Wednesday, March 15, 2006

100 years ago

Mr Ernest C Breed, amateur billiard champion for Great Britain and Ireland, was back in York again with the one hundred-guinea cup, which he won during the previous week with probably the finest all-round display of billiards ever seen in the history of the competition. The trophy was a magnificent one, standing three feet in height, and it was of course held only for one year. Mr Breed lived with his father, Mr George Breed, one of the best-known local cricketers, at the Lowther Hotel, York, and here the cup was on view. At 13 - before most people had touched a billiard cue - he had made his first 100 break. Although he had not gone in for expensive lessons, Mr Breed had taken every opportunity of improving his game by playing better men than himself.

50 years ago

There was good news for children. The ponies which they so much enjoyed riding in Rowntree Park the previous year would be there to delight them again this year - and there would be more of them. The previous year there were three, but in recent weeks the York Parks Superintendent, Mr E Shirley, had been on the lookout for one or two more. The rides, which had proved a great attraction, would start about Easter-time or even before if Mr Shirley could obtain the additional equipment he needed. He wanted a pair of riding pads with small stirrups and two bridles, to fit ponies about 12 hands. If anyone had any, unwanted, gathering dust in the attic, Mr Shirley would be glad to put them to use, for they were currently expensive items to buy.

25 years ago

Kellingley Colliery, the proving pit for the Selby coalfield, had become the first mine in Britain to produce two million tons of coal in a year. The pit -- nicknamed "Big K" -- was opened in 1960 as a million tonner but now it had doubled that output. Many techniques used at Kellingley, which now had a productivity of 4.27 tons a shift for each miner, almost twice the national average, would be realised to the full in the Selby coalfield, whose group of mines would eventually have an output of 10 million tons of coal a year for the Yorkshire power station at Drax. A Coal Board spokesman said that Selby was almost on the point of becoming what he termed a "true pit." The tunnellers would shortly be linking up between the up-cast and downcast shafts at Wistow.

Updated: 15:46 Tuesday, March 14, 2006