125 Years Ago - 1894

Commencement of the Sewerage Scheme at Addingham - Mr. Pearson, of Cleckheaton, to whom the contract for the sewage works has been let, started a number of men to work on Tuesday morning, in Mr. Brear’s woodyard, behind the saw-mill. This is the section which will communicate with houses on the north side of the village.

The bitter east winds that have prevailed during the past week gave way on Sunday to a miniature snowstorm. Flakes fell copiously for ten minutes, but melted simultaneously on reaching terra firma. At nights during the week as much as five degrees of frost have been registered.

100 Years Ago - 1919

We notice that the duties of women, as dictated to them by others, vary in the most surprising way from time to time. Sometimes it is their first duty to leave their homes, and at others it is a still more urgent duty for them to hurry back to them again. But one thing, apparently, is always the same, and that is, that they may not decide for themselves what it is right for them to do for their own country or their own children.

As was mentioned last week in this paper, a concert is to be held on behalf of the Blinded Soldiers and Sailors in the King’s Hall on June 4th. A special feature of the concert will be an address by Sir Arthur Pearson, Bart., G.B.E., president of the National Institution for the Blind and St. Dunstan’s Hostel. He is making a special visit to Ilkley to see the blinded soldiers and sailors who are staying at the St. Dunstan’s Annexe in Crossbeck Road.

75Years Ago - 1944

Three more Ilkley girls who were evacuated with St. Hilda’s School , Whitby, in June 1940 have returned home from Canada this week. They are Elizabeth Priestman (15), Upper Ewe Croft; Elizabeth Roberts (15), Oak Gill House, and Alison Leach (16), Fellstoye. Their outstanding memory of four years stay is the wonderful kindness of the people of Canada, they said. The three girls who returned this week were among 1,500 who were safely brought across the Atlantic, and in their own school there are still some 90 British left in Canada, about half a dozen of these coming from Ilkley.

The pre-invasion ether is heavy with the clash of propaganda. The B.B.C. carries its round-the-clock offensive into 48 languages. Radio stations across the world pump millions of words into the air. Where in all this buzzing, tingling ether is the Idea that will remake a broken world? Have the Allies a philosophy that liberate men’s minds as our armies liberate their bodies? To a continent where already the philosophies of the super-race and the super-class are fighting to possess the minds and wills of millions, the Allies must bring a better Idea - the superforce of a new spirit.

50 Years Ago - 1969

It was wrong that the needs of a substantial body of people and the hardship which the proposed closure of local rail services would cause should be tossed away like a spent match. This was stated by Mr. Donald Herrod, representing Ilkley, Aireborough and Shipley Urban at a hearing at Bradford into the proposed withdrawal of services between Ilkley and Leeds City, Ilkley - Bradford Forster Square, and Keighley and Bradford. Mr Herrod said local railway lines should not be swept away on the flood tide of economy.

Another Wharfedale Music Festival has gone, but not without enabling a re-assessment to be made of the contribution of youth to day by day affairs and a realisation that student riots , football hooligans and louts at the resorts form only part of the picture. The Festival serves to show the tremendous talent there is in this part of the country alone, and it can be repeated in a very many other areas as well.

25 Years Ago - 1994

Plant thieves are nipping Ilkley’s Britain in Bloom chances in the bud. Organisers of the event have condemned what they believe are light-fingered residents who plunder flower beds in the town. The ‘loot’ from raids then ends up growing in their own gardens.

An Ilkley sales firm has targeted a minority market with a new job offer - by advertising a vacant post in German. Paul Kennedy who runs HFS Sales Ltd in The Grove, said the suitable candidate would understand the advert.