From our archives:

85 years ago

York Toc H opened its new branch headquarters in Coffee Yard, with the greatest “guest night” York Toc H had ever seen.

With branch representatives from across the district, Women’s Helpers, YMCA, Rotary and Scouts, the new floodlit sign blazoned with the motto and arms of Poperinge, had been illuminated for all of Stonegate to see.

Gloves to accompany beach pyjamas made from the same material were tipped to be the hottest fashion for summer.

According to fashion experts in Paris the gloves would be periwinkle blue muslin with white pin spots worn with a tiny squashed sailor hat and scarf.

And a drunken fracas had spoiled Pickering Lythe’s clean sheet of no insobriety for a year.

Speaking at the annual licensing meeting Mr Robinson stated that the “drunken fracas had unfortunately been caused by outside parties passing through the area.”

50 years ago

The first of several ranking shores, which were being used to prop up the East End of York Minster, during emergency repair work, had been delivered to the Shepherd Building Group site at the Minster.

The steel fabrication, in two sections, 50ft long and 10ft wide, travelled by road from Scarborough.

Because of its bulk it was given an escort by York Police in negotiating the streets.

Careless anglers who had left lengths of broken fishing line in bushes and trees along the banks of the Ouse, were causing suffering and death to many wild birds, claimed Mr John Rose of Clifton, who had found fishing line wrapped around a moor hen.

And it was a sad tale of a pig in a hurry after a York motorist was involved in a collision killing a pig.

“The animal just dashed across the road and I could not avoid it,” said the 22-year-old driver from Dodsworth Avenue.

20 years ago

An anti-asthma pill was launched in Britain, the first completely new treatment for the condition in more than 20 years.

The drug Montelukast worked by blocking the action of a substance which helped trigger inflammation in the lungs, the underlying cause of asthma.

Tributes had poured in for Enoch Powell who had died peacefully in his sleep aged 85.

Former Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher led the tributes to Mr Powell, who had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease, insisting: “There will never be another Enoch.”