From our archives:

85 years ago

The 3rd (Kings Own) Hussars had finally arrived in Southampton having travelled all the way from India.

Staying at the Cavalry Barracks, York, the 450 strong Hussars who had only spent four years at home since 1898, were greeted by one hundred and thirty telegrams of welcome as the train pulled in to York Station.

Greeted by a large crowd and transportation to convey soldier’s wives and children to the Barracks, the men then formed up in Station Square before marching to the Barracks.

According to features writer Beryl Harper, the average mother was delighted to see the smallest kink in her child’s hair.

“I believe it is going to curl, she will say delightedly, and how carefully she will coax those indefinite signs.”

“Naturally wavy hair is a gift and the possessor is indeed fortunate.”

50 years ago

Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow had agreed to a trial separation after 16 months of marriage.

Sinatra, 52, and the slender 22-year-old daughter of Maureen O’Sullivan and the late director John Farrow were married in July 1966, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The mutual separation came as no surprise to friends of the couple, who were aware the Sinatras had spent more time apart during their brief marriage than they had together.

A new £100,000 ear, nose and throat ward, x-ray unit and operating theatre at the City Hospital, Haxby Road, York, was well on its way to being completed just in time for Christmas.

The project, financed by Leeds Regional Hospital Board, was the biggest to be undertaken for several years.

However, the building will not be brought into use until January.

And Candyland, Craven’s confectionary factory in York, announced that the company had become a “Fagin’s paradise” after having over £6,000 worth of stock stolen in the last year.

20 years ago

British Airways said it was investigating allegations of a scuffle involving Paula Yates at Bangkok airport as she flew out to Australia following the death of her lover, rock star Michael Hutchence.

A distraught Yates’s journey to Sydney was made worse by an alleged violent run-in with ground staff during a stopover at Bangkok airport.

And York Theatre Royal pantomime stars Berwick Kaler, and Martin Barrass, celebrated the opening of the second studio at York Hospital Radio with presenter Steve Eccles.