Tuesday, September 8, 2004

100 years ago: The contractor who supplied the Selby Board of Guardians with coffins complained that there had been several deaths lately of men who had been of "extraordinary large size". Therefore he wanted an extra 9s or 10s more than contract price for their coffins, which, owing to them being "dropsical cases", necessitated a quick burial with coffins which took double the amount of wood of normal ones. The chairman was on the verge of agreeing that, with a medical certificate to prove the cause of death, the extra money could be forwarded, when another member of the Board pointed out that the contractor never charged a smaller fee when the coffins were smaller than normal, such as when children were being buried. The matter was referred to the next Board meeting, to give the clerk time to make further inquiries.

50 years ago: Mr Nobody thought that the Senior Service had taken heed of the world of fashion and decided that the shiny black oilskins, featured in every film on the Royal Navy, should be replaced by plastic raincoats. Serving seamen had to pay about £3 for them from their stores, but the columnist thought that the prices did not compare very favourably with plastic raincoats in York, which women could buy for about 13s, and men for 17s 6d.

25 years ago: A letter from Darlington addressed to "Messrs Thorpe and Leek, Department Store, Main Street (near ornamental Clock)", arrived at York sorting office. Despite the letter to Leak and Thorp on Coney Street not being correctly addressed, it was delivered to the right place, and York's head postmaster told Pressman it was not the worst address "by a long way". They had recently received a letter from somebody wanting a typewriter ribbon from a shop in Gillygate, where the sender had used a description of the shop's window display as the address, and they also often received letters for James Herriot, Darroby, which the post office also got through to the right person.

Updated: 16:17 Tuesday, September 07, 2004