From our archive:

85 years ago

Health Week had been enthusiastically received at Acomb, after a large audience gathered at the Co-operative Hall to hear tips on how to get rid of the common cold.

Speaking on general health and hygiene Dr Dudgeon, of Poppleton, referred to the importance of fresh air, and said it should be realised that the average person breathed air 17 times a minute.

Plenty of sunshine was also essential, and householders should not shut the sun out because it spoiled their carpets and curtains.

“Who was Harrogate’s mysterious girl night rider?” wrote a Yorkshire Herald reporter after the town had spent the past fortnight puzzling over this elusive person who had been seen regularly riding a bicycle about the streets between 10pm and 6am.

All attempts to solve her identity or find the reason for her nocturnal excursions had failed.

50 years ago

York City FC, bottom of the Fourth Division, had sacked their team manager, Mr Tom Lockie.

The directors announced that they had decided to dispense with his services, after careful consideration of the overall position of the club.

Disappointment had been expressed over the meagre turnout at a televising of a service in Selby Abbey.

Although the choir, where the service took place, was full, one report estimated that there were no more than 25 people in the Nave.

Fears had been expressed that the abbey service would be a repeat of the Howden Minster controversy, where regular worshippers had complained they were being pushed out by strangers.

And Mr Michael Alison, MP for Barkston Ash, turned the key in the door of the new Poppleton Youth Club.

20 years ago

The Evening Press had revealed an audacious three-step master plan, which involved Hull Kingston Rovers buying out York City, moving Hull KR to Bootham Crescent, and shifting the York RL franchise to Gateshead.

According to York City chairman Douglas Craig, he had no plans to sell the club, thus blocking any chance of Bootham Crescent becoming the base for a rugby league and football ‘super-club’.

Thirteen workers at Tadcaster’s Sam Smiths brewery lost their jobs after hidden cameras allegedly caught them drinking while at work and Georgie Ellis, daughter of the last woman to be hanged in Britain, had revealed she was pregnant, only weeks after her marriage to a former York rugby player.