From our archives:

85 years ago

The Queen of the Fairies, with crown and wand, paid a visit to York County Hospital.

The children in the Victoria Ward, who were expecting the visit, were very well behaved in consequence and each remembered to always call the Queen her “Majesty.”

Sitting majestically on the top of a large Christmas tree, and after a majestic wave of her wand, she read the names of the children from her book.

The children were in high glee and had heaps of fun. Holding lighted candles, the nursing staff and some of the children entered the ward singing carols.

Hull telephone girls had been forced to listen to the pantomime, “Jack and the Beanstalk,” broadcast by the BBC.

Owing to a contact with trunk lines and landlines the pantomime had been relayed to Hull trunk exchange with strong intensity and for some time contact could not be traced.

50 years ago

Bandleader Harry James and a red-haired former Las Vegas show-girl, Joan Boyd, were married in a private 20-minute ceremony at a Reno, Nevada, wedding chapel.

James, 51, was the former husband of Betty Gable.

Their marriage was dissolved in October 1965, in Las Vegas.

Miss Boyd, 27, was his third wife. The rule of an abstinence under which Roman Catholics had been forbidden to eat meat on Fridays was to be lifted in England, Wales, and Scotland and replaced with voluntary acts of self-denial.

With Christmas scarcely over, York people were already thinking of summer holidays and, despite devaluation and currency restrictions, 1968 looked like a boom year for travel.

Inquiries and bookings were well under way at York travel agents, with Spain the most popular holiday choice.

According to the Co-operative travel bureau they had already taken about 450 family bookings.

20 years ago

A young bird fancier hoped all his feathered friends would come home to roost before the New Year after 15 finches and canaries flew the nest.

Some of the birds cared for by eight-year-old Greg Tate, of Westbourne Road, Selby, got into a flap when the roof of their aviary was lifted by a strong gust of wind.

Naturists in Selby were planning to get together in the New Year.

The pool and other facilities at the Abbey Leisure Centre were preparing with outside-facing windows to be blacked out to prevent unwanted attention from voyeurs.