From our archives:

85 years ago

News from the district consisted of Choir boys from Richmond Parish Church who had gone on their annual outing to Scarborough.

A Darlington pig dealer, had been fined £5 and £5 6s costs, for offences under the Movement of Swine and Swine Fever Orders.

In national news, a new book due to be published about Edgar Wallace had revealed that when he stood at the last General Election as Liberal candidate for Blackpool he had stretched his bank overdraft to the extent of £150 for a deposit to be given to the returning officer.

When the deposit was finally repaid, he blow it all on the racing.

The Prince of Wales was the guest of honour at the centenary dinner of the British Medical Association at the Royal Albert Hall, considered one of the largest dinners ever held in London, with more than 2,000 guests.

50 years ago

After a meeting at Eggborough Power Station, near Selby, had concluded with a total of 50 men been made redundant.

In retaliation to the news the men who were still at work, banned all night work and overtime.

The men who had been working a 63-hour week, were told at the meeting that their hours would drop to 50 and Sunday working would be banned.

Four generations of a family joined a party at 7 Orchard View, Skelton, where Mr and Mrs Thomas Snowdon, celebrated their golden wedding anniversary.

And in Haxby a well-known local athlete, Miss Jacqueline Taylor, who had represented Yorkshire and was a member of the Rowntree’s Athletics Club was married at the local Methodist Church.

20 years ago

Fresh evidence had come to light that a rare pine marten, thought by some to be almost extinct, was thriving on the North York Moors.

The destruction of forest habitat and persecution by gamekeepers had contributed to the decline of the pine marten, but a spate of recent sightings between Great Broughton and Helmsley and Great Ayton and Osmotherley had given new hope to wildlife experts.

York’s most famous actress, Dame Judi Dench, had taken time off from the West End play Amy’s View to make her first trip to the United States in 38 years, to promote her new film Mrs Brown, in which she played Queen Victoria.

And Tracie Andrews had been found guilty of the brutal roadside murder of her fiancé Lee Harvey and jailed for life.