Archive

SIMON DYSON surged to his best round in 2015 to get his Joburg Open campaign off to a flier. The York-born golfer was in inspired form to post an impressive six-under-par 65 to be tied eighth going into today’s second round of the European Tour

DIEGO De Girolamo is poised to start in York City's number-ten role for Saturday's home match with Exeter. The on-loan Sheffield United striker was used from the bench during last weekend's 3-0 defeat at Northampton after returning from Bramall

STANDING in the freezing cold night watching enthusiastic enactors bashing the living daylights out of each other – presumably in an attempt to keep warm – a thought occurred. Here in York, the end of the Viking festival traditionally signals the

AS I pull into Upperdale Park, a young couple emerge out of a front door, carrying a vacuum cleaner and happy smiles. They’ve just bought one of the new houses here and are plainly delighted with their purchase. “It’s really good,” the young man

NORTHERN Ballet brings Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Les Ballets de Monte Carlo’s production of Romeo And Juliet to Leeds Grand Theatre from Wednesday to March 12. Set to Prokofiev’s score, played live by Northern Ballet Sinfonia, Maillot’s work is

AUDIENCE donations after each performance of the 2014 Rowntree Players pantomime, Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves, will go Door 84 Youth Club and the renal unit at York Hospital. A sum of £1,265.34 was raised from collections during the December

SPECTRUM Chamber Choir joins forces with its own Sinfonia to perform Handel's most celebrated oratorio, Messiah, under founder director Ben Horden on Saturday at St Wilfrid’s RC Church, Duncombe Place, York. "I am delighted to be leading this performance

FROM the producers of Vampires Rock comes The Meat Loaf Story, starring Steve Steinman at the Grand Opera House, York, on Wednesday at 7.30pm. Known for his larger-than-life performances when getting his teeth stuck into Vampires Rock, Steinman

Russell Watson tells CHARLES HUTCHINSON why he loves performing up close and personal. RUSSELL Watson came very close to singing in York Minster on his candle-lit Christmas tour of British cathedrals this winter. "We tried to get York but they

FRESH from their participation in this month's Transatlantic Sessions travels, folk trio Michael McGoldrick, John McCusker and John Doyle leave behind ten nights on the trot with Patty Griffin, Rodney Crowell, Sara Watkins and John Smith to mount their

LEEDS band The Dunwells round off their February travels with two Yorkshire gigs at Fruit in Hull tomorrow and a home-city finale at The Wardrobe in Leeds on Saturday. The four-piece of brothers Joseph and David Dunwell and cousins Jonny Lamb and

INSPECTORS found bird excrement on a rafter from which hams were hanging, when they visited a restaurant in York city centre. The grim find was in a storage garage for the Italian restaurant Il Paradiso del Cibo in Walmgate. At York Magistrates

NIGEL Havers, Sian Phillips and Christine Kavanagh are to reprise their West End roles in The Importance Of Being Earnest when Oscar Wilde's "trivial comedy for serious people" visits York on tour in the autumn. The Grand Opera House will host

WHAT happens when you combine a former street entertainer, children's funny turn and comedy writer with a poet and artist? The answer can be found at Pocklington Arts Centre on Saturday at 2.30pm when The Line Kings will present 90 minutes of crazy

FILM and art are coming together at Pocklington Arts Centre in celebration of the opening of The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. John Madden's sequel to 2012's £20 million-grossing British box office hit is booked in for 16 screenings from tomorrow

Courtesy of the Pias label, What's On has three CDs of Texas 25 to be won. Question: Which actor joins Sharleen Spiteri in the video for the new Texas single, Start A Family? Send your answer, with your name, address and daytime phone number

TEXAS will play Hull City Hall on April 28 on their 25th anniversary tour, An Evening With Texas. Sharleen Spiteri and her Scottish band will "present the findings of their 25 years in pop" in a new, intimate arrangement, in which Sharleen will

BARD of Barnsley Ian McMillan and Cartoonist of the Year Tony Husband team up for York Explore’s first foray into improvised comic poetry and art on Wednesday. Quick-on-the-quip McMillan and quick-on-the-draw Husband will "embark on a fast-flowing

Courtesy of the Rowntree Players, What’s On has three pairs of tickets to be won for the first night of The 39 Steps on March 5. Question: Who wrote the stage adaptation of The 39 Steps? Send your answer with your name, address and daytime

ROWNTREE Players are to stage Patrick Barlow's award-winning adaptation of John Buchan's The 39 Steps at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, from March 5 to 7. Directed by Gemma McDonald, this fast-paced whodunit for anyone who loves the magic of

AFTER the headlines in the United States over the FBI helping to recover a stolen 300-year old Stradivarius worth $5 million, Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma no doubt will be keeping her strings safe in Harrogate. Simone is to play her Mlynarski

IAN McCulloch, long-time lead lip of Liverpool band Echo And The Bunnymen, will give a rare solo performance at Leeds City Varieties tomorrow night. McCulloch, now 55, will be performing stripped-down versions of classic Bunnymen tracks, such as

IT IS roughly a century since jazz began to make an impact on mainstream public entertainment. From the early New Orleans bands, the music developed in to big band swing, then on to bebop through the innovations of Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie

FINALLY, the moment of truth. Are J Wilgoose Esq and Wrigglesworth one-trick ponies? Was Inform Educate Entertain a flash in the pan? Could they survive the brilliance of their singular debut? Second albums are the bogeyman of rock, a huge relief

SINGER-SONGWRITERS no longer arrive quietly and spend a while working out who they are. Instead they are thrust upon us, supposedly fully formed, and often riding a wave of excitable hopes and hype. Rae Morris is just one of the latest.

ROXETTE are on a mega tour of some of the greatest rock venues in the world. Only last night, Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle played the Sydney Opera House. Interestingly, the only UK date will be at the O2, London on July 13. That’s because

THIS is being billed as Rachel and Becky Unthank’s first studio album since 2011’s Last. In the meantime, there have been the Diversions records, a bravura series that has taken in Robert Wyatt and Antony and The Johnsons covers, recordings with

YOU haven’t heard of Gretchen Peters? In America, they call her the songwriter’s songwriter, newly inducted into the Nashville Hall of Fame. Only Lucinda Williams rivals her for writing roots songs with such an understanding of the complexities

PERHAPS it says something about Britpop that there is never any clamour to discover the new Oasis or Blur. Both terms have been used in association with Peace, the West Midlands outfit who have also been garlanded as the saviours of indie.

YORK alternative electronic production duo Haxby Swango release their first free-to-download EP, Banana Songs, this week. Vocalist Hutchy Swango and keyboardist Jack Swango craft “monolithic mega-disco soundscapes that smash at the senses and burrow

IS a congestion commission the best way to tackle the problem of York's traffic-choked streets? STEPHEN LEWIS reports. LABOUR proposals to set up a 'congestion commission' - headed by a panel of independent experts on £400 a day - to tackle the

BUSINESSES in York are being urged to pick up the gauntlet and join the fight to get the city's outer ring road dualled. A call for action has been made in support of a campaign which was launched last year and will see York business leaders travel

JEWELLERY retailer Ogdens of Harrogate is opening its second store in York after reporting success at The Little Diamond Shop in Lendal. The family owned jeweller has signed a ten-year lease with agent Carter Jonas for a property in Minster Gates

YORK convenience store company Costcutter has appointed a media agency as part of a new operations and marketing strategy. Costcutter Supermarkets Group, based in Dunnington, has taken on Leeds-based integrated media agency, Boutique, to handle

A BUSINESS competition held in York to seek out future accountancy talent saw a team from Harrogate Grammar School walk away with the prize. The students from Harrogate Grammar beat off competition from seven other teams to win the York heat of

YORK mutual healthcare society Benenden has marked the structural completion of a £45 million redevelopment at its hospital. A topping out ceremony was held at Benenden Hospital, in Kent, to mark the milestone in the project which will see the

THE new operators of East Coast trains have defended a decision to scrap its old customer loyalty scheme. Stagecoach and Virgin, who will run the new Virgin Trains East Coast franchise from Sunday, are replacing the existing scheme on that day

SCHOOL children from York will take part in a Shakespearean spectacular next month. York Theatre Royal, the Royal Shakespeare Company and pupils from seven local schools will perform The Head that Wears a Crown on Monday, March 16. The show

THE 2015 Beverley Folk Festival has a stellar line-up of award-winning artists, including nominees in this year’s BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. Among those appearing are Greg Russell and Ciaran Algar, who have been nominated for the Best Duo Award,

COMEDIAN Alan Davies is lining up even more Little Victories, one of them in York at the Grand Opera House on November 4. On the back of his 55-date British tour of Little Victories in 2014, Davies already had added extra dates for spring 2015

ON THE letters pages of this newspaper, there has recently been a debate about the morality of the Allied air raids that destroyed the German city of Dresden 70 years ago. Without going into the personalities, there are two divided camps. In the

AN almighty battle will be waged in York tonight. Tucked away in the spectacular Guildhall, the city's councillors will try to agree a budget for next year. It may not sound exciting at first glance, but it affects a huge raft of services across

A KNOCKOUT event has floored York Hospital’s Special Baby Care Unit after it received its biggest ever single donation. York’s Legions Thai-boxing Club handed more than £14,500, raised from its ‘Night of Alfie’s Legions’ show at York Railway Institute

CITY of York Council's leader is optimistic the city will get a budget for the year ahead at a crunch meeting this evening, despite opposition from other parties and rebel Labour members. Cllr Dafydd Williams, leader of the authority since December

IT is under starter’s orders. York Racecourse has unveiled its new weighing room, which will be home to jockeys from the start of the new season in May. The centrepiece of York Racecourse’s £5 million northern end development, constructed

SCORES of objections have been lodged against plans to build a huge wind turbine in Selby which would stand taller than York Minster. A plan has been submitted to build a 500kW wind turbine on land at Oak Tree Farm, near Selby Common, east of the

A NEW ‘City Beautiful’ report from the York Civic Trust pulls no punches when it comes to describing the shocking state of some areas of the city centre. The ‘Marble Arch’ tunnel in Leeman Road which leads to the NRM is ‘smelly, damp and dark’,

YORK'S proposed congestion commission looks almost certain now to be put on the back burner until after the May local elections. That is probably for the best. To work, the commission would need all-party support. But in its present form it is

YET again City of York Council has wasted money and yet again the vulnerable will suffer. The new care homes that were to built in York are now shelved but in the meantime it has cost £350,000 in planning and negotiations (The Press, February).

I WOULD like to make clear one aspect of your otherwise excellent coverage of the Green Party’s draft Budget amendment (The Press, February 24) in that the reduction in the extra funding allocated to winter roads maintenance is only a relatively small

IN REPLY to Mr Walker-Lyne (Letters, February 21), I would remind him that the deficit has been reduced by about 60 per cent under this Coalition Government, and a further reduction is needed. Mr Walker-Lyne and the Labour Party seem to have learned

I AM delighted that York Labour Party members have selected Rachael Maskell to be our Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for York Central. Not only does Rachael possess years of experience representing NHS workers, she understands the real-life

I HAVE been surprised to read some of the negative comments in The Press about the selection of Rachael Maskell as Labour’s candidate for York Central. Nick Love, the Liberal Democract’s candidate, even manages to make the extraordinary claim that

IF City of York Council can justify transferring York Theatre Royal to York Conversation Trust for £1 because it is in the greater public good, then why can’t it transfer the former Airspeed Factory to Yorkshire Air Museum for the same reason?

I RECENTLY had cause to make a journey to Hull. I’m not asking for sympathy. I enjoyed the trip through the Wolds and all the way out to Spurn Point. And it wasn’t only the hills and blue sky that lifted my spirits – it was the wind turbines.

IT HAS been recommended that the minimum wage should be increased by 20p hour from £6.50 to £6.70, while some MPs suggests a daily rate of between £5,000 to £8,000. Man’s inhumanity to man? Catherine Porter, Crayke, York.

WITH reference to recent letters and articles regarding the length of the summer school holidays, one consideration that I have not noticed being mentioned, is the time needed for the annual maintenance of the buildings. Even with contractors lined

WHILE it is understandable that an organisation would like to celebrate a successful year in business, there are better ways of doing it than sending 999 pieces of potentially damaging pieces of plastic over the skies of Yorkshire (The Press, February

PLEASE can anyone tell me where is the sense in expanding BioVale Cluster buildings “to research crops” on Grade 2 Agricultural land, Heslington and Sand Hutton, that could grow those crops, when there are large parts still empty on the Terry’s and

LAST week, Michael Fallon warned of the dangers posed by Putin’s Russia. I wonder if anybody else has recognised the similarities between the 1930s and today? In the 1930s, large parts of the world were in recession – same as today. Hitler

100 years ago Considerable interest had been taken in a number of tests of sirens, one of which would be fixed at the Electricity Works and used for the purpose of giving warning to the citizens in the event of an aerial raid on the city. In

YORK'S city centre streets could host evening events, music, dancing and open air bars if a council plan gets the go ahead. City of York Council has applied to its own licensing department for permission to have drinking, dancing, live music, plays

A MAN cleared of being a peeping tom has been barred indefinitely under a restraining order from going anywhere near the woman who found his camera in her bathroom. York magistrates also gave Mark Lund, 37, a 12-month community order for stalking

THE trial of a teenager accused of attempted robbery has been halted and the jury discharged at York Crown Court. Nathan Barrie Kelly, 19, of St John’s Walk, off Heworth Green, faced allegations that he pulled out a “combat” knife and confronted

RAIL workers at Hull Trains have voted to go on strike in protest at the "unwarranted" redundancy of a colleague. Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union backed industrial action by 9-1. The union claimed one of its members

YORK should follow the German's approach to development according to a former culture boss who is calling for "radical" changes in the city including the introduction of a tram system and shared heat networks. Former Liberal Democrat councillor

This year's General Election has been tipped as the closest in living memory. The University of York's Professor Neil Carter, an elections expert, gives his view of the fight ahead. THIS is the most unpredictable election I can remember, and probably

WITH 10 weeks until the polling day that will shape the future of York and the whole of the UK for the next five years, The Press today launches its Vote 2015 election coverage. Thursday, May 7, will see all York's city council seats and all MP's

A SERIAL drink driver’s “lethal” attitude to safety could have caused a fatal crash when she ignored signs closing the A1(M) in North Yorkshire in high winds, police have warned. Officers were dealing with a series of overturned lorries and other

A WIDE-RANGING blueprint for the future of York city centre has been launched by the city's Civic Trust. The conservation organisation is calling for a series of measures to improve the city, from removing the A-boards that 'infest' public spaces

HERE are 11 pictures of Strensall from The Press archives, dating back to the 1960s. This part of a series of galleries featuring archive photographs from areas around York which featured in The Press over the years, and we want to know what you

A FATHER died when he fell from a ladder being used to work on his own home. David Elks, 50, was completing parts of an extension at his house in Upper Poppleton when he fell from the 15ft to 20ft ladder with a piece of fascia board in one hand

RACE chiefs will pump another £300,000 into prize money during York Racecourse’s 2015 campaign - with the season-opening Dante Festival in May enjoying a £65,000 boost. A total approaching £6.5 million will be handed out across the 17-day season

JAMES FORD believes young hookers Harry Carter and Kriss Brining can not only fill the boots of star man Jack Lee this year - but also “surpass those standards” as the season goes on. Lee won individual awards galore during his five years at York

NEW Earswick All Blacks ARLC followed their best performance in two years with their worst - leaving player-boss Jack Stearman calling for high-quality consistency for the rest of the campaign. All Blacks were only edged by runaway Pennine League

RICHARD FAHEY, who pulled off a four-timer at Wolverhampton on Monday, can continue his excellent form at Southwell today. The Malton trainer saddles Patrick in the opening Unibet Handicap over five furlongs and Tony Hamilton’s mount is fancied

EASI-ROCKITS VX team were edged away from victory in a pre-season friendly against a multi-national University of York VX team. Following an invitation from the University, player-coach Paul Hildreth took the opportunity to give his Ugandan guests

AMBITIOUS Team York Suzuki motorcycle racing outfit have followed a Classic TT races coup with a coastal challenge. The team, which was founded by former rider Kevin Pearson and has annually tackled the Classic meeting on the Isle of Man over the

YORK Indoor Bowls Club were made to pay for a patchy spell as they lost 80-75 to Harrogate in the Yorkshire Ladies League. The Thanet Road side dropped 25 shots while only scoring 13 between the fifth and tenth ends, a run which took the aggregate