Tuesday, January 24, 2006

100 years ago

Fulford, for the previous twelve months, had been singularly unfortunate in the matter of epidemics. For eleven weeks out of twenty-six the schools were closed in consequence of outbreaks of diphtheria, and now the schools were in danger of closing themselves through an extensive epidemic of measles. At the end of the previous week the village school attendance was over 140 short of its full complement. What was the cause of these periodical outbreaks of fever in such a limited area? The sanitation of the village was notoriously bad, and this was undoubtedly at the heart of it. Most of the back lanes in Fulford were ankle deep in refuse that had been deposited there from the Barracks, and the nuisance and odour from it in the summer had been so great that it was now taken further afield.

50 years ago

Brother Roger, of the Community of the Resurrection, who had spent 30 years in South Africa, spoke about the colour-bar tension that existed in the country. There were 12,000,000 people living in the Union, he said, of whom only 2,000,000 were white. What civilisation there was had been built up by the white people. "They are not like white people in other black countries, because the white South African has his home and roots in that country," he said. "Everything they have is in Africa, and they are terrified because of those 10,000,000 black people, the vast majority of whom are savage, really savage. They don't want to see what they have built up disappear." South Africa, he said was a country of great disappointment. The white man had thought for years that he was always going to be the master and that the black man was going to be the servant. He believed the black man to be incapable of education. "He did not believe that the black man would ever want the things that he wanted, but all that has changed," said Brother Roger. "Race relations have deteriorated terribly fast."

25 years ago

Askham Bryan College of Agriculture and Horticulture took a step into the future -- officially. For the past few months, the college had been using a £5,800 micro computer--courtesy of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society. But, at a special ceremony, the computer was handed over to Mr Lance Gilling, Principal of the college, by the President of the YAS, the Marquis of Zetland. The YAS, whose aim it was to promote the study and science of agriculture, had given the computer to the college "on a long-term loan." Mr Gilling explained that he had applied to the YAS for the computer because he felt computers were an essential part of modern farming.

Updated: 08:37 Tuesday, January 24, 2006