100 years ago

A LETTER received from a subaltern at the front said: “I have been flooded out of my bed, and this little spot on the table seems to be the only one where no muddy drops are falling from the roof of the dug-out and I might as well seize the opportunity to write between now and daylight. When I wrote last we were frost-bound.

"It soon thawed, and for the last fortnight we have been the victims of rain. We have the prospect of 18 days over Christmas before we get back to billets. It is difficult to give you an idea of what steady rain here means.

"One’s lines seem such an orderly, permanent, town-like, solid series of cubby-holes and trenches that when they all start to fall in, and one doesn’t know where one is in the dark, it is as if one were trying to navigate a pitch dark London in ruins. The communication trenches are a dream now.

"Tonight they are simply a river, but when we came in a few nights ago they were knee-deep in a paste of the consistency of wet dough. Three men had to be left behind, and dug out later. You can imagine the labour of bringing up ammunition and rations. The poor devils arrive absolutely worn out, but, of course, still have to do their whack of sentry duty during the night.”


50 years ago

WORK would start after Christmas on the widening of Lendal Arch, York.

The arch, which would also be lifted, was to be altered so that it could take two lines of traffic in comfort. On two Sundays in the New Year the arch would be closed to traffic.

Those days, said York’s City Engineer, Mr RS Bellhouse, would be critical ones. “We shall start at the arch on December 29, and continue for several weeks.

On the first Sunday, the top of the arch will be stripped and on the second, steel beams will be put in for the new arch,” he said. One-way traffic from the junction of Rougier Street through to Station Road would be suspended on those two Sundays to take traffic which would normally use Lendal Arch.


25 years ago

WINDSOR Safari Park was offering the perfect Christmas gift for the gardening enthusiast with everything.

Family and friends could pick up a bag of exotic animal manure – the finest blend of elephant, giraffe, rhino and zebra droppings – from the Park for £1, with all proceeds going to charity.

Once dug into soil, the manure was said to do wonders for roses, runner beans and cabbages alike, with particularly spectacular results when used on Calathea zebrina (zebra plant) and Ilex cornuta (horned holly).