100 years ago

THE buttonhole adopted by the fishermen at Scarborough in connection with the wedding of two of their colleagues was the radish.

The fishermen had a style of celebrating these events peculiar to their own fraternity, and each fisherman’s wedding seemed to originate something whimsical.

The vegetable adornment was quite new. Females at these wedding festivities had been known to don male garments, and men to wear silk “toppers” of the derelict order, bought from cabmen for a few coppers.


50 years ago

IT WAS beginning to look as though we were not missing much by not being able to watch the BBC’s shining new second channel.

The evidence of surveys so far suggested that many of those in the London area who could get the service if they wished were not watching it either.

The size of the audience was only one way of judging the success or failure of the new programmes.

No one had expected the whole of South-East England to be glued to its screens for such academic occasions as “Tuesday Term,” the one-night-a-week educational service. But it was clear from the responses to the survey that most viewers found little in the new channel to distract them from their well-established diet of BBC1 and ITV.


25 years ago

YORK and District amateur rugby league were set to create a piece of history by accepting Full Sutton maximum security prison into the Sunday League the following season.

Though several prisons had played rugby league on a friendly basis in the past, Full Sutton’s commitment to a full season of league action was believed to be the first such move.

They would meet every York Sunday club the next season with all players vetted by the Home Office. But it would be home games only for the Full Sutton players

. “When clubs start arriving inside the top security walls they are bound to come out impressed and possibly envious of the league set-up. We have a very good playing surface plus after match social facilities though not of course for the home side. Every Wednesday we watch and study rugby videos followed by a practical skills session backed up by another training session on Saturday mornings,” said prison officer and coach Derek Jones.

A squad of around 20 inmates trained regularly for the rugby team, which played on the prison’s sports field - protected by an anti-helicopter net. At the start of the season, few fellow prisoners stopped to watch practice games but the team was now beginning to draw a crowd.