October 1

The Archbishop of York wrote: “During the last month we have learned three things more clearly and each should be a spur to action. The first is that Germany might have at the last moment secured peace and that she insisted on war.

The second is that the way in which the war has been waged illustrates with terrible clearness the spirit in which it was undertaken. I do not believe all the tales – often told by excited imaginations – of atrocities in the field. I know personally of many instances in which our men wounded or taken prisoners have been treated by Germans with the old true soldierly courtesy. But the devastation of Belgium, the sack of Louvain, the burning of Rheins Cathedral cry aloud for judgement.

These two things affect the third, that the war will demand long and hard sacrifices from the people of this country. For there can be no truce with the spirit which makes war of this kind possible until it is crushed.”

50 years ago

Public libraries today had a duty to provide for all, not just the best brains, Mr OS Tomlinson, York librarian, told the Public Libraries Conference.

“The dilemma that has worried us for so long about whether we should be a scholarly service for the few or provide for the general and special needs of the many is now like so many of our attitudes, 50 years out of date and springs from the necessity of a penny rate mentality,” said Mr Tomlinson. “There is now no dilemma. We have now a statutory duty to provide for all.”

He referred to the growth in the educational awareness of books in recent years and said the educated man and woman would turn to books and libraries as the most natural thing to do when any problem arose, when any query had to be answered and when any leisure had to be filled.

25 years ago

Doctors in North Yorkshire restated their opposition to the Government’s health reforms – despite an apparent breakthrough in talks with the Health Secretary, Mr Kenneth Clarke.

The minister had pledged that family doctors would be free to prescribe the drugs patients needed without cash limits. But a senior doctor in York warned that the profession intended to keep up its fight to prevent the fragmentation of the health service. “It is one thing for Mr Clarke to make a pledge, and another to see how it works out in practice,” said the doctor.

Speaking after the talks, Mr Clarke said: “The profession expressed its concern that firm budgets for regional health authorities and for family practitioner committees would operate as a cash limit on patients’ medicines.”