FROM this newspaper 100 years ago. - It is hoped that Major Bell will see his way to comply with the request of the Thirsk Parish Council by issuing such instructions as will prevent the Green from being any longer used as the camping place for travelling hawkers, show-men and so forth. These people generally place their caravans on the small green, living for days or even weeks in the midst of what is virtually a public square under conditions that do not satisfy the requirements of either decency or sanitation. They pay no rates and though Major Bell, as lord of the manor, has power to levy a toll for the use of the Green, he does not do so. As Mr Lyneth pointed out at the Parish Council meeting, this state of things is not only an offence to dwellers around the Green and ladies who may pass through it, but it constitutes a danger to public health.

From this newspaper 50 years ago. - There cannot be many licensees who can say that they have just taken out their 50th licence and were married from the public house where they are still working. Mr Fred Wardle, aged 78, of the Hare and Hounds in Kirkby Ravensworth, near Richmond, can make this claim, for he took over the inn in 1904 from his wife's aunt, Miss Anne Tennet, shortly before she died at Middleton Tyas at the age of 70. Miss Tennet and her father, George, who was over 80 when he died, were at the Hare and Hounds for over 65 years, Miss Tennet taking over on the death of her father. Thus there has only been one change at the inn in 115 years.

From this newspaper 25 years ago. - West Witton Primary School was hit by a thunderbolt on Wednesday morning. Most of the damage was to slates and lead flashing on the roof and a TV aerial, attached to a chimney, was hurled at least 50 yards on to the main Leyburn to Hawes road, where it narrowly missed workmen laying a drainpipe. The headmistress, Mrs M Duffield, said later that both electricity and telephone supplies had been cut off and that five yards of telephone cable had vanished ... but fortunately no one had been injured. The infants' room had suffered no more than a fall of soot, which had been cleared away.