100 years ago

An appeal in the Yorkshire Evening Press the previous night had brought home to the York public the picture of 1000 young recruits in the city suffering intolerable hardships, and bearing undue privations.

“Come in your hundreds to the Assembly Rooms from 10am,” concluded the appeal, “with all the plates, forks, knives, spoons, and blankets you can beg, borrow, or buy.” The response this morning had exceeded the brightest hopes and most optimistic estimates. And what a motley, but useful selection of gifts there were. The graceful willow pattern plate chummed along with fellows bearing brightly coloured floral designs and they in turn were not ashamed metaphorically speaking to rub shoulder to shoulder with the less artistic but perhaps more serviceable metal platter.

Blankets, counterpanes, towels, socks, mattresses and pillows lay in huge heaps, and many a youthful ‘Tommy’ would enjoy tonight his first comfortable sleep for many a day, and be grateful for this outpouring of a public’s appreciation of him.

 

50 years ago

Once upon a time it had been easy to identify the fur collar on a winter coat. It was rabbit, it was fox, it was lamb (Indian or Persian) and - if you were a lucky one - it was mink. But now it was not so easy to identify a trimming on a coat (and this autumn’s brightest coats were all fur trimmed).

There was lamb with a difference (it was dyed beyond belief), there was lynx and there was raccoon. The Kalgan variety of lamb, which was soft, silky and curly, could come in rich and rare colourings as it took easily to dyeing. It could be dyed (at budget prices) to a splendid scarlet so that it matched up, in colour, to a bright red tweed coat.

Lynx was a blonde fur and it went very well on camel-shade casual coats for winter. And then there was raccoon. Well, Hallo Dolly and all that jazz. Raccoon had been the fur that trimmed 1920-style American College coats. Now it had come back in a milky brown, tipped with ginger for country coats.

 

25 years ago

Comedian Ken Dodd had staged a spectacular “thank you” show for the fans who had expressed their support for him during his tax fraud trial.

The 61-year-old star’s “Laughter Show” delighted the full house at Southport Theatre, a few miles from his home in Knotty Ash, Liverpool. All 1651 tickets for the show had been sold weeks in advance, earning box office receipts of £8000 to go to charities. Dodd took the stage to a standing ovation from the packed house, waving his tickling stick. He was soon into his quickfire, gag-packed routine, peppered with asides about his tax case.