From the D&S Times of December 2, 1916

“A “CHUMMY" act frustrated” was the headline 100 years ago as the D&S told how Arthur Wilson, a canteen manager, had appeared at Ripon City Court charged with offering a gill bottle of whisky to a soldier on duty at Ripon station.

A gill is a quarter of a pint so it wasn’t enough to get a battalion uproariously drunk, but it was against the Defence of the Realm which prohibited the “treating” of soldiers by giving them alcohol.

“A draft of 100 men was leaving the station on Tuesday night and on the whistle sounding for the train to start, defendant stepped forward and was handing a gill bottle of whisky to a soldier when it was seized by the officer in charge, and defendant was arrested,” said the D&S.

“Defendant, who admitted the offence, said he had been very "chummy" with the man going away and it was only a "chummy" action to give him the whisky. The bench imposed a penalty of 40 shillings.”

THE same edition told how Alfred Bourne, landlord of the Golden Lion Hotel, Northallerton, and his regulars had gone shooting at the Allerthorpe Hall estate, near Leeming, where they had “shot a curious animal”.

“It looked like half a rabbit and half a squirrel,” said the D&S. “It has the body and skin of a rabbit, but the head is shaped like a squirrel's with pointed noise and short ears; its tail is bushy like a squirrel's and its forelegs are short with long claws for climbing.”

One wonders how much the party from the Golden Lion had imbibed when they encountered such a creature.

December 1, 1866

INSPECTOR Thomas Hare was in Reeth on behalf of the Charity Commissioners to conduct an inquiry into the new village school.

The school, in a dramatic position, is one of the manmade highlights of the dale, designed by Alfred Waterhouse, one of this column’s heroes whose career culminated with the design of the Natural History Museum in London.

Reeth school of 1862 was one of his earliest projects, and it was condemned by the local people as a "monument of folly and extravagance". Interestingly, this exact phrase was used by Darlington townspeople to condemn Waterhouse's Covered Market complex of 1863. Coincidentally, the market was financed by the Backhouse and Pease families of Quakers – the same people who were the trustees of the Reeth school.

In fact, Edmund Backhouse, banker and MP, defended the trustees against the accusations of a vicar, the Reverend Broomfield, that they had squandered a £1,800 bequest by building a poor school that was too large and so damp it was damaging its pupils' health.

Mr Broomfield alleged that the school had been built with porous stone walls on top of an old quarry filled with rubbish which had become a saturated morass.

Sir George Denys, the leadmining entrepreneur of Draycott Hall, Low Fremington, further alleged the builders had been “a drunken lot”.

However, Mr Backhouse denied most of the wildest accusations, and Mr Wilkie, the schoolmaster, showed how he was conducting a good school.

Mr Backhouse did concede that the trustees had run out of funds because they had been “misled” into building a school that was too large – a lot of people had recently emigrated from the dale, he said.

In conclusion, Mr Hare said “it was highly desirable that the school should be conducted in such a way as would suit all parties”. Which sounds like a bit of a fence-sitter, but at least the school still adorns the side of Swaledale.

THE same edition told of the “appropriate punishment for a poultry stealer” who was caught in a farm outhouse near Barnard Castle.

“It was resolved by the occupier of the premises that the thief should not be given into the hands of the police, but that, as he had come in search of poultry, he should at least go home with some feathers,” said the D&S.

“A bucket of tar was accordingly produced, and the fellow's clothing was saturated with it from head to foot. A bag of feathers was then shaken over him, and at the conclusion of the performance he presented a picturesque and ornamental appearance – a veritable “feathered biped”.

“In order that his improved aspect might not be lost to the public gaze, two stout labourers kindly escorted him home, and the reception he met with on his return will, doubtless, make him less eager to meddle with his neighbour's hen roosts.”