100 years ago

An important step had been taken by the Government in calling upon women to register themselves for paid employment in the nation’s service, to fill up ranks which were at present without sufficient labour, and also to release men for the fighting line.

What was desired at the outset was that workers should be immediately available for the production of armaments. In the manufacture of shells alone thousands more women could be employed. On the land, too, there was urgent need for labour, and much of the daily work on farms could be performed by women. They might undertake duty in shops where men of fighting age were currently detained.

The Government proposed to use the Labour Exchanges as a means of bringing women into industrial service in the current emergency. They would thus know what women were available with or without previous training. This end would be obtained by a Register of Women for War Service. The scheme had the warm approval of leaders of the women’s movement and representative women.

 

50 years ago

“Children no longer obeyed their parents. The end of the world was obviously approaching.”

This, members of York Marriage Guidance Council were told at their annual meeting, was the text of an inscription dated 2800 BC, in Assyria. The meeting heard a talk, Youth Looks Towards Marriage, by Mrs Rose Hacker, of the national organisation. Tracing criticisms of young people by old through many centuries, she quoted one from ancient Greece that “children are now tyrants, and not the servants of their households”.

Interest in adolescents, she said, which had always been largely critical, had gone on and on through the years. But one could search the literature of the past and not find any rude remarks by the young of the old. Only recently, in books and magazines, had young people started to give their opinions of the world which older people had made for them.

 

25 years ago York

Theatre Royal was to close its scenery workshops with the loss of four jobs in a belt-tightening operation. The number of repertory productions would be cut, but contrary to some gloomy predictions, the theatre would remain open all this year.

These decisions, just announced, followed a cost-cutting exercise for the 12 months beginning April 1, 1990. Grant increases from the Arts Council and local authorities for the third year running had fallen well short of inflation.

A statement by the board of governors said the disappointing level of subsidy meant it was no longer possible to provide the same number of repertory productions as in the past. With only 24 weeks of repertory remaining, it was no longer economic to retain a year-round scenery workshops operation.