100 years ago

HER licence under the Cat and Mouse Act having expired, Mrs Pankhurst had been re-arrested as she was leaving a nursing home at Notting Hill, London, on a stretcher to speak as she had promised at Holland Park Hall.

For some hours the house had been besieged by special branch detectives.

Shortly after eight o’clock a motor drove up and the stretcher was removed from it and taken into the house. In the meantime a uniformed constable took a seat next to the chauffeur.

A few moments later a procession of nurses and clergymen emerged from the house and stood around the car.

These clergymen were apparently the bodyguard which it had been announced were to protect Mrs Pankhurst from arrest. Then Mrs Pankhurst appeared recumbent on a stretcher, looking very thin and pale, and her hands nervously clutching a dark shawl. She was carried into the car.

There were both groans and cheers from the crowd. The clerical bodyguard did no more than utter a feeble protest.


50 years ago

HARRIS Tweed meant tweed wholly produced in the Outer Hebrides a Scottish High Court had ruled in Edinburgh.

Lord Hunter, delivering judgement in a marathon case heard in the Court of Sessions the previous year, when Argyllshire Weavers Ltd (members of a group called the Independent Harris Tweed Producers Ltd), sought a declaration that they could sell other cloth as Harris Tweed and prevent users of the “Orb” mark from saying it was not Harris Tweed, refused to grant either applications.

Independent Harris Tweed Producers Ltd, stated afterwards that an appeal was being lodged. Meanwhile, they said, they wished to emphasise that there was no difference in the hand weaving process of their Tweed and that marketed by the Orb producers.

All the Tweed was handwoven by the islanders in the Outer Hebrides. The main distinction was that the machine dyeing, spinning and finishing processes were carried out by the Orb producers in mills in the Outer Hebrides, while the pursuers carried out these processes in similar mills on the Scottish mainland.


25 years ago

COFFEE expert Tony Wild had just scooped the world markets and won the exclusive rights for Napoleon’s favourite blend.

He had bought the entire coffee output of the island of St Helena for the next three years and hoped to help the islanders expand their production afterwards.

Mr Wild, who worked with the Harrogate family firm of Taylor’s Coffees and Teas, said there had been interest in St Helena coffee ever since Napoleon died there in 1821 and asked for a cup of coffee on his death bed.

Mr Wild said he was impressed by the coffee’s perfume and subtle flavour.