100 years ago

Something new in the way of a recruiting appeal had been seen at Cardiff when 5,000 children, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters of men who had enlisted in the forces, paraded the streets.

They were accompanied by wounded and invalided men of the Welsh Regiment – 1,000 in number – a band led the procession, with detachments of Crimean veterans, girl guides, boy scouts and boys’ brigade. The children carried the flags of the Allies, and pointed appeals were made by banners variously inscribed. One read, “My daddy is at the front, where is yours?”

Another, “Shall we be ashamed of you when the war is over?” A third, “My father is a soldier, what is yours doing?” and a fourth “We don’t want to lose you, but we think you ought to go.”

 

50 years ago

Nine British tanks rumbled through West Berlin in a show of strength as the West German Cabinet met in a city partially blockaded by Soviet and East German troops.

Shortly afterwards, East German troops lifted the barriers on the autobahn leading west out of Berlin, which had been blocked this morning for the third day running.A British Army spokesman said the parade of tanks of the Queen’s Own Hussars would be followed by a similar demonstration in the afternoon by the third Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment.

The tanks rumbling through the British sector were the first visible sign the West Berliners had had, since the Communist interference with the city’s access routes began the previous week, of Allied determination to maintain their rights in the city.

 

25 years ago

Radiation hotspots which had appeared in Yorkshire and Humberside following the Chernobyl disaster had been given the all-clear. The first full-scale tests since the disaster four years before showed that the area was officially safe.

The region was now within recommended contamination levels, and hotspots detected after the accident had disappeared. Heavy rain had fallen over Yorkshire as the radioactive cloud emitted from the stricken Soviet nuclear reactor passed over the region. Experts later admitted that vegetation around Ilkley and Skipton had higher radiation levels than permitted in food.

Although the area did not suffer the high radiation levels found in Cumbria and North Wales, high levels of radioactive caesium had been found in North Yorkshire honey after the accident. Radiation levels had been taken for 20 towns and the highest had been just one fifth of the recommended maximum exposure to radiation in a year.