100 years ago

AMONG the injured of the British Expeditionary Force who had arrived at Charing Cross, London, by the Continental boat train, was a soldier in the King’s Own Lancashire Regiment.

He stated how he had been in the trenches for four days. The battle was waged, he said, at a distance of not more than 1,000 to 1,200 yards.

Although suffering heavy losses from the British artillery fire, the Germans gradually crept nearer, and those in the trenches were finally ordered to charge the enemy with fixed bayonets, some of the Germans coming within 50 yards of the trenches.

Immediately the Germans saw the Britishers charge with bayonets they bolted. It was during this charge that pieces of shrapnel struck the soldier who was relating the incident.

The German bombardment was terrific, but the damage done by their batteries was slight compared with the enormous quantity of ammunition expended.


50 years ago

IT WAS another of those weeks in which York’s five cinemas had only one completely new film between them to show, complained our film critic. Cliff Richard and friends continued their run at the ABC in Wonderful Life.

The Tower, Clifton and St George’s all re-ran old, or at any rate previously-seen pictures. Of course there are old films and old films.... York cinemagoers would surely jump at the chance of being able to see again the best of the old, especially as they are getting little opportunity to see the best of the new.

Old Hitchcocks, old John Fords, Ealing comedies, Bogart’s gangster films or Thirties musicals. The best of everything, from Birth of a Nation through North by North West to The Servant could be had.

Regrettably, not many of the old films we actually get at York cinemas these days has been chosen because of its artistic merit or even its historical interest. Indeed, it is often impossible to work out why some of them were chosen at all.


25 years ago

COUNTY councillors were poised to spend £50,000 on swimming lessons for schoolchildren.

The move came ten years after subsidised swimming tuition had been axed to save cash. But the county education committee had agreed to launch a pilot scheme which could pave the way for the full-scale reintroduction of swimming lessons for children.

The authority’s decision to scrap swimming tuition had prompted a storm of protest when first suggested in 1979. Now an education sub-committee had to decide how best to allocate the money.

The aim was to provide swimming lessons for children aged ten to 11. But the county education officer, Fred Evans, warned that the full cost of tuition could not be met if the scheme was extended to all schools throughout North Yorkshire.