From our archives:

85 years ago

Ten thousand people had turned out to hear Professor Einstein address a packed Royal Albert hall, on “Science and Civilisation.” Grateful for the opportunity that he had been given, he expressed his deep sense of gratitude as a man, as a good European and as a Jew. “You have shown,” he said, “that you and the British people have remained faithful to the traditions of tolerance and justice which, for centuries, you have upheld with pride. In Pocklington, members of the public had enjoyed an exhibition of all things electrical; from devices to fittings, to cooking demonstrations. Flooding the Masonic Hall with light, the Power Company noted that it had been disappointed that the unsettled state of finance in the country had prevented them from extending the supply to Pocklington earlier. And the Colonel and Mrs Lindbergh had arrived at Southampton and then mysteriously vanished. Press photographers endeavoured to get pictures of the pair.

50 years ago

Licensee Mrs Gertrude Henry had pulled the last pints at Pocklington’s oldest pub, The Buck, after it ceased to be a public house. The premises, owned by Bass Charrington, who had four other houses in the town, was due to go on the market after its closure. In the past, the pub had been a posting house where horses were tied up at a rail and stage coaches broke their journeys between York and East Riding. Mrs Henry had been at The Buck since 1953 and in the trade 34 years. And city police officers answered an emergency call after two youths had been reported as fighting outside the Museum Chambers in York. By the time the police had arrived up to 50 to 60 youths had also gathered in the Library Square.

20 years ago

The Princes of Wales had invited the Duchess of York to dine with him at Highgrove as a gesture of reconciliation. According to one national paper, the dinner, would be the first time the Duchess had visited the Prince’s Gloucestershire home for seven years. Plans for a new glass factory at Eggborough had been dealt a major blow after fears that the site could be at risk of flooding. And history had been made in York after the city hosted its first Lesbian wedding.