From the T&A...

25 years ago: Bradford Northern chairman Chris Caisley said he was "disappointed" after being forced to admit defeat in the club's bid to sign Paul Medley, after having a record offer of £100,000 for the strong-running second rower turned down by Halifax.

50 years ago: Police with dogs were continuing their search for a six-foot Boa Constrictor snake called 'Sammy', after it escaped from a car parked off the main Bradford to Queensbury road when its new owner, a Great Horton man, popped into the Boar's Head pub in Clayton Heights for a drink.

Also in the news...

1959: The hovercraft, the SRN 1 as it was called, made its first English Channel crossing - from Dover to Calais - in a little over two hours.

1978: The first test-tube baby, a girl later named Louise Joy Brown, was born in Oldham General Hospital.