100 years ago

Professor Charnock, speaking at the annual dinner of the Yorkshire local section of the Institution of Electrical Engineers at Leeds, said if the prospects held out to young men were not sufficiently bright they would fail to enlist the services of the best men, and in his opinion this was the one thing there was a tendency to neglect in all branches of engineering in this country.

“I would plead for more consideration for the juniors and workshop apprentices. I submit that they are badly treated. Firms tell me they cannot get apprentices. The answer is plain – because you treat them so badly. You don’t make it sufficiently attractive for them. The boy prefers to go into a bank or to a warehouse rather than to take 3s per week which is offered him by most engineering firms. Now this is a very important point, because if you can’t get apprentices today you will not have the workmen tomorrow.”

 

50 years ago

The introduction of the BMC Mini car four-and-a-half years before had marked the beginning of a motoring revolution. Prettier cars had made more immediate impact, but once the “right” people had been seen driving the new Minis, they had become fashionable. As traffic problems became more acute throughout the country, they had graduated from “second car” status to first choice for business, professional and pleasure.

Alex Issigonis’s award-winning baby car had had a slower rise to popularity than its brilliance deserved, yet its sales at home and abroad showed it was only at the beginning of its reign as the ultimate in compact, safe, reliable and economic motoring. Currently being produced at nearly 6,000 a week, it was difficult to realise that it had once been regarded both here and in America as something of a freak.

 

25 years ago

Gas lamps were to burn again in St Helen’s Square, York, as part of the refurbishment and footstreet paving scheme.

The return to gas illumination with original lamp standards and gas mantles, had been inspired by York Civic Trust. The trust had already contributed £37,000, along with a similar sum from English Heritage, towards repaving a substantial part of St Helen’s Square with traditional York stone. Dr John Shannon, chairman of the trust, said that British Gas had readily agreed to provide a supply of gas to the lamp standards free of charge.

“These will be the first ‘new’ gas lamps in the city this century,” said Dr Shannon. The two lamps, complete with lanterns on top of columns with a matt black finish and gold leaf decoration, would stand on plinths. There were only ten others left in the whole city.