100 years ago

Reporting on the engagement which had taken place at Dinant, Belgium, a Times correspondent, who had been present during most of the fighting, remarked that the fire during the afternoon had often been very heavy.

“When big guns, field guns, rifles, and machine-guns were all booming and banging and rattling at the same time the noise was tremendous,” he said.

“At the hottest moments it kept changing curiously and horribly in character, volume, and tempo, rising and falling with alternating diminuendo and crescendo, and hurrying and slackening pace.

"Sometimes the deafening volleys of reports sounded like the clattering of a clumsy, lumbering wagon jilting heavily over the ruts of a badly made country lane; sometimes like the brisk hammering of thousands of hammers on wood, regular and spasmodic, and then regular and relentless again, sometimes like the roar of hundreds of heavy goods trains thundering and bumping along to meet in hideous collision.

"And this, after all, was a mere baby of a battle, supposing that 8,000 men took part in it, compared with the battle that was to be.”


50 years ago

Several hundred Beatles fans had given themselves a hard day’s morning at London airport to see their idols leave for America.

In heavy downpours they huddled under plastic raincoats on the roof of the Queen’s building, punctuating their wait with squeals of anticipation.

The building had been opened specially early at 8am instead of 10am to cater for fans who started arriving at 5am, seven hours before the group were due to leave. When the group drove up girl fans forgot the rain streaming from soaked hair and joined in a crescendo of screams. The Beatles faced a hectic 23-city tour.

In San Francisco, where thousands of fans were expected to meet their plane, a special protection paddock had been prepared for them.


25 years ago

The big clean-up of York’s rivers had begun. York City Council had taken the first steps towards scouring the Ouse and Foss of their accumulated scum of rubbish and regular patrols were promised.

Mr Trevor Phillips, the director of environmental services gave assurances that council officers would draw up recommendations on a practicable future cleansing programme.

“It will have to be a regular programme,” he said.

A council clean-up squad had taken to the water within 24 hours of the Evening Press first highlighting the sorry state of the city’s waterways.

The three-man team had pulled 25 sackfuls of waste from the water in less than a day.

Conservationists hailed the sweep as a crucial first step, and looked forward to when the city’s waterways would be as clean as the city’s footstreets.