government Board inspector, said the number of children going through the tramp wards of Yorkshire had been steadily decreasing, and now it was so insignificant that it might be called negligible.

He did not think guardians ought to be mealy-mouthed about adopting children. He knew guardians who did so without winking, and he wished all would do it, where the conditions justified it.

50 years ago

On June 26, a new shop was to be opened in Stonegate, York. In fact, it would be called the Nearly New Shop. Its purpose was to benefit the Save the Children Fund and the National Association of Mental Health.

It would also do a good turn to donors and shoppers. Women whose position or purse (or both) enabled them to wear clothes and accessories only a short time before discarding them were asked to take or send these to the Stonegate shop. There, the staff would value them, and the price when sold would be divided with two-thirds going to the donor and one-third being shared between the two charities.

The shop would be staffed by voluntary workers of the York Save the Children Fund. The venture was being trialled following on from the success of a similar shop opened six months before in Harrogate in aid of the National Association of Mental Health.

25 years ago

It seemed that lovers of real food were fighting a losing battle against a tide of junky titbits in pots, packets and cartons. A press release from snack food giants KP claimed that the British were confirmed nibblers of nuts crisps and snacks.

KP published the Snack Food Review, which stated that we would be eating even more the following year, because of the growing trend towards more informal eating away from set mealtimes, completely new snacks for us to try as a result of new technological advances in the snack field, increased leisure time and greater overall spending power.

It was a worrying trend, largely because of the concern about the future fitness of a generation reared to think that dehydrated noodles in a pot constituted a nourishing meal. But while they were still talking in terms of technological advances in the snack field and promising us the Tandoori flavoured crisp, what hope was there?