May 28 (From York Press)

May 28

8:08am Monday 28th May 2012 in Way we were

100 years ago

The perils of egg-gathering on high cliffs on the coast had again been exemplified this Whitsuntide.

A youth who was following this hazardous practice on the Bempton Cliffs, near Flamborough Head, had a miraculous escape from death, being gallantly rescued from the rocks.

One of the numerous parties of egg gatherers currently on the coast in the vicinity had just concluded their lunch and were preparing to lower Herbert Moore, one of their group, to gather eggs.

There were very few people on the cliffs at the time. When they reached Roll Up, a place that could be negotiated with a hand rope by an experienced person, a lad rushed up with the startling news that a young man had fallen over the cliffs.

Moore and his companions immediately gathered up their ropes and rushed to the scene of the accident.

On reaching the unfortunate man they found him clinging to the cliffs. In attempting to climb back he had been stopped by a ledge; his rescuers stated that had he gone further he would have had a sheer drop of 80 feet, and undoubtedly have been killed.

After he had been taken to the top a gentleman visitor gave him some whisky, and he quickly revived.

50 years ago

The current issue of The Illustrated London News contained a full and pictorial account of Roman and Viking discoveries by Mr LP Wenham, staff tutor in the Department of History at St John’s College and well-known York archaeologist.

The article described the excavations in the garden of St Mary, Bishophill Jr, in the first look of any magnitude at the colonia of York as it had developed in the third and fourth centuries – the colonia being the town housing the civil population as distinct from the fortress occupied by the garrison.

Running beneath the floor of one fourth-century Roman building was an elaborate system of Roman culverts.

25 years ago

The Queen would be asked to help pay for repair work to Thirsk’s town clock.

Town councillors agreed to make a direct appeal to Buckingham Palace after hearing that little grant aid was likely to be available for the project.

More than £6,000 was being spent on repairs to the stonework of the clock tower which was put up 91 years before.

The idea of making a special plea to the Queen came from councillor David Murkett, who said that Her Majesty might look favourably on the request because of her family connections with the clock.

The structure, one of Thirsk’s foremost landmarks, was built in 1896, to mark the wedding of the Queen’s grandfather, King George V, who was then Duke of York, to Princess Mary of Teck.