SOMEWHERE in York may lurk the descendents of the saucy seven - and the Diary would love to find you.

The seven in question were a group of medieval ladies employed by the Church to titillate another woman's husband.

This 500-year-old tale was retold on starchy Radio 4 a few days ago in a programme called Document: Alice's Annulment. It is a particular favourite of the BBC's, having formed the basis of a TV history show four years ago.

John Scathloe and Alice Russell were husband and wife, living in a village ten miles from York. But their marriage was never consummated, Alice claimed.

In order to get an annulment she had to go before the Church Court. And a written record of this case, from 1433, still exists in the Borthwick archive at York University.

It tells how the seven women were employed to test Alice's assertion that John was impotent. The girls and the guy got together in a room in Fishergate and had a few beers and a bit of grub.

Then John dropped his breeches before the lasses considerately warmed their hands at the fire and set to work on him.

Whatever they tried - and they tried a lot - was to no avail. The legal point at issue was "neither increasing nor decreasing".

After their failure, one woman stormed: "We cursed him that he should dare to take as a wife a young woman when he was able to serve her and please her no better than this."

Alice was granted her annulment at the Church Court, sitting in the North Transept of York Minster.

Now we want to know... are there any descendents of these professional gropers still around?

Has anyone tracing their family tree found they are related to the magnificent seven? Let us know. They were: Joan Seamer (who was 40 at the time of the fondling), Joan Tunstall (36), Isobel Harwood (30ish), Joan Bank (26), Margaret Bell (50), Isobel Gwynthorpe and Joan Lawrence (both 40ish).

THE curse of the Flying Scotsman has struck again...

A few pages before the Diary's revelations about the Scotsman's hex in yesterday's Evening Press, the business page carried a story and picture about Partners Leisure, the company marketing summer tours on the locomotive.

But when this story was transferred to website thisisyork.co.uk, it appeared alongside a photo of... a motorbike (later corrected). Worse still,, the first email from Partners Leisure alerting us to this mistake was never delivered because the computer had "quarantined" the message because it contained "bad language".

The censored words were... "cock-up". So now it's the cursing of the Flying Scotsman.

WEST Indian bowlers and batsmen might be shaking in trepidation at the prospect of Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff giving them another pasting in the Third Test at Old Trafford - and our man at the Guildhall knows exactly how they feel.

Political reporter Dan Jones faced the awesome all-rounder in a schools match when he was a teenager growing up in Blackpool.

World-beater Freddie smashed Dan's team all over the ground before helping skittle them out for a less than meagre total.

"I remember the match fondly," recalls Dan. "That was the day my cricketing career was hit for six. Then four, then six, then another four..."

WITH flood warnings active for half the county, the classified advert in the Evening Press yesterday could not have been more timely.

"Tug. Riveted, 1930. Boat safety certificate." The price must go up with every cloudburst.

Write to: The Diary, Chris Titley, The Evening Press, 76-86 Walmgate, York YO1 9YN

Email diary@ycp.co.uk

Telephone (01904) 653051 ext 337

Updated: 09:33 Thursday, August 12, 2004