100 years ago

“Whatever you do, don’t spoil everything on your wedding day by telling your wife what ripping tarts your mother makes.

Swallow the bride’s pie, tell her it's a dream of delight, and then take a pill on the sly.” Such was the advice given to prospective bridegrooms by the Vicar of Brixton in one of his addresses. He had continued with the advice: “When you marry a woman don’t imagine that you know her. You’d be a fool if you did. She knows you right enough, or she wouldn't marry you.

Because a woman is well-dressed it doesn’t follow that she is clever; some stylishly dressed women are fools. Don’t judge her by her lips or her nose, or the quality of her dimples, but by intelligence and goodness.”

50 years ago

Gates for country houses or a railway bridge... nothing had been too difficult, or too elaborate for the Thomlinson-Walker Ironworks, in Walmgate, York.

Although the premises of the Victoria Works were currently a featureless pile of rubble, the lasting monuments to the skill of the 19th-century ironmaster, who could give the cold metal the vitality of carved wood, were still to be seen everywhere in York... if you knew where to look. Thomlinson-Walker’s had made the railings in the doorway of the Midland Bank, Parliament Street, at a time when the building housed the City and County Bank.

This had been the home of the late Mr JB Morrell as a child, his father being the bank's manager. The intricate vine pattern of the staircase balustrades in the De Grey Rooms had also come from the Walmgate works.

25years ago

Detailed plans to transform York’s abandoned SS Empire into a top regional theatre had been revealed.

The rush was now on to prepare the theatre for an official opening before the end of the year. New owners India Pru – who had bought the Edwardian theatre in Clifford Street at auction the previous September for £480,000 - would spend £2 million restoring it to its former glory.

They aimed to include a restaurant, bars and specialist shops to complement the refurbished 1,000-seat theatre. General manager for India Pru, Anna Whitaker, said: “We are not going to build a new modern building. The aim is for a sympathetic treatment of this very important theatre.”

The SS Empire opened in 1902 on the site of the old Corn Exchange and for decades was York’s premier entertainment venue attracting big names like Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy. Wrestling and bingo dominated the bill in recent years until the theatre lowered the curtain for the final time in November 1985 and was put on the market by owner Ernest Shepherd.