January 29, 1966

IN the D&S Times of 50 years ago, the stand-out headline was: “Thirsk fried fish prices unchanged meantime”.

It appears that members of the Thirsk Fish Friers Association were due to put up their prices the following Monday – a piece of fish was to rise 3d from 1s and fish cakes to increase a penny to 6d – when one of their number, Mr Jim Strom, felt himself unable to go through with the change.

Mr Strom, 60, a former sergeant-major in the Green Howards who had fried fish in Millgate for 20 years, said: "I slept on the decision to put up prices and decided that my conscience would not let me charge more. Fish has been dear recently but it is now beginning to drop in price. I make a decent living at the present prices.

"I think the proposed jump was too big for the housewives' budget. It would have meant perhaps 5s or 10s a week spending for a family who like fish and chips.

“I may be a rebel but I will not be a party to increasing fish prices just now."

Mr Strom’s u-turn prevented the other fish friers from putting up their prices, even though they had already had their new tariffs printed.

The paper said: "None of the other members would make any comment for publication except to indicate that because of rising costs, they would probably consider putting up the price of fish in the not too far distant future.”

Elsewhere in the paper, the D&S dedicated a full page to a competition for lady readers to win a “permanent wave”. There were six pictures of ladies with perms and readers had to place them in the correct order of beauty in order to win a hairdo.

There was plenty of other perm news on the page, including an update on the "white coated cosmeticians and chemists in their laboratories" who were successfully working to develop perms for "rainbow hues" of coloured hair.

The paper said: "The British Hair Fashion Council has this January introduced a new spring hair fashion for women, the ‘whirligig’.

“The whirligig, as the name indicates, has a swinging circular movement which swings from left to right around the head, swirling up and over the crown. This calls for permanent waving to give lift and bounce."

January 29, 1916

THE Bainbridge and Low Abbotside War Working Party had been formed a few months earlier, and the D&S reported from its most recent meeting how it was helping with “the relief of suffering” in hospitals. It had also adopted two British soldiers – Pte R Cockfield of the 2nd Yorkshire Regiment and Pte W Carter, of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry – who were being held prisoner in Germany.

“Parcels of food were regularly sent to these men, which cost the committee £1 a month," said the report. “The men were most grateful, and on an appeal direct from the prisoners, there had been sent boots, shirts, vests, waistcoats etc.

“There had also been sent to the Red Cross Transport Department for hospitals at home, in France and in Malta 37 feather cushions, 35 pairs of handmade slippers, 2 pairs bed socks, 328 scent bags, 14 walking sticks, 27 bed wraps, nine feather pillows and eight pillow cases.

“To the hospitals for British prisoners of war in Germany there were sent 28 feather cushions, 2 pairs of slippers, 64 scent bags, 14 bed wraps, three pairs mittens, two waistcoats, two overcoats, one scarf and three wool caps.”

The paper added: “The feathers for the cushions and pillows had all been collected in the neighbourhood and dressed at working meetings.”

January 27, 1866

THE United Kingdom Alliance had held a public meeting in the New Music Hall – “which was well filled” – in Barnard Castle with Charles Pease, of Darlington, in the chair.

The Alliance was a Manchester-based organisation dedicated to “the total suppression of the liquor traffic”, and a local vicar, Rev William Darwent, proposed the first resolution: “That this meeting, considering the signal failure of all efforts to regulate the common sale of alcoholic beverages, feel strongly convinced that the law should not lend its sanction to any system of licensing, and that the only true and just attitude of the state towards such a dangerous and demoralising traffic is that of total prohibition, either national and absolute, or local and permissive, in its application.”

Much fun was had at the meeting at the expense of Capt Charles Surtees, the South Durham Conservative MP, who had apparently said at a recent Licensed Victuallers dinner in Darlington: “He that drinks sleeps, he that sleeps commits no sin, and he that commits no sin goes to heaven.”

The Rev JG Street, of Newcastle, concluded the meeting, saying: “The Alliance principles were gaining ground every day, and the time would come when the people would be enabled to sweep from their midst the great social plague by the traffic in intoxicating drinks (loud cheering).”

The Alliance was a bevy of clergyman who, two days later, took their anti-drink tour to Durham City. But they had to abandon meeting after half an hour as they were drowned out by a raucous rabble of publicans. “The greatest excitement prevailed,” said the D&S.