125 Years Ago - 1893

About eight o’clock on Wednesday night the fire alarm was sounded in Ilkley, and very quickly Leeds Road became crowded with residents anxious to know the whereabouts of the outbreak. Fortunately no fire had occurred at all; the officials were simply experimenting with a new buzzer.

The annual meeting of the Otley branch of the Church of England Temperance Society was held in the Burras Lane Schoolroom on Thursday evening last. There was only a meagre attendance.

100 Years Ago - 1918

Gunner Alfred Vertigan, R.F.A., aged 19. who lived with Mr. William Ramsden, Moorside Farm, Denton, as a farm hand for five years, died in hospital from wounds on March 25th. In a letter his officer says - “He was a good happy lad, always thinking of others rather than himself.”

The “Ilkley Week” commences on Monday, and the sum aimed at is £20,000. An appeal has been issued by the Chairman of the Ilkley District Council, and circulars have been issued from house to house. It is hoped that there will be many investors on the opening day, so as to give the effort a good start. It was intended to secure the services of a member of Parliament for the opening ceremony, but so far letters have not had the desired effect, and even the visit of an aeroplane has not yet been arranged.

75 Years Ago - 1943

Mr. and Mrs. H. Watkinson, of Harecroft Road, Otley, have received a cable from their only son, Geoffrey, informing them that he has been awarded his “wings” at the R.A.F. training station in Saskatchewan, Canada. Aged 19, he was a cadet in the Otley & District A.T.C. Squadron when he volunteered for service with the R.A.F. He was called up in January last year and went to Canada for training in August. He is the first Otley A.T.C. cadet to gain his “wings”.

What is the average man’s ideal woman? It may at once be written that he would not have any hesitation in choosing to be the wife and mother of his children a woman who was nearest akin to his mother. He shies at the mannish woman, just as the average woman shies at the womanish man. Both are imitations, and that only. The young man who has kittenish ways, who simpers and fawns, and the young woman who breaches herself, smokes like a chimney and, it may be, swears like a trooper - each is but a parody of his or her sex.

50 Years Ago – 1968

The famous wartime Yeadon Avro aircraft factory, in recent years used as a Ministry store, is to be closed. A letter from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army says that the Inspectorate of Stores and Clothing Establishment at the Avro Works will be closed on September 1. Possible future use of the premises is under consideration by Aireborough Council.

The Post Office Telephone Service is to hold a Telephone Fortnight starting next Monday. It will be inaugurated by the Postmaster General, the Rt. Hon. Edward Short, who will open exhibitions in London and 17 other centres simultaneously over closed circuit television. Leeds is the nearest of these exhibition centres.

25 Years Ago – 1993

When Shelagh Harley Sunner sold an antique family kettle in London in 1963 she never expected to lay her eyes on it again. It formed part of a hoard of silverware sold on as she cleared out her home in Croydon before moving to Yorkshire to take up a new job just outside Leeds. But now – 30 years later – that very same kettle has somehow made its way north and reappeared on the shelves of an Ilkley charity shop where Miss Sunner works!

Ilkley will become the focus of Europe as legal experts launch a make-or-break test case to save the town’s slaughterhouse from closure. The small abattoir in Little Lane will take centre stage in the European courts as lawyers tackle the Government head-on over new rules which threaten to kill off dozens of slaughterhouses nationwide. They aim to go to the top tier of the justice system to question the legality of the of the rules – using Ilkley as their key piece of armoury.