100 years ago

Just about 8 o’clock in the morning the inhabitants of Scarborough realised that something out of the ordinary was occurring.

It was a noise like thunder, only with a sharper rattle, and the similar reports which followed at intervals of a little more than a second convinced everyone that the town was being bombarded. Shells rained over Scarborough from three German warships, many being sent in the direction of the Admiralty Wireless Station on Stepney Road. Great damage was done to property, not only on the sea front, but in all parts of the town.

The Grand Hotel, the Royal Hotel, the Balmoral Hotel, the Castle Walls, houses in Wykeham Street, Gordon Street, St John’s Avenue, St Nicholas Cliff, Glenroy Terrace, Park Avenue, Church Stairs Street, and the South Cliff suffered to a terrible extent, and it seemed extraordinary that so much damage could have been caused in such a short space of time. By 2 o’clock it was estimated that about twelve people had been killed and many injured.

A lady who arrived in York shortly after 10 o’clock had formed one of a party of fugitives who had left Scarborough by the first train. “The people were minus hats, coats, luggage, tickets — minus, indeed, everything but the barest wearing apparel,” she said. “As I hurried along to the station bricks and tiles were falling from the houses, hundreds of windows were smashed, and flames and smoke were coming from several parts of the town. There were hundreds of people startled, excited, and all enquiring what to do and what it meant.”

 

50 years ago

British “pop” singer Dusty Springfield, ordered to leave South Africa after singing to a racially mixed audience, said: “I am speechless. The whole thing is so ridiculous.”

Miss Springfield said in a telephone interview from her hotel in Cape Town that she did not know why she had been served with a deportation order by an official of the Interior Department. “I do not see that they have any right to do it, but at the moment I am not in a position to argue,” she said.

 

25 years ago

More than 50 years of industrial tradition had ended at the Rowntree factory in York, with the closing of the main Time Office.

Introduction of an automatic time-and-attendance system had brought about the ‘redundancy’ of what was once one of three such offices in the factory, handling up to 8,000 time records from 120 collecting points.

As well as playing a big part in employees being paid correctly and on time, the office had been an information desk, help-line and general clearing point for queries, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.