100 years ago

AN AIRSHIP had passed over Hunstanton at about 10pm, and followed the Great Eastern Railway track by way of Heacham, a village on the Wash.

Here a bomb had been dropped. It had fallen several hundred yards from some cottages and beyond tearing up the ground did no damage. The explosion of the bomb was very loud and alarmed the whole district in the quietness of the night. The report was heard between four and five miles away.

The airship went to Snettisham and passed directly over Sandringham towards King’s Lynn. The villagers of Heacham had a fairly clear view of invading aircraft, describing it as a large balloon pointed at each end and shaped like a sausage. Heacham was six miles to the north of Sandringham.

 

50 years ago

YORK De Grey Rooms Ltd offered a remarkable range of wining and dining facilities against a modern yet elegant background – a quiet revolution which considerably widened the scope for a good evening out in the city.

A banqueting hall, reception room, three bars and two restaurants, lavishly and sumptuously decorated, formed the setting for this new establishment. Different tastes and appetites were catered for – from the man who had called in merely for a drink, to the couple who were attending a banquet and ball.

The directors of the concern, Mr Bernie Moss and Mr Eric Moss, were pleased that they had managed to put virtually every square yard of the rooms in the building to good use. The military history of the De Grey Rooms was recalled in the decorations of the Yorkshire Bar. The curtains had a design associated with the Hussars, and military prints hung from the walls, including an original of one Earl De Grey.

 

25 years ago

THE Archbishop of Canterbury was to pay tribute to the courage of the relatives and friends of Lebanon hostage Terry Waite, who was beginning his fourth year in captivity.

Dr Robert Runcie, in a special broadcast to mark the third anniversary of the disappearance in Lebanon of his special envoy, praised the courage of Mr Waite’s wife, Frances, and others close to him.

Dr Runcie, on the Ten To Ten programme, said that despite daily efforts to contact Mr Waite’s captors, no hard news of him had been received since he disappeared in Beirut on January 20, 1987, on a mission to rescue hostages.

Most prisoners could calculate when they were likely to be released – “Terry can’t,” said Dr Runcie, who also remembered the family and friends of hostages John McCarthy and Brian Keenan.