100 years ago

A detailed letter written by Lance-Corporal G Heckingbottom, of the 8th Railway Company, Royal Engineers, about his activities said: “There is a canal running through Cuinchy to La Bassee, and the German shells smashed the sluice-gates to smithereens, causing the water to overflow the lower banks and flood the trenches, running the risk of drowning the men there. A wire came through ordering us Engineers up to the front to dam the canal.

"About 4pm we started off in auto-buses, taking over four hours on the journey, and at 9.30pm we proceeded, with bayonets fixed and taking a convoy of 4000 sandbags, down the narrow line of earthworks and through the reserve trenches, and then along a railway line and through to the first line of trenches, passing under heavy and destructive shell-fire the whole way.

"Here we halted, only 250 yards from the German trenches, and worked hard until we had 3700 of the bags filled. I volunteered, when asked, to lay the sandbags in the water, which was four feet below the bank.

"The work commenced at midnight, all the men lying down flat on the ground and passing the sandbags along from one to the other until they reached us on the bank. It was not until about 3am that the bags began to show through the water, and I can assure you it was a great delight to feel we were at last approaching the end of our task."


50 years ago

Designed in America, and built originally for that market, the Sunbeam Tiger had now been released for sale in Britain at £1445 10s 5d.

The idea of a super-fast version of the 1.6-litre Sunbeam Alpine Sports had been conceived in April 1963, by Ian Garrad, Rootes' representative in America. A car was fitted with a 4.2-litre V8 Ford engine and proved highly encouraging.

Rootes took up the project officially, re-checked the design and introduced it at the New York Auto Show in April of 1964.

Since then, the car had made a name in international sporting events, with a number of successes in America, class wins in the International Geneva Rally and 4th and 11th places in the recent Monte Carlo Rally out of 237 starters.


25 years ago

Deangate in York was set to be closed permanently and the controversial Bootham-Gillygate link road scheme put on ice.

Highways chiefs were recommending councillors to take two steps vital for York's future.

Councillors would be urged to make the Deangate/Minster Yard closure permanent though a final decision would not be taken by the full County Highways Committee until March 16.

And highways chiefs were urging them to shelve the link road relief scheme - though not to scrap it altogether.