June 18, 1966

KAY HILL of Knayton, near Thirsk, wrote to the D&S Times to say that her village only needed a curfew to complete its Medieval feel.

“Situated on a busy main road, we are without any form of public transport on four days of the week, and no late afternoon or evening transport on the entire seven,” she said. “It is inadvisable to develop toothache on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays or Sundays, or to have a sick relative in hospital since there is no transport at all."

Knayton was just 30 miles from York and yet to meet American visitors there, Kay had "required two taxis, a train and a bus”. She said: “My hosts had crossed the Atlantic with less effort, and in only a little more time.”

As well as imprisoning the elderly, this lack of public transport meant the young just hung around with nothing to do. In fact, in a sentence which cannot have won her many friends among her young neighbours, she said: "Anything, it seems, will do for village children and, judging by appearances, village children, frustrated and bored, will “do” for anything breakable."

They were banned from using the village green, which she described as “a featureless patch of inferior grass” and which, she said, “is to be jealously guarded for its aesthetic value and so not of slightest use to the young”.

She concluded: “Perhaps we need one thing more – would a pair of stocks on the village green, a lavish supply of missiles and our young cricketers on form awaken the authorities to the withdrawal of village life into the Middle Ages?”

Today, Knayton’s entry on Wikipedia extends to a paragraph which says it is just off the A19 – “a busy main road” – and consists of a pub, the village green and village hall. “There is also a caravan park and bus stop but no scheduled service,” it says. Kay would still be writing letters to the D&S is he were alive today.

June 17, 1916

MRS DODDS, of Crakehall, near Bedale, had received a letter from her son, Lance-Sergeant Dodds, who had been on-board on HMS Birmingham, a Tyneside-built light cruiser, during the Battle of Jutland at the start of the month.

Jutland was the greatest naval battle of the First World War – 100,000 men aboard 250 ships clashed, with Britain losing 6,049 men and Germany 2,551, as we mentioned last week.

“It was hell,” wrote Lance-Sgt Dodds. “I saw the Queen Mary go down, and several German ships completely broken up and sunk by the guns of the battle cruisers.”

The sinking of the Queen Mary cost 1,266 crewmen their lives – only 18 survivors were picked up.

Lance Sgt Dodds continued: “We had our battle fleet to back us up, and no praise is good enough for their shooting. I saw a leading German ship blown out of the water as soon as they came on the scene.

“We were very busy keeping German torpedo boats and submarines from our battle fleet. The Germans had Zeppelins out as well for reconnoitring.

“We had a hot time during the night with the Germans as they tried several times to break through our lines with their destroyers, but we were ready. A destroyer only wants one hit with our lyddite and she goes down below.”

A lyddite was a high explosive shell containing picric acid, which had been created at Lydd in Kent.

“I saw one German battle cruiser go up and sink in four minutes during the night. One of our torpedo boats got her,” he wrote, and added: “A battle cruiser carries about 1,100 hands.”

He says shells fell all around Birmingham without it sustaining a direct hit, but shrapnel and splintering caused some damage.

“We buried the killed at 4pm at sea,” he concluded. “We had a hot time, but we are ready for some more when they like to come out again."

June 16, 1866

“Extraordinary case of fortune telling”, said the headline in the D&S, telling of a court case in Durham, where a young widow called Watson was being prosecuted by Mrs Jane Dixon, 50, for stealing from her £3 14s plus some sheets, bed covers, quilts, shirts, blankets, stuff petticoats, black silk dress, pocket handkerchiefs, diaper towels, bolster cases, pillow cases, flannel petticoat, shawls, boots etc…

It all began a year earlier when Mrs Dixon started going round Mrs Watson’s house in Gilesgate “to have her fortune told, and prisoner revealed the fates by means of cards”.

These three shilling readings soon developed. “Prisoner told her that her husband was unfaithful, as he was keeping the company of another woman, and that in order that the alleged unfaithlessness might be put an end to, the prosecutrix must give the prisoner some money or goods with which to work the oracle,” said the D&S. “The prisoner requested that money was necessary in order to the proper ruling of the planets and the successful working of her charms, but that the money should be returned when the charms were completed.”

Eventually, Mrs Dixon’s husband, an ostler at the Angel Inn in the Market Place, rumbled the fraud, and the stolen items were discovered in the Crown and Thistle in Gilesgate.

Supt Beard applied for Mrs Watson to be remanded in custody. “She is a professed fortune teller, and has many dupes amongst the fair sex of the cathedral city,” said the D&S. “It is expected on Monday some very curious revelations will be made public.”

Disappointingly, the following week’s paper doesn’t say either what the revelations were or what happened to the bogus fortune-teller.