Thursday, February 17, 2005

100 years ago: Factory girls, shop girls, milliners, dressmakers and domestics received public criticism for their behaviour in letters to the paper, and now a commercial traveller had mentioned waitresses. A waitress wrote in, who feared that: "He must be fascinated with the waitress at the local hotel." The letter writer pointed out that, like factory or shop girls, they had to work for their daily bread and were good and bad. The waitress added: "I am sorry for his arduous day's toil: poor dear! >From door to door flirting with all that will flirt with him!" On the same day a letter was printed from a factory girl defending flirting in general, saying: "A little, harmless flirtation is not bad. Our mother Eve flirted with Adam when she ate the apple and gave him the gawk, but the serpent was there, the same as was in Chemists first notice... well we can really console ourselves with this, 'it is the best fruit that the birds peck most at'."

50 years ago: At Ye Olde Punch Bowl Inn at Marton-cum-Grafton, near Boroughbridge, the landlord started some weeks previously to build a pile of pennies on the top of a pint glass, which stood on the bar. It had reached a height of 3ft 6in, with an estimated value of £21, and by March 18 he wanted it to reach the ceiling, and there was still 14 inches, or a further £7, to go. On that date he was to present the pennies to the Harrogate branch of the RAF Association, who would use the money for welfare work. The landlord of the pub chose that charity because he served in the RAF, gaining the DFC and membership of the Goldfish Club after spending 12 hours in the Channel when shot down. He flew with a bomber squadron from Dishforth, and was later with a special duty squadron, engaged on saboteur work.

25 years ago: A £44,000 public appeal was launched to restore the observatory in York's Museum Gardens which, when it was built in the 1830s, was one of the first in the country. The Yorkshire Philosophical Society, one originally owned the observatory, started the appeal with a grant of £10,000. It was hoped to restore the observatory in time for its 150th anniversary next year, to coincide with the British Association meeting in York, when that organisation would also be 150 years old.

Updated: 16:35 Wednesday, February 16, 2005