Monday, August 8

100 years ago

A correspondent drew our attention to the carelessness of cyclists while riding through the narrow thoroughfares of York. The careless votary of the wheel, he said, "scorches" along the street quite regardless of the risks they themselves run of coming to grief and of the danger and inconvenience to which the pedestrian is put by their conduct. They do not appear to appreciate the fact that the pedestrian has the first right to the street, nor do they always consider it necessary to warn the pedestrian of his or her approach. An incident, continued the correspondent, which had occurred a few days before bore out this remark. A lady had stepped from the pavement to cross the street, when a cyclist, also a lady came along. The lady of the wheel did not apparently feel it incumbent on her to ring her bell, but succeeded in running against the other lady, and wheeling the cycle over her foot. The cyclist jumped from her machine to save herself, and remarked: "Good Gracious," remounted and rode off without even asking the other lady's pardon, or inquiring if she had sustained injury.

50 years ago

A total of 4,351 houses had been completed in York during the previous ten years, reported the Housing Return for England and Wales. The report stated that 3,187 houses had been completed in York by housing authorities and housing associations, and 1,164 by private builders. A total of 449 temporary houses had been completed and 304 were under construction by housing authorities and housing associations and 92 by private builders added the report. The report covered the period from April 1, 1945 to June 30, 1955.

25 years ago

Margaret Thatcher ended her first full Parliamentary session as Britain's first woman Prime Minister amid the resounding crash of depression. There were almost two million in the dole queues, the industrial forecasts churned out unremitting gloom, and company after company was going to the wall. Was this disaster? Or was it, as Mrs. Thatcher's Treasury team cheerfully predicted, the necessary precursor of 1983-84 in which Britain would have single figure inflation, unemployment falling fast, sound jobs and an economy poised to take advantage of an upswing in international trade? All that -- and North Sea oil to redeem the promise of a 25 per cent standard rate of income tax as the next General Election approached.

Updated: 11:46 Monday, August 08, 2005