SEVERAL readers have been in touch - by phone and email - to tell us about the Lord Mayor who appeared, unidentified, in a photograph we carried last week showing him meeting members of a WVS (later WRVS) 'meals on wheels' team. He was, of course, Alderman Robert Stavers Oloman, who held office as Lord Mayor from 1959-1960. His wife, the lady mayoress, is standing next to him in the photograph.

The photograph was taken by a rookie young photographer who had just joined the staff of the then Yorkshire Evening Press. His name was Keith Massey - and after leaving the Press, he went on to become a distinguished TV cameraman and Chairman of the Guild of Television Cameramen.

Keith, now retired and living in Bishopthorpe, says that Alderman Oloman was known for his work with disabled people in York. "He held a senior position at the Royal School for the Blind - or was it deaf? - in Bootham," he says. Unfortunately, according to what Keith remembers, it seems that Alderman Oloman's life had a tragic end. "He committed suicide by walking in front of a main line locomotive near York as he believed - or was told - he had cancer," Keith says. "It was a big shock at the time."

Unfortunately, our cuttings file on the former Lord Mayor seems to have gone missing, so - unless more readers get in touch - we can't tell you much more about him just yet.

We did find a couple of photographs of him in our archive, however, which we reproduce here. And we also managed to find a few of the statements he made to the local press, both from his time as a senior councillor and from his year of office as Lord Mayor. So here he is in his own words...

In January 1960, speaking in his role as Lord Mayor on the importance of making overseas visitors to York feel at home. Visiting journalists from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa had called on the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House, and as they walked into the dining room they saw that the miniature flags of their respective countries had been placed in a prominent position on the table. Commenting on the flags, Alderman Oloman said: "We think it makes visitors feel at home, and it shows we have not received them without giving some thought to the countries from which they have come."

Telling members of Northern Counties branch of the Incorporated Association of Architects and Surveyors in October 1959 - again when he was Lord Mayor - that he was 'quite bewildered' by the efforts of some planners, architects and builders: "One looks around a city like York and sees examples of architecture and surveying, some of which are beautiful and some of which are incomprehensible to people like myself."

In July 1956, addressing a council meeting three years before he became Lord Mayor and showing a commendable sense of financial nouse when it came to the thorny question of whether the authority should rent or buy a television set for the Mansion House. Renting would cost £40 a year - whereas if the council bought a set, it would only cost 60 to 80 guineas, Alderman Oloman said. He thought it would be best to buy a set. "For two years rental, we can have the television set forever." There's something very York about that.

Stephen Lewis

Reader Mrs Iris Bedford got in touch to give us a kindly rap over the knuckles for the caption which appeared with one of the WRVS photos we carried last week. This suggested the WRVS served their last cups of tea at York District Hospital in 1988. Not so, says Mrs Bedford. The tea service was still going as late as 2003. Mrs Bedford should know - she was the tea bar organiser for the WRVS until 1992...