From our archives:

80 years ago

Work on 13,500 seats to be made for the Northern Command Tattoo had already commenced, and booking office staff had now moved into 11 Cookridge Street, Leeds, ready and waiting with 144,000 tickets available for members of the public to purchase. Thousands of tickets were also ready to be sent out to 100 ticket agents in all the principal towns in the North, with many more being dispatched to America, indicating that this great annual event was going to be more popular than ever. Mr J Bownass, the new Postmaster of Leeds and former Head Postmaster of York, was guest of honour at a gathering of the supervisory staff of York Post Office in the Old George Hotel, York. Presented with an antique armchair and pouffe, as a tribute to his high character in the service, Mr Bownass had also been congratulated on his ability as an organiser, and his sympathetic understanding of the departments and staff.

50 years ago

Householders in the Heworth area of York had formed a human wall on a bank of Tang Hall Beck and stopped workmen from felling a tree. It was the last of six trees, five of which had been ripped out during the past 24 hours. The trees were being pulled down on the orders of the Foss Drainage Board, so that, in future, the beck could be cleaned by mechanical dredgers. Even a local doctor had telephoned to say that, apart from ruining the aesthetic beauty of the neighbourhood, such a “chevalier act” had resulted in one of his patients becoming depressed. Hat pins and gloves were the most important items of dress for women at York races. Even hardened racegoers shivered and the most fashion conscious checked that they had their umbrellas due to the abundance of grey clouds.

20 years ago

Singer Frank Sinatra, the dashing teen idol who matured into the foremost romantic balladeer of American popular music, had died of a heart attack, aged 82. “Ol' Blue Eyes”, as Sinatra was known, was pronounced dead in the emergency room of Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles. Sinatra, known to millions of fans as chairman of the board and whose trademark song was My Way, had not been seen in public since a heart attack in January 1997. And 11 people were arrested and weapons, drugs and suspected stolen property seized in a series of police raids on addresses in York.