100 years ago

The Rev Howard May, of Harrogate, had related to an Edinburgh audience that one of the most humorous examples of epitaphs he had come across was the one where a woman had lost her husband, and on the tombstone, after the usual inscription regarding his name, age, etc, there appeared two lines.

The first read: “May he rest in peace.” That was a fine thought and wish combined, but the effect was altogether spoiled by the second line: “Till we meet again.” One could not help feeling that when they were united once more he would catch it!

50 years ago

“There has been no age,” the Bishop of Selby (the Rt Rev Douglas Sargent) told a large, open-air congregation in York, “when there has been more church building than is going on in our own day and generation.”

The bishop, giving the address at the laying of the foundation-stone of Heworth Parish Church’s new daughter-church of Christ Church, Stockton Lane, York, spoke of Christian men's duty to be constant throughout the ages in worship.

“I marvel at the wonderful buildings put up in the name of God in Norman times. But our own age compares well with it,” he said.

Perhaps currently, though, one was more than ever conscious that our country was not as Christian as it might be. He hoped that such building as the one the people of Heworth were about to erect would be the means of bringing people to a truer understanding on the Love of God, revealed in Christ.

25 years ago

Rowntree of York had given up its long and determined battle for independence and thrown in its lot with Nestlé of Switzerland.

A new 1075p-a-share takeover bid by Nestlé, coupled with certain safeguards – namely that York would be headquarters of Nestlé’s UK operations - had been recommended to shareholders. Nestlé had promised to carry on Rowntree traditions in respect of employees and the communities where it operated.

Rival bidder Jacobs Suchard followed by formally conceding defeat in the takeover battle, and bowed out with a £200 million-plus profit, thus giving Nestlé effective control of Rowntree. The Suchard stake ensured that Nestlé held more than 50 per cent of Rowntree, and thus got control.

Rowntree chairman Kenneth Dixon would not only stay in charge at York but also be one of Nestlé chairman Helmut Maucher's top team at Vevey. York would, through him, have a voice at Nestlé headquarters.