100 years ago

Pantomime would not come amiss to York audiences even at this overdue date - nearly four weeks behind Boxing Night.

However, it could not be other than welcome, appearing as it did in the form of Dick Whittington And His Cat.

With neither flattery nor favour one could say of the newest of the Royal pantomimes that it was a merry, melodious production, much better than all the bills claimed for it, and as picturesque and pleasing a piece as anything in this line currently touring the provinces.

“Dick” was not a series of music hall turns strung together by the thinnest story (usually in silly verse), and played in a disjointed spirit.

It was nicely balanced, excellently conceived, splendidly staged, gloriously acted, and charmingly danced.

In short, it was correctly labelled a pantomime, and withal one of the very best which Mr Percy Hutchinson had booked for the Royal.

The previous night’s crowded audience at the Royal had sealed the success of the piece by an expression of appreciation as sincere as it was well deserved. The “house” had laughed for three hours without tiring.


50 years ago

Patients would soon be wearing stethoscopes at the Maternity Hospital, York. But while the medical staff with their stethoscopes were listening in to heartbeats, the patients with theirs would be listening in to a different kind of “beat” - the musical sort broadcast by the BBC.

For the patients’ stethoscopes would be headsets for receiving radio programmes, and they were to be tried out experimentally to see how effective they were. It had been suggested that the “radio pillowphones,” which had been in use for some time, should be replaced by lightweight stethoscope headsets.

Their advantage was that they provided the same facilities as the pillowphones but they were more personal. If they were accidentally left on, they could not cause annoyance, even to a person as close as the next bed.

Twelve stethoscope headsets would initially replace defective pillowphones, so that their popularity could be assessed.


25 years ago

Priceless Roman remains, found at Yorkshire’s internationally-famous Queen’s Hotel site had been smashed into fragments - and dumped as ordinary building rubble.

Arched windows, walls, tile and mosaic from a huge York building, thought at one time to be a Roman emperor’s lost palace, had been destroyed by mechanical diggers working on a new office block.

York Euro-MP Edward McMillan-Scott condemned the destruction of the remains.

Assurances that the new offices would be designed in such a way as to protect the archaeological remains had been described as worthless.