Saturday, February 18, 2006

100 years ago

An exciting scene was witnessed in Spurriergate, when the shop window of Mr Krous, fancy dealer, Spurriergate was badly smashed. A horse attached to a rulley, belonging to Messrs Mark and Sons, hide and skin merchants, Lawrence Street, took fright near Harry Burton's butcher's shop in Market Street, and dashed down that thoroughfare. On reaching Spurriergate, it was unable to turn the corner, and dashed with terrific force into the shop window of Mr Krous, shivering the plate-glass window into innumerable fragments, and knocking the grating at the foot of the window into the basement. The horse almost immediately backed out and galloped up Spurriergate, where Percy Britton, the driver, by a very plucky act, threw the horse to the ground. The damage to Mr Krous's stock was considerable, although the plate-glass window was insured.

50 years ago

An assurance that the new polio vaccine was "absolutely safe" was given at a meeting of York Education Committee, which had before it a report of the Primary and Nursing Education sub-committee. The sub-committee stated it had received, as a matter of urgency, a report from the Principal School Medical Officer concerning the availability of poliomyelitis vaccine for use by local authorities during May and June, on a voluntary basis, to children born between 1947 and 1954. After considering the report the sub-committee recommended that, if the Health Committee so desired, the committee would co-operate by granting permission for sessions for vaccination purposes to be held in school clinics, with school health service staff.

25 years ago

Susan Brown, a 22-year-old biochemistry student from Honiton, Devon, would break a 152-year male monopoly of the University Boat Race on April 4, when she would cox Oxford against Cambridge. Miss Brown, who had been in the running ever since the previous autumn, when serious training began, became an odds-on favourite three weeks before when her chief rival, Adrian Rossiter, withdrew to concentrate on politics with the new Council for Social Democracy. Any doubts that might have remained were cleared up at the weekend when Oxford had much the better of two days racing on the Thames against London University, with Miss Brown coxing with great authority. As well as being the first woman in the race, she could have well been the lightest cox. She weighed 6st 5lb, was 5ft 3ins tall and was studying at Wadham College. She competed in the 1980 Olympics, coxing the British women's four and also took part in the previous year's women's boat race. She was dwarfed by the rest of the crew who weighed an average 13 stone 6lbs and who were 3-1 on favourites to win on April 4.

Updated: 15:33 Friday, February 17, 2006