WE have a quite extraordinary sequence of photographs for you to puzzle over today, all of them from the collection of the late York historian par excellence, Hugh Murray.

Each of the photographs - they are actually postcards - are labelled 'York military tattoo'. There is no date on the postcards themselves - and nothing to indicate exactly where or when the tattoo was held.

However, a bit of digging (OK, the website of the Yorkshire Film Archive) reveals that a grand military tattoo took place regularly in York between 1914 and 1938, apparently at the racecourse.

Several of the photographs show what looks like a huge mock-up of York Minster, complete with a stretch of fake city wall.

Another shows an armoured car, constructed out of what looks like metal plates riveted onto a conventional (if rather old-fashioned) car chassis. There are also two tanks, which look as though they could date from between the wars.

A postcard we managed to find during another internet search, which looks similar to some of those on our pages today, sheds a bit more light. It is published by 'Beryl of York' - like these - and the caption reads ' York Military Tattoo, Knavesmire, York Racecourse, 1929.' So we guess that at least some of these photographs, if not all of them, date from the same event.

If any readers know any more about the extraordinary occasion that these postcards commemorate, we'd love to hear from you.

In the meantime, we hope the rest of you will enjoy them as much as we have...

Stephen Lewis