THE first of 12 editions of a comprehensive history of Kirkbymoorside is set to be published - but they are already almost sold out.

Editor and local historian and Coun Barry Brook said just 200 copies of The Kirkbymoorside Times will be published during the coming year and local residents have been quick to commit £24 each to buy them all.

The first edition of this fascinating social and economic profile of one of North Yorkshire's best-loved market towns covers a wide range of subjects in its 64 pages.

It was compiled by Coun Brook and other members of the Kirkbymoorside History Project headed by Bill Goodall, the chairman, treasurer Norman Helm, photo archivist Robin Butler and sound archivist Chris Boddy during many hours of research and writing.

Among the subjects in the March edition are the celebrations to mark the Relief of Ladysmith and Mafeking during the Boer War. The historians recall how "burning barrels of tar were rolled and kicked around the town streets to create a spectacle", and war heroes General Kitchener and Lord Roberts were given a big welcome to the town. The death of the Boer leader, Kruger, was marked by a big bonfire in the Market Place.

The history of the Women's Institute is also chronicled, recording how it was formed in 1920 and how its members played a key part in the war effort, setting up committees to oversee the collection and forwarding of scrap metal, clothes, fabric and footwear.

One of Kirkbymoorside's best-known characters was Dr Thomas Walsh Tetley, who was in practice in the town in the early part of the last century. He became a pioneer of home nursing by trained volunteers, which led to the setting up of one of the first such units in the country.

He introduced inoculation against childhood diseases such as diptheria in the district, and is said to have delivered 4,000 babies.

The first edition includes the town's flood, in May 1986, provision of council housing, the Vietnamese refugees who were moved to Kirkbymoorside, the town's Pigeon Flying Club, and features on Ryedale Judo Club, medical equipment, the sports field and the National Sectional Building and Joinery Works.

It even features an article written by Gazette & Herald reporter David Jeffels for Yorkshire Life, in March 1972, in which he described the town as near Utopia.

The story of Ron Todd's Ranch, at West Lund, known as "Kirby's Kingdom", is an insight into another of the town's personalities who had a reputation for never refusing to give unwanted animals a home on his smallholding. Ron was also a noted pigeon racer and rabbit fancier and his eccentricity earned him national fame when he was the subject of a Channel 4 television documentary in 1989. After his death, the smallholding ceased to exist and is now a meadow.

Coun Brook said: "To supplement the written evidence over the 150 years covered by the project, we have had access to an archive of over 130 taped interviews with townspeople and many photographs."

Updated: 09:11 Wednesday, February 26, 2003