Tuesday, March 22, 2005

100 years ago: A "most amusing" mistake was reported recently to the Northallerton police, who had received a message from the occupants of a certain house asking them to use their influence to get a neighbour's dog destroyed, as it had worried their cat and torn a piece out of the cat's side. A sergeant was sent to make inquiries into the alleged cruelty to the cat, and he proceeded to the house and was met by the landlady and her two lodgers, who said that the injured cat was in the cellar in a sickening state. The sergeant said he must see the cat, and was shown into the cellar, where he found that the cat in question presented a curious sight. It had evidently been lying on a wax candle, and the heat from its body had melted the wax, which had stuck to the hairs of its body and the candle was adhering to it. The sergeant, getting a pair of scissors, soon freed the car from its encumbrance, upon which the householder and the lodgers burst into loud guffaws of laughter.

50 years ago: Members of the platform party at the opening ceremony of the new gallery of the Castle Museum would be presented with souvenirs of the event. Each would wear a buttonhole in the form of a small "corn dolly", which had been connected, from time immemorial, with the harvest. At one time, the undulating movement of the standing corn under a gentle breeze was thought to reveal the presence in the crop of the "Mother of Corn", a variation of the spirit of fertility. As the corn was cut, it was believed that the spirit remained in the field until finally trapped in the last sheaf. Arising from this, almost every country in the world had a tradition connected with the cutting of the last sheaf. The ceremony took various forms, but most ended with the sheaf being taken back to the farm where it was plaited into an intricate "corn dolly" or "mell doll".

25 years ago: The Lord Lieutenant of North Yorkshire, the Marquis of Normanby, opened the new £2 million high-level bridge at Whitby, which had taken nearly four years to build. The bridge by-passed the town's narrow streets and "troublesome" swing bridge for through traffic between Scarborough and Teeside, and it was only the second "push-launch" bridge to have been built in Britain.

Updated: 15:50 Monday, March 21, 2005