October 30, 1965

HELEN GUTHRIE offered some topical tips and handy hints for Bonfire Night in her Women’s Topics column in the D&S Times.

“Problem number one,” she said, “is how to cope with hordes of hungry children just at the very time an even hungrier husband comes home, champing for his nosebag!” Was life really so simple in the Sixties, when a man’s working day finished at 5pm and a woman was tethered to the kitchen, preparing nosebag for him?

For Bonfire Night, Ms Guthrie recommended baking “large scrubbed potatoes” for an hour-and-a-half, and then knocking up a filling: “For about a dozen potatoes, fry two finely chopped onions in oil or lard. Add 4oz of chopped mushrooms, a small tin of drained sweetcorn and a 12oz tin of corned beef, also chopped.

“For afters,” she added, “traditional ginger parkin of course, and bananas. Odd though it sounds, these two go well together and bananas are easy for mittened fingers to cope with.”

Beyond the food, Ms Guthrie recommended sorting out in advance a large biscuit tin to keep the fireworks safely in and a receptacle for the spent ones to save “a lot of cleaning up in the cold light of day next morning”.

Her list of necessary items continued: “Some paraffin (to be used under supervision only, of course). Even the best built bonfires can be stubborn when it comes to actually burning; matches and a candle or two for lighting sparklers from; some pop bottles for rockets and an upturned bucket or two for those don’t-hold-in-your-hand fireworks.

“It’s tactful to keep it out of sight, but a first aid kit isn’t a bad thing to have handy, and though everyone who finds out laughs at me, I always plant a strategic bucket of water near the back door. Even if it is never needed, someone usually manages to put their foot in it literally before the night is out – and it adds to the fun.”

October 30, 1915

“A GLOOM was cast over the Harley Hill section of the huge military camp in course of erection near Richmond on Sunday night, when it became known that Private Roberty Martin, of the 11th Gordon Highlanders, had met jois death there as the result of ajoke which had been played in the camp for a few days,” said the D&S Times. In the opening months of the First World War, the paper had reported how local magistrates had been kept busy by the drunken, criminal antics of those building what we now know as Catterick Garrison, but 100 years ago, the coroner was also called into action by the camp constructors.

Privates James McDonald and John Harkness told him how they were in the “habit of playing jokes” by wiring up the hut door handles to the electricity supply and then calling someone in – in this case Pte Martin, 24, from Lanark.

“His hands were wet, and he was standing on wet ground,” said the report. “He got hold of the handle and could not leave go. He screamed loudly. Assistance soon arrived, and deceased was given brandy to restore him, but without success. He died a few minutes afterwards.”

McDonald and Harkness said “they were chums together” and they’d never harmed anyone with their shocking jokes.

“The coroner said he hoped it would be a lesson to them. Electric wires were not things to play with. The shocks affected some people more than others. He did not think any blame could be attached to McDonald and Harkness. They simply did to Martin what had been done to them.

“A verdict of “accidental death caused by electric shock” was returned.

“Deceased was buried later in the day with full military honours in the Hipswell churchyard. The pipers played to the graveside, and three volleys were fired over the grave.”

October 28, 1865

LAST week in this column, we told of Edward Calvert, 12, who had broken into the Thirsk British and Foreign Bible Society school and stolen a box of slate pencils and another of steel pens which his teacher had caught him handing out to his classmates. He was committed to the House of Correction at Northallerton – the prison – for one month, and whipped.

The following week, “A North Riding Clergyman” wrote to the D&S Times, noting the “trifling value” of the stolen items, and saying: “For a considerable period, I have taken great interest in the steps which have been taken to prevent children who have a dishonest tendency becoming confirmed thieves, and I cannot but think that the attempt to reform as well as punish the younger portion of the criminal population will be followed by beneficial results. It seems to me that when magistrates send so young a child to prison, they seek to punish without trying to reform. In fact they sacrifice almost all chance of the child becoming a good member of society in order that the law may take vengeance for its violation.”

The clergyman concluded: “I believe, and I know many of your readers will agree with me, that the child might have been punished in a different way, and the result of a different mode of treatment might have saved his reputation, and made his future life an honest one.”

One wonders what became of Edward Calvert, the 12-year-old slate pencil thief.