100 years ago

FOR many weeks the Military Hospital at York had been ready for the reception of wounded British soldiers, and the first batch, 77 in all, had just arrived on a special Red Cross train in which the men had travelled from Southampton.

Very few people had been aware of the coming of the soldiers until after the arrival of the train, but within a few minutes of the news leaking out a dense crowd gathered in the vicinity of the station. The arrangements for dealing with the men were worthy of the highest praise.

Beyond one of our representatives, the wife of one of the wounded men, and three other ladies, no members of the general public were allowed upon the platform, and this greatly conduced to a quick and efficient dispatch of the work in hand.

The police along with a detachment of the Royal Army Medical Corps were in attendance. There were no serious cases on the train, and most of the wounded men were able to walk to the motor cars and motor ambulances.

 

50 years ago

POCKLINGTON District Lions Club’s forthcoming campaign to urge the people of their area to bequeath their eyes for use after death to enable blind people to see had been commended by a distinguished eye surgeon.

Mr J A Magnus, president of York Medical Society, said: “Your campaign to popularise the idea of bequeathing eyes for therapeutic purposes deserves support and I wish you 100 per cent success.”

Mr Magnus said the first time the eyes of a dead person had successfully been used for corneal grafting had been in 1937.

 

25 years ago

SEVENTY-YEAR-OLD Pat Bradford had taken up roller skating — to keep up with her husband Fred, aged 91, when he opened the throttle on his high-powered electric wheelchair. She had got so tired going out and about with him that she had hit on the idea of hitching a lift.

“I went into a toy shop and told a young girl that I wanted some roller skates,” said Pat. “She thought they were for my granddaughter, but when I told her they were for me, and they were my first pair, she looked at me as if I was barmy.

Now Fred can tow me all over town and I just hang on to the back of his chair.” Fred, crippled by arthritis and a series of strokes, still liked to get out of the couple’s home in Barton-on-Sea.

“In the end I simply wasn’t able to push him any more in his normal wheelchair. So we bought the electric wheelchair second hand for £1,845 and then he wanted to go out all the time,” said Pat. The answer was to get her skates on.