From our archives:

85 years ago

The Thirsk and Sowerby soup kitchen had been re-opened after a lapse of four years to help the families in the area who had been confined to their beds with influenza.

The kitchen which was based at the Royal Hotel, was only open on Tuesdays and Thursdays, serving excellent quality soup, consisting of beef and vegetables.

Sold at penny a pint the supply was taken to Sowerby each day by a Miss Ramsey. Scandalous abuses of lunch tickets had been reported at the Barnet Workhouse.

The tickets valued at 4d each were issued to casuals on the march to enable them to obtain bread and cheese at wayside shops.

Some casuals, however, had been bartering the tickets for cigarettes or selling them for a penny a-piece.

The Guardians’ Committee had however decided to discontinue the issue of lunch tickets to casuals, instead supplying them with packets of bread and cheese directly from the workhouse.

50 years ago

ABC Television had launched two new series, Doddy’s Music Box and Public Eye.

For Ken Dodd, it was a return to the national ITV Network, almost a year since his previous successful series for ABC TV.

With his new look, hair specially cut and styled in a modern manner, Doddy hoped to be taken a little more seriously.

Some 350 young children had crowded into Rawcliffe Primary School as the newly-formed Rawcliffe and Clifton Without Tufty Club got officially under way.

Children of all ages up to seven formed a long queue with their parents outside the school as they filed in to be registered as members of the club.

And the youngest house manager in the country Bernard Jay had rounded off a two-year stint at the York Theatre Royal with a marathon 15-hour day.

20 years ago

Shoppers in York who had paid extra for free-range eggs may not have been getting what they paid for, claimed farming experts.

The United Kingdom Egg Producers Association reported that there had been a discrepancy between the number of free-range eggs produced and the number sold in stores.

According to Keith Pulman, secretary of the Bristol based association, “The conclusion is that somewhere someone is not playing the game properly.”

And members of the Abbot Hugh of Selby Lodge of Mark Master Masons had handed over £700 to St Leonard’s Hospice in York.