100 years ago

Two Finnish sailors who had arrived here after three months’ captivity in Germany related thrilling tales of their escape.

One, the captain of a confiscated sailing vessel, evading his guards, concealed himself under the Stralsund landing stage and then hung for an hour to the side of the Stralsund-Trelleborg steam ferry. A Swedish steward perceived him and gave him a rope, with which he attached himself to the ferry boat. After the boat left port the Swedish sailors took the Finn on board and hid him in an empty cask, in which he travelled to Trelleborg.

A second Finnish captain was arrested with his crew and made to work at the gas works at the village of Roseburg. He attempted to escape, but was caught and sentenced to death. Two hours before the time fixed for his execution, the captain, an immensely powerful man, killed a sentry with a blow of his fist. He then escaped and reached Luebeck.

He hid for two days and nights in the coal bunker of a Swedish steamer bound for Copenhagen before he was discovered. When he reached Copenhagen he was befriended by the Russian Consul-General.

 

50 years ago

Every year, in every major country in the world, there was a steady growth in the number of scientific books and periodicals published. It was estimated that scientific literature currently doubled in quantity every 15 years.

How was the scientist of the future to find his way through this flood of new material? This was a problem being tackled at Thorp Arch, near Boston Spa, where the National Lending Library of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research was already housing a 500,000 volume store of scientific books.

Opened in November, 1962, in buildings formerly used as a Ministry depot, the NLL used a radical new technique in library working. It filed its 500,000 volumes alphabetically by titles, instead of by orthodox cataloguing methods, so that although there were 25 miles of shelves, it took an average of only two minutes to find a volume.

 

25 years ago

The chairman of York Civic Trust had repeated his warning that the city must not become “choked and fouled” with cars. “We cannot allow York to become desecrated by the car. We must, somehow, make it become our servant,” Mr John Shannon told the trust members at their annual general meeting.

In his annual report Mr Shannon hailed the closure of Deangate in York as one of the most momentous events in the organisation’s history. Mr Shannon urged a new train of thought looking towards an integrated transport system for the city with commuters brought in to work via re-opened railway stations at Copmanthorpe, Strensall and Haxby.