Thursday, November 4, 2004

100 years ago: An important discovery was made during restoration work to the nave arcading on the north side of Holy Trinity Church in Micklegate, which had been walled up for several centuries. The erection of a new porch was contemplated, and it was proposed to remove an Early English doorway and make it the outer doorway of the new porch. When the excavations were made, it was found that the place to which it was being transferred was the identical place from which it had been removed three-and-a-half centuries before. A beautiful base was found "in situ", showing that there had been a doorway of three orders. A generous offer was then made to rebuild this part of the north aisle on the original lines, using the old material, and the bay of the north aisle built up to the original height, and a number of other works were also to be undertaken.

50 years ago: Mr Nobody heard of many acts of kindness, and many of meanness and sheer foolishness. One of these came to his notice when a York music dealer showed him the slashes, made by a glass cutter or a diamond ring, cut into the ten-foot square window of his shop. There was no reason for the marks made on the window, and which looked like a drawing of a violin or guitar. There was no effort to smash the window or to steal anything. Yet the window was now spoilt, and as far as the owner was concerned it was nearly as useless as if a brick had been thrown through it. "Why was the window damaged?" the columnist asked. "Just what is the reason for such pointless stupidity?"

25 years ago: Fines of £25 were imposed in York on a couple seen from a police patrol car "in an act of sexual intercourse", floodlit at the foot of the Bar Walls. "After a week of reports of violence," said the prosecuting sergeant, "this was a breach of the peace with a difference. Like the 1960 peace movement, they were making love, not war." Late in the evening a police patrol car was driving down Jewbury when the couple were spotted in the grass, just 15 feet from the road, illuminated in the centre of two floodlights, where they had also been seen by the occupants of a double-decker bus.

Updated: 15:44 Wednesday, November 03, 2004