100 years ago

WITH regard to Army Reservists, Territorials, and Volunteers in the railway service who had joined the Colours, it was announced that the railway companies had arranged to supplement the Army pay and allowance in such a manner that the families would be maintained in circumstances which should avoid hardship during the absence of the breadwinner of the family.

Occupants of the companies’ houses would not be disturbed. This also applied to the families of Naval Reservists and Volunteers. In addition, on the return of the men from active service, positions would be found for them on the railways equal to those they had formerly occupied. If, through any oversight, any family found itself in want of assistance, the attention of the railway company concerned should be at once called to the case.

 

50 years ago

ON October 1, the long-awaited regulations governing children’s flammable nightdresses would come into force. From then on, it would be an offence to sell nightdresses suitable for children up to the age of 13 which did not conform to the British Standards requirements of non-flammability.

The wonder was that it had taken so long to come about. For countless generations, little girls had met a hideous death, or been maimed and disfigured for life because there nightdresses had caught fire. It was easy to blame heedless mothers who bought nightdresses made of flannelette, the chief villain of the piece. But then it was human nature to put aside the thought that this could possibly happen to your child, and the accident was not common enough to make a direct impact.

But those who, like Dr Reynolds Colebrook, who headed the fire section of the Birmingham Accident Unit, and who had witnessed the waste of life, the hell of pain, despair and remorse which one split-second of carelessness could bring, had felt strongly that something must be done to end it all. As a result of the Surgeons’ Conference of 1956, the British Standards Institute had set up a preliminary committee to look into the whole question of flammability of clothing textiles, which had eventually lead on to the new regulations.

 

25 years ago

YORK was among the top 10 universities in the country for research. This rating was seen as ammunition for its fight to establish a science park.

York was hailed as the star of the new generation of universities in a national league table. It was placed 10th, behind first and second Cambridge and Oxford, in the University Funding Council’s list.

Mr David Foster, the university’s registrar, said this placing confirmed York’s high reputation as a leading centre for science, and would help attract companies to the proposed £125 million science park.