100 Years Ago

THE district of Skipton below the railway station had no church, no chapel, no school and no pub said the education committee. It was discussing a report into the British School on Otley Street which inspectors said was old and cramped, its rooms dark and poorly ventilated and its playground inadequate. It was in need of drastic alteration or rebuilding on a new site. The committee considered briefly various parts of the town without making a decision, other than to resolve that it would be unwise to spend more than absolutely necessary on keeping the school efficient for the time being.

Skipton rugby club's match against Old Dewsburians was cancelled because of an outbreak of smallpox in Dewsbury. A game was fixed up at old rivals Castleford, where a crowd of 1,500 spectators saw Skipton well beaten.

At Hellifield a meeting was called after the education committee ordered the church to remove furniture and a pulpit from a room at the school which was being used for worship. The vicar said that services had taken place in the school for the last 40 years and a permanent stone church would have to be found. However raising sufficient funds would take a considerable time and it was decided to provide a temporary church building at an estimated cost of £500.

50 Years Ago

THE Leeds Regional Hospital Board agreed to an extension being built at Skipton General Hospital. The three storey extension would cost an estimated £200,000.

Earby was in danger of losing its secondary modern school. The county council was considering a 20 year education plan which recommended the closure of Earby's school, with children being sent to Barnoldswick County Secondary School.

The work of the Settle Folk Dancers in ensuring that many traditional dances of the Dales did not die out was recorded. One dance, described as the "now famous Swinging Six" was only discovered when an old Buckden farmer was persuaded, reluctantly, to bring down a neglected violin and teach the group the dance.

25 Years Ago

SOME things don't change - Dacre, Son and Hartley, reviewing the property market for the year, remarked at the big boom in prices, particularly for new homes, which in 1979 had made up 38 per cent of the market. Dacre's cited as an example South Wood Park in Embsay being built by Procter brothers: "Earlier in the year we were offering the Redwood - a four bedroom house - with a price tag of £22,500 where now £32,500 would be nearer the mark."

All 23 doctors in the Craven area signed a letter condemning the closure of the pathology laboratory at Skipton General Hospital. The laboratory provided analysis of patient samples and specimens to the doctors, who feared that their service would become slower, less reliable and harder to deal with on a one to one basis.

We still had a textile industry in 1980 but an article about its prospects made gloomy reading. Cheap imports and a high interest rate were crippling local businesses and the Herald pointed out as an example that Turkey, whose imports into the UK were limited to 2,940 tons of cotton in 1979, had in fact brought in 4,835 by September. "The European Commission seemed unable or unwilling to enforce the market controls which they had imposed.

10 Years Ago

SKIPTON town centre was sealed off as army bomb disposal experts exploded a suspect package. A man had earlier telephoned the Yorkshire Building Society in Keighley Road threatening to blow up the offices unless a bag of money was taken to a drop-off point. A suspicious package was outside the building society before it opened and the manager was called almost as soon as the office opened - police think from the telephone box opposite.

Staff at the 110-year-old practice on Otley Street, Skipton, were all packed up and ready to move into new purpose-built premises in Coach Street. Doctors were looking forward to swapping their cramped surgery offices for something more conducive to patient care. The practice had been started in Swadford Street in the premises now occupied by Penguin Casino by Dr George Fisher, whose grandson, Brian, had just retired from the practice.

There was a flood of complaints about ungritted roads during a spell of freezing cold weather with several cars damaged and a tanker overturned near Embsay. The county engineer said the county's refined policy was an improvement and denied there was a '72 hour rule' but councillors and the paper pointed out the council's own paper which said non classified roads would not be treated unless the freeze persisted for 72 hours.

Craven councillors firmly rejected wheelie bins to collect householders' rubbish - and would not even countenance a pilot project. Councillors said the existing system was successful and popular.