100 years ago

A British soldier who had only recently been brought back from the trenches near Ypres, suffering from a combination of pneumonia and frostbite, had dived into the Seine on Christmas Eve and rescued a young woman who had jumped into the river from the parapet of the Pont Royal.

The girl was a refugee from one of the towns of Northern France, and had been overcome with despair on learning that her lover, a private in an infantry regiment had been killed. The girl had since learned that the report of her lover’s death was incorrect.

She had, in fact, discovered him lying wounded in a Paris hospital, where he was doing well. The couple were now anxious to ascertain the name of the “Tommy” who had made life worth living for both of them at the risk of his own.

 

50 years ago

The York sweet manufacturers, M A Craven and Son Ltd, were abandoning their Coppergate and Foss Islands factories, and moving to a more modern £370,000 unit on the outskirts of the city.

Announcing this Mr Ernest Kramer, managing director of Messrs Craven, said: “We have found that the demand exceeds our present capacity.” The new factory, on a 5.8-acre site off Boroughbridge Road, was expected to be in operation by the middle of February 1966. Craven’s had been at Coppergate since 1790.

First official records dated back to 1820, when home-made toffee was rolled on marble slabs by the founder, Mary Ann Craven. Then there was a shop in Coppergate where toffee, cake decorations, silver cachous and dragees were sold. It was in 1890 that Craven’s brought to York from France the secret formula for sugared almonds. At the turn of the century Cravens were the first people to market sugared almonds as a commercial proposition.

 

25 years ago

Britain’s burgeoning binocular brigade had a goal for the 1990s - to boost the number of bird species recorded in the country to 600.

With the total already approaching 550, they might even exceed their target, if the 1980s were anything to go by. The decade had seen more than 40 species make their debut, equalling the total for the previous 20 years, a rising trend coinciding with the growing popularity of bird watching.

“With even more people likely to join the ranks and identification skills increasing all the time there is a good chance the British bird list will reach 600 by the year 2000,” said Dave Britton, of the British Birds Rarities Committee.