125 Years Ago – 1892

The prospects of the Guiseley Football Club for the coming season are of a very promising character. The team will once more be captained by Popplewell, that sterling three-quarter, and most of the old players will again don the jersey.

On Monday last, a man named Robert Marsden, residing at Woodside, whilst whitewashing the walls, at Kirkstall Forge had a stroke and fell from a scaffolding. He was conveyed to his home but up to Wednesday evening had not spoken.

100 Years Ago – 1917

Private George Peacock, West Riding Regiment, son of Mr. Wm. Peacock, Nelson Road, Ilkley, has been “gassed”. He has previously been wounded, and also had a spell in hospital with trench feet. He went to the front with the West Ridings in 1915. An official confirmation has been received stating that Pte Peacock is also suffering from a severe gunshot wound.

Writing to Mr C. Flint, Driver Lister Foster, an Addingham man in the R.G.A., says: “The last half year has been the grimmest experience of my life, having been spent on the Somme. I would like to say it is nearing an end, but it is so difficult to predict. I should not be surprised to see another winter out here, and if we want a win outright we shall have two more winters. That’s only my opinion, and let us hope I am wrong. For my own idea The Germans are as strong as ever – and we know they are cunning.

75 Years Ago – 1942

Offenders of black-out regulations have been in court. Two Ilkley women were fined £2 and 5s for failing to screen interior lights. A Menston housewife was fined 40s for allowing an unscreened light to show from her Burley Road home.

Eighteen-year-old Gordon Leonard Padley, from Menston, has won local praise after being one of the youngest men to take part in an operation known as the Dieppe Raid. He was on the ship which came under fire in the harbour of Dieppe but escaped unscathed.

50 Years Ago – 1967

Once again on the eve of the arrival of an Australian Rugby League party to make its headquarters in Ilkley, disparaging remarks about the town have appeared in a Sydney newspaper. In 1963 a former tourist referred to Ilkley as “the end of the world”. This time the Sydney Sun refers to Ilkley as a “flat-beer place if ever there was one...a dormitory town of cold stone houses covered with the soot of centuries, with gas lamps in the railway station and home-made marmalade in the shops... a town made minute and rather pathetic by the gaunt vastness of the surrounding moors.”

A visit to an all star American Rodeo and captaincy of a ‘World Cup’ international football team, have been two of the exciting features of Guiseley Queen’s Scout Ian Scuffins’ second week at the World Scout Jamboree in Idaho, USA. Ian writes that all 14,000 of the scouts were taken to a rodeo at the Kootenai Country Fair.

25 Years Ago – 1992

Michael Jackson wanted a relaxing stroll in the countryside before going on stage for his Yorkshire concert – so he dropped in on Burely-in-Wharfedale. The eccentric mega-pop star made a surprising visit to the village early on Sunday evening – just hours before performing in front of a 60,000 crowd at Roundhay Park in Leeds. Residents and motorists could only ask themselves ‘Who is it?’ when a private helicopter hovered above the village and landed in a field off Bradford Road. But when a slim figure with tumbling curly hair and wearing sunglasses stepped out of the aircraft they could not believe their eyes. Jackson was believed to have spent several minutes in Burley filming footage of himself in the Yorkshire Dales as part of a souvenir video of his world tour.

An amusement arcade plan for the centre of Ilkley was given the go-ahead this week – despite a record number of objections. The controversial scheme received a surprisingly smooth passage because two councillors who were set to oppose the plan were absent when the vital vote was taken.