100 years ago

A “Moor Jock” sheep - one of a race bred on the Whitby Moors, and noted for their almost goat-like agility - had belted from a drove being driven by road from Seamer to Filey, and led its pursuers at a hot pace across country to the Filey Brigg headland, where, after bounding down the cliff side to an overhanging ledge, leapt clean down to the rock 40ft below.

Any other animal in all probability would have been instantly killed, but the “Moor Jock” landed on its feet apparently little the worse, though it would have been drowned by the incoming tide but for the presence of a salmon-fishing crew, who took the sheep on board and conveyed it to the coble landing.

 

50 years ago

Television viewers had seen Fyfe Robertson pay 1908 prices for whisky and beer, stick an old 1840 1d black stamp on a souvenir postcard and record his voice on an Edison wax cylinder.

He was visiting York Castle Museum in the first of a new BBC1 series, Brush off the Dust. In the opening sequence, outside the late Dr JL Kirk’s door in the famous Kirkgate, he explained the beginnings of the museum and then visited Terry’s sweet shop where “conversation lozenges” were being made.

In the weaver’s cottage, Princess Mary Court, there was a demonstration of spinning and weaving. After a 2d tot of malt whisky in the gaslit King William IV Hotel in Half Moon Court, Fyfe Robertson made an appeal for information about the once-popular game of brasses. Despite the fact that a league trophy for the game hung in the King William, very little was known about it. In the nearby hardware shop Mr Patterson, curator, demonstrated for him period gadgets including a washing machine, apple parer and mincing machine.

Members of the museum staff, in costume, took part in the production, which ended with a Stagecoach departure scene following a visit to the Post Office where the museum’s facsimile 1d black was bought.

 

25 years ago

The price of shares in United Biscuits, which owned Terry’s of York, rocketed as talks of a Swiss takeover swept the City.

Jacobs Suchard, defeated in the battle the previous year with Nestlé for control of Rowntree, was expected to launch a bid for the British food empire. With more than 14 million shares traded by noon, takeover fever gripped the money markets.

Sir Hector Laing, chairman of United Biscuits, dismissed the takeover talk as “unfounded speculation.” But City analysts predicted that a £2000 million hostile bid was imminent.