From our archives:

85 years ago

England and Wales had been covered with snow.

Yorkshire and Lincolnshire had the heaviest falls, the highest recorded being Mablethorpe, which had a snowfall equivalent to 10 millimetres of rainfall.

On the other hand, many resorts on the north-west coast and in the West of England had brilliantly sunny weather.

There was a covering of three inches in York and several of the football matches were even played in snowstorms.

The Reverend George Austen, Chancellor of York Minster for 21 years, had tendered his resignation.

Chancellor Austen, who was in his 94th year, was one of the best-known figures of the church in the North, and for many years was the Rector of Whitby.

And Darlington’s Competitive Musical Festival had concluded with more than 600 competitors from a wide area taking part in three separate sessions.

50 years ago

Estimates in the retail sales of tobacco products in Britain indicated that cigarettes sold in 1967 had reached a new record figure of 119,100m, according to the Commonwealth Secretariat’s commodities division.

Consumption of tipped cigarettes had gained further ground at the expense of plain cigarettes accounting for almost two-thirds of the cigarettes sold, the actual tobacco content of the cigarettes sold however had suffered a slight decline.

Four newcomers had shaken up the charts, with the meteoric climber of all being love-it-or-hate-it Cinderella Rockerfella, by Esther and Abi Ofarim.

And French fans swamped pop singer Mireille Mathieu as she left Paris by train in a wheelchair having broken several vertebrae in a car crash.

20 years ago

York city centre received a lick of paint in readiness for the Ecofin Conference.

Routine maintenance work had been brought forward to ensure that the city looked its best for the prestigious meeting of European finance ministers ready to descend in March.

Actor Nigel Betta was already to give a polished performance as the butler in York Theatre Royal’s new play after getting a few top tips from Hovingham Hall’s retired butler Ronnie Marshall.

Eleven people were treated in hospital after a massive car bomb ripped through a quiet Northern Ireland town destroying the police station.

Seven police officers, including a police woman and four civilians were hurt when a 500lb device planted in a four-wheel drive vehicle outside the police station in Moira, Co Down, went off just before midnight.