August 12

The situation in York this morning had undergone little change from that of the past few days.

There were scenes of military activity to which the citizens had now become accustomed, the same ceaseless round of work proceeding at the War Office, the depots, the barracks, and the railway stations.

The officers and clerks were kept busy and there could also be seen enthusiastic Boy Scouts, ready and waiting to be of any service they possibly could.

One of the busiest centres for days past had been the Army recruiting office. York and district had not lacked eager young men with courage and a desire to serve their country.

They had literally flocked to the office and nearly as many recruits had enlisted since the mobilisation of troops as ordinarily enlisted in a year.

50 years ago

Experts believed they had discovered the key to the jumbled stained glass in one of the ancient windows of All Saints’ Church, North Street.

The window, the third from the east in the South Wall, was part of one of the finest collections of mediaeval glass to be found in any parish church in the country, most of which dated from the 15th century, but there were two of the mid-14th century. It currently comprised the jumbled fragments of six lights.

In a complete hotchpotch, heads were separated from bodies, snatches of black Gothic lettering were scattered about, and other designs appeared to have been inserted at random. Right in the centre of the window was a small piece, four inches by two, showing part of a walled city.

Various theories have been put forward about what the window represented.

Now it seemed the mystery had been solved, for a drawing of the window executed by Henry Johnston, who had made a tour of Yorkshire in 1669-70 to make notes and drawings of monuments and stained glass in churches, had been discovered among the Johnston Papers in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The drawing showed the Nine Orders of Angels and would provide enough information to enable restorers to make the window much clearer.

25 years ago

At least three people who had been exposed to the Aids virus through infected blood products were taking legal action against Harrogate Health Authority.

A Harrogate solicitor was acting on behalf of one of them, a woman in her mid-20s who had received a transfusion of blood infected with the HIV virus after a road accident.

The woman was now living with the knowledge that she could develop full-blown Aids at any time. The patients had all been infected before screening treatments were introduced to ensure that all blood products were clear of the HIV virus.