125 Years Ago - 1892

Being situated on a hill Yeadon did not suffer much from the heavy rains of last week and, although the becks were considerably swollen, and overflowed their banks. Considerable damage was, however, done at the sewage disposal works in Gill Lane. Such large quantities of water and sewage came down the pipes that the outlet was not large enough to discharge it, with the results that the water overflowed the works and knocked down about 20 yards of the wall at the lower end.

At the Otley Police Court on Tuesday morning John Thackeray was charged with disorderly conduct at the workhouse. Mr. Mellor, the master, stated that on Sunday morning last, while the inmates were at breakfast, he had reason to remonstrate with some of them, and then the prisoner commenced to use some foul and abusive language.

100 Years Ago - 1917

There is an outcry against the insuffiency of the street lighting these dark nights, and certainly it is no pleasant thing to have to grope one’s way along under present conditions, fearful at every step of meeting with an accident. Ilkley seems doomed to greater darkness than any other place we have been in at night, and the reason for this is not apparent, seeing we occupy a position about midway between the east and west coasts, and are about as safe from air raids as any place can be.

News has been received of the death in action of Captain Eric Fitzwater Wilkinson, M.C. Capt Wilkinson was educated at the Ilkley Grammar School and at the time he joined the Army in the early days of the war was one of the masters there. He was awarded the Military Cross in 1915 for conspicuous gallantry in assisting to carry a wounded man to cover, and was twice mentioned in despatches. He was wounded on four occasions. Capt. Wilkinson possessed considerable literary ability, and was a poet of no mean order. He recently published a volume of verse written at the Front. An extract from one of his poems read: “The fight shall roll o’er us - a broad crimson tide. Feet stamp; shells wail; bullets hiss. And England be greater, because we have died: What end could be finer than this?”

75 Years Ago - 1942

A Burley-in-Wharfedale woman was called before magistrates for having an unscreened interior light during a blackout. Thomas Armistead told the police court that he had been in the Main Street garden at 9.45pm when he saw a light showing through the fan light of a neighbour’s back door. The woman was fined 40s.

A local fish fryer has warned that Otley people are not getting their fish and chips. He said under the Ministry of Food scheme, the supplies have been cut by about 75 per cent, and even then supplies depended on the catches at Fleetwood.

50 Years Ago - 1967

An order for plastics machinery for Israel worth nearly £40,000 will be finalised by Spooner-Edmeston (Sales) Limited of Moorland Engineering Works, Ilkley, when they return from Dusseldorf, Germany, where they have been taking part in the biggest plastics trade fair in the world.

Ilkley Grammar School Baths which provide swimming facilities for several organisations in the district and where many local children learn to swim will be closed for at least six months. The £4,000 required for repairs and replacements is not available due to the credit squeeze, Governors of the School have been told.

25 Years Ago - 1992

There’s only one thing Otley postmen brag about - and that’s the size of the mushroom s they find. Over the years there has been a running joke between the town’s postmen about who has discovered the biggest fungus. And now 46-year-old postie , Clive Shaw, reckons it will be hard to beat a magnificent fungus found at Gallows Hill last week. The giant puffball weighs an amazing 16lb and measures 48 inches in circumference.

A woman from Burley-in-Wharfedale is appealing for local people to help the stricken victims of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Mrs Zizi Stockdale, is branch chairman of the British Southern Slav Society which is to launch a major appeal for emergency medical relief for Bosnia.