THERE comes a time when one has to have a sort out of the things one has been hanging on to for years, and looking at my office cupboard I thought the time had come. Only five shelves, soon do that. Well, three weeks later I'm just about to finish shelf number two. You know what I mean, don't you!

The trouble with paperwork is that you just can't throw it away, it has to be read first, and reading through takes a lot of time. However, progress is being made, albeit slowly, for I keep turning up items of interest.

Like the envelope sent to me some years ago, full of photographs from the Malton Messenger, and Gazette, of Mrs McCormick's Little Dancers. Dancing troupes of whatever era are always popular, especially the 'small town' kind, like we had way back in '33, and again today, for they are invariably people we know, and music and dance, by a well-rehearsed team, always appeals.

I have programmes of Pantomime Ballets such as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", 1933, Glamorous Sights, 1938, and two undated productions "Hurdy Gurdy" and "Hullo Everybody" as well as one for a Cabaret Ball, with Ceres Harper's Band, (the best of the best) on March 23, 1939.

Fortunately the names of both the Young Ladies, and the Little Dancers are all listed, far too many for me to list them all, but many who I remember are there - Ena Smith, Joan Mills, Peggy Cook, Peggy Webb, Joyce Wise, Eva Mouncer, Zena Clough and Gwen Greenwood of the Young Ladies, and Joan Mouncer, Joan Strangeway, Ethel Train, Doreen Couch, Vera Mouncer, Joyce Nesfield and Jean Sindall were some of the Little Dancers. Those were from the 1938 programme, and more names from another year included Betty Silversides, Marjorie Cann, Betty Smith and Thelma Crawshaw.

Sorry I've not included everyone, but the list seemed endless. As for the male side of the shows, Ernest Spooner would entertain on piano accordion, Peter Leefe acted as John Bull, and Jimmie Lyons and Dick West took their parts.

Pictures include the crowning of Malton's first Beauty Queen, Miss Elsie Owen, with all her glamorous attendants acknowledging the cheers of the crowds from the canopy of the Palace Theatre in Yorkersgate. Five days of spectacle were to conclude with a combined display in the riverside field, Malton by Scarborough Aero Club, St John Ambulance Brigade and Malton Fire Brigade which had been preceded by a Dog Show, Grammar School, sports, motorists' treasure hunt, swimming gala, decorated motor vehicle parade and a Coronation Tea in the Vicarage Field, Malton (wherever that was). Malton and Norton really shone, with some of the prettiest girls in the country at that time. I remember them well. Well some of them anyway! Happy days.

The flag of Vespasian still continues to droop from the Town Hall flagpole at Malton, but happily, in sharp and proud contrast, flies the flag of St George, England's Patron Saint, on both the refreshment cabin, and the jewellery and watch cabin on market days. Vespasian, who started the building of the Coliseum to be finished by his son, wherein Christians were put to death, is thought fit by some to represent Malton, whose flag was welcomed by both Norton and Malton Mayors with obvious approval, despite the Vicar of Norton, Bill Ankers, refusing to have such a Christian oppressor flying his flag on Norton Church, and telling us why. I think local clergy really ought to denounce this misguided display by a concerted effort, and I'm wondering if a small flame burning at Elim Church in Greengate might herald a start to such a Christian endeavour, and that its fire will censure this dictator and replace him with someone of our own country.

The Americans call it gas, we call it petrol, and it's interesting why. When Pratts marketed motor fuel in those first days, they gave it the trade name of Petroleum. It became shortened to petrol. All fuels were pooled in 1939 at the start of World War II, and the fuel became "Pool", and whilst Pratts disappeared, their petrol name lived on, and still does. Like some others. For instance, most folk will have a tin or jar in their medicine cupboard labelled Vaseline. This, like petrol, is a trade name for white petroleum jelly. So, if you express a preference for Vaseline, as opposed to white petroleum jelly then you are expressing a preference for that manufacturer, rather than a different product, for they are one and the same.

As for the housewife, she might well be excused for saying that she has been Hoovering, for although the electric vacuum cleaner was invented by Britisher Cecil Booth, in 1901, it was William Hoover of Ohio, USA, who bought the patent of an electric cleaning machine from a janitor in 1908 and marketed it under his own name, which has stuck, forever it seems.

It seems very unlikely to hear anyone say they've been Electroluxing, Panasonicing, Dysoning or whatever. Hoovering is just so much easier. Strange how names stick isn't it! William Hoover would be very pleased.

Wisdom: "All money nowadays seems to be produced with a natural homing instinct for the Treasury." Duke of Edinburgh (b 1921).

Updated: 10:43 Thursday, March 28, 2002