100 years ago

A great surprise had been sprung upon the House of Commons when the Chancellor of the Exchequer asked leave to introduce a Bill to amend the Defence of the Realm Act.

Briefly, its purpose was to enable the Government enormously to increase the output of munitions of war. They already possessed powers to take over control of any works where munitions of war were being produced.

Under this new Bill they would also be able to take over any works and factories where such munitions were not now being produced, but which were judged to be suitable for, and capable of, such production.

For example, it would enable them to take over all the motor and engineering works of the country and set them all making shot, shell, and warlike material of every shape and kind. The Bill would give power to take over unoccupied houses in the neighbourhood of the works for the accommodation of workmen.

It would protect the owners of such works against the consequences of being unable to fulfil their contracts. It contained the fair wages clause and made fair arrangements for the compensation of owners without recourse to litigation.

 

50 years ago

Five new transmitters would early this autumn extend the range of BBC2 to cover half the population of the United Kingdom. It meant BBC2 was going national.

Currently BBC2 could be seen only by viewers living in London and parts of the south-east and the Greater Birmingham area. The five new transmitters would bring the channel to the Central Midlands, the North of England, part of South Wales, the Isle of Wight, and parts of Hampshire, Dorset and West Sussex.

By the end of 1967, it was hoped that roughly two-thirds of the population would be able to receive the channel and by 1969-70 ninety per cent.

 

25 years ago

A secret crypt which featured in a ghostly 100-year-old York legend had been discovered by workmen replacing the floor in St George’s Roman Catholic Church.

The workmen were lifting the stone slabs covering the floor when one dropped his hammer and heard the floor ring hollow. The crypt had burial spaces for six coffins and provided unsuspected evidence for a famous St George’s ghost story.

The story – which had been handed down in a former church warden’s family since Victorian times – told of uncanny bumping noises heard coming from underneath the church and the discovery of mysterious floating coffins.

The rediscovered crypt was seven feet deep and held four feet of clear water. The water had got into the crypt and would have lifted the coffins from their resting place and they would have bumped against the floor of the church.