From our archives:

85 years ago

Birmingham Town Hall was filled with 1,800 delegates from all parts of the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland. Platform seats had been reserved for Cabinet Ministers, including Mr Neville Chamberlain, Lord Hailsham, Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister, and Mr Walter Elliot. First up on the agenda was the £95,000,000 slum clearance scheme followed by concerns that Britain needed an urgent recruitment drive to expand its Navy and Air Force. In the US, President Roosevelt had returned to the White House from New York, to face grave concerns over the country’s inflation and recovery plan. According to Reuter, the President was assessing the situation and would address the nation in due course. And a suspected case of scarlet fever had caused plans for Prince George’s visit to Newcastle to be altered. Having already completed a tour of various factories in Lancashire and Northumberland, reports of an outbreak of the disease at Bottlebank home, Gateshead, brought an immediate halt to the tour, leaving his royal aides, to find another suitable home.

50 years ago

Yorkshire born television and screen actress, who hailed from the Dales, Katy Wild, was preparing to go “down under” to star in the film, The Return of the Bomerang, for an American company in Sydney. Real name Jacqueline Marygold, the actress admitted she was only the second member of her family to go abroad. Also visiting from Australia was the distinguished organist David Swales, who had been invited to join members of York Minster Choir Old Boys’ Association at their annual re-union and dinner. After 20 years of invites, this was the first time that he’d been able to attend. Meanwhile, a university brain surgeon Dr Ernest Spiegal, had been credited with the discovery of a drug which had been reported as being extremely effective in treating victims of Parkinson’s disease.

20 years ago

Office staff at ATS in Layerthorpe had been told they faced redundancy after the breakdown control centre announced it would be relocating to Birmingham. Giving the workers three options; redundancy, relocation or re-applying, members of staff replied “no matter how you dress it up” in effect it is just a redundancy notice. And a painter and decorator painting the outside of the Northern Rock Building Society, on the corner of New Street and Davygate, was rescued after his mobile cage had jammed at 20 feet.