100 years ago

MR Harry Hancock, an electrical engineer, who had just returned from Antwerp, where he was during the Zeppelin bombardment, gave the following account:

“On August 25th, I was suddenly awakened at 1am by a terrific explosion. I heard the humming sound of a Zeppelin engine. I went out into the street and saw an immense airship about 500 feet over the house tops. I could see the gas bag, a huge black mass, gliding over our heads and the faint little blue trail of light coming from the exhausts of the engine.

Afterwards we discovered that the first explosion heard was the bomb which had been dropped on the Bourse, evidently intended for the King’s Palace, only fifty yards away. The effect of this explosion was to destroy two cafes. The bombs were in the shape of heavy gun shells, containing a very high explosive. Among the contents were numerous pieces of iron about nine inches long, which flew in all directions, carrying death and destruction. To each bomb was attached a piece of sacking to act in the same way as the feathers of an arrow.”

 

50 years ago

DO not necessarily scorn the outlook on life of the young worker, wrote Mr R Coxon, York’s Youth Employment Officer. “Certainly the young worker should be understood and his motives appreciated... the important thing is that the adult standard should be clearly displayed as a desirable thing for young people to follow,” he continued.

“It should be made clear that the wages which they earn are not simply for performing a job of work. But, they are also payments for loyalty, for honesty, for good timekeeping, for willingness to learn and for the effort they make to give good work to their employer.”

 

25 years ago

LOOK in the rule-book and you would not see a law that said anyone playing cricket for Yorkshire must be born in the county. Look in the record-book and you would see that Yorkshire had not won the county championship since 1968.

The rule barring players born outside the boundaries of Yorkshire was unwritten. But its existence was at the heart of Yorkshire cricket. Yorkshire were at the end of another season which could only be described as humiliating. They had been out-played by teams with an abundance of overseas players. When all other counties discarded their reliance on home-grown talent and welcomed, first, all Englishmen and, then, the cream of foreign players, Yorkshire stood alone – proud of their glorious traditions.

It was understandable, therefore, that the die-hard traditionalists, mindful of their previous years of success, would be quaking at captain Phil Carrick’s demand that Yorkshire scrapped their famous rule.