WHILST I can manage to bumble along with my mobile phone, it has certain facilities which I am (a) unlikely to use and (b) unlikely to understand but, having mastered text messages, I find these an economical and enjoyable pastime at only 10p a time. Telephones, though, were not always the taken-for-granted marvel that they are today.

Whilst still a young teenager, I used to do football reports of local team activities for the Football Press, which the Evening Press produced each Saturday as a special issue, and will always remember the folks waiting outside North's paper shop in Wheelgate, around where Hoppers now are, anxious for the local and national results. I'm talking of 1936, when I don't think everyone would even have a radio, sorry, wireless set. I've often wondered if this makes me the York & County Press's oldest contributor.

At nine pence a match, I could sometimes notch up two local matches on a Saturday afternoon if they were home games and I pedalled between them fast enough. That was 1s 6d, 18 pence as it was often referred to. A fortune, and much more than my pocket money. If the local team, Taylors Norton United, were playing away, I got a free ride on the bus, and would ring in the results from whatever village we were at. I had to pay for the phone call out of my ninepence!

I well remember going to one village post office and asking the post mistress if I might use the telephone please. She looked a bit apprehensive, as though thinking "What's a young lad like this wanting a telephone for?"

However, bending down she produced a 'candlestick' telephone from under her front counter and plonked it down in front of me. Watching me very closely whilst I asked for the number, she stood there watching and listening whilst I read off my story, always just a 'quickie' which included anything of interest, with half and full-time scores and their scorers, and as soon as I'd finished, she whisked the phone away under the counter. "That'll be tuppence," and with the hard cash handed over, I would make for the bus journey home. I had a feeling that the telephone was her pride and joy in that tiny shop.

Headline of this week's Gazette & Herald says "More will die if A64 is not improved". Words of wisdom from a Yorkshire coroner, but which in my humble opinion should read "More will die if driving standards are not improved".

The subject is, of course, Golden Hill. A hill with a corner top and bottom but otherwise a good wide road. And what's wrong with it? Nothing at all. With the exception of illness-related crashes, the problem is that drivers go too fast, and can't cope with what then happens. If the road is further 'improved' then all that happens is that it is made faster still, and the problems remain. The only answer, as I see it is to slow down, if the standard of driving cannot be improved, and a 50mph limit for half-a-mile either side of the hill would solve all the problems. Providing it can be enforced!

Not a costly exercise, yet no one dare do it, too unpopular, so we continue spending many thousands on road 'improvements', signs and road paint, and people continue to die and the public continue to foot the bill for extensive emergency services.

More information in about the roadside gravestone near Potter Brompton and I am now told that this is the site where a huntsman and horse fell. The rider was carried on a sheep bar to the 'Hall' where he was declared dead. No mention of the horse! However, the Gazette & Herald's editor tells me he has had some calls on this tale, and hopes to do more inquiring than I've been able to do, so we will, I expect, get to know more as time goes by. Probably even before you read this.

Whilst on the Scarborough road, I expect most of you have at some time or other travelled up or down Scarborough's Cliff Lift - the one which is no longer there. At tuppence a go for adults this was a boon to avoid the long drag up the cliff garden paths, apart from the excitement for us children. Even in later years, when cycling home from Whitby by the cliff top path, we would come in somewhere near the Corner Cafe, a ride up to the lift, put the bikes in, and catch a train home for the last lap. No charge for bikes.

A fairly rare animal, a cliff-lift, and Scarborough's was bought by Launceston Council in Cornwall, where I expect it is up and working. The only two other known examples are in Machynlleth and Bridgnorth. So today's question is - has anyone been to Launceston and seen the 'Boro's lift or maybe even had a ride on it? It would be nice to know is it's still alive and kicking.

The Lost Chord

Seated one day at the organ, I jumped as if I'd been shot,

For the dean was upon me, snarling, 'Stainer - and make it hot'.

All week I swung Stainer and Barnby, Bach, Grounod and Bunnett in A;

I said 'Gosh, the old bus is a wonder!' The Dean, with a nod, said 'Okay'.

(D B Wyndham Lewis)

Updated: 12:12 Thursday, March 21, 2002