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Zeppelins' shadow over Yorkshire
Our weekly series of the Alternative A-Z of Yorkshire comes to an with the letter Z. Readers are invited to submit their suggestions for the online version
Zeppelins
It appeared over Hull not long after midnight on June 6, 1915, and gave Yorkshire its first taste of aerial warfare. Zeppelin L9 of the German air force dropped at least 32 bombs on the city centre from 3,000ft, killing 24 people, wounding 64 and wrecking 40 houses. Firemen worked through the night to save Holy Trinity Church. People were enraged, and mobs attacked a number of shops believed to have German connections. Over the next three years, Zeppelins were to put Yorkshire in the front line of the First World War. The great, slow-moving, cigar-shaped airships headed for major industrial centres, following rivers or railway lines – Middlesbrough, Scarborough, York, Wetherby, Driffield, Pontefract, and Goole were hit. They found Hull again in July 1916, when 10 people were killed, and returned on September 24, 1917. By then, improved air defences had forced the airships higher to 16,000ft, reducing the accuracy of their bombing. The Zeppelins returned to Hull in March 1918, but did little damage. The worst Yorkshire toll was in Sheffield, attacked by Zeppelin L22 on the night of September 26, 1916. The Burngreave and Darnall areas suffered and a memorial was set in a factory wall in the East End to commemorate the 29 people who died.
Andrew Vine
Zetland lifeboat
The Zetland Lifeboat Museum at King Street, Redcar houses the world's oldest surviving lifeboat. The cost of building it, 200, was raised by local fishing families with a local landowner, Lord Dundas and a clergyman chipping in. The vessel arrived in Redcar on
October 7, 1802 to be christened in honour of the Lord of the Manor, Lord Zetland. She was rowed out regularly into the teeth of fierce storms by local heroes of the Teesbay Lifeboat and Shipwreck Society and over 500 lives were saved. The RNLI took over in 1858, eventually commissioning a new lifeboat and ordering the Zetland be destroyed. But the sentimental ties within the fishing community were so strong the RNLI had to back down and have the Zetland repaired instead. The locals were right. When the brig Luna got into difficulties in 1880, three lifeboats had to be launched and Zetland was one of them. When she was finally retired, Lord Zetland made space in a barn at Marske. Later, a council-run lifeboat museum had a chequered history until a Save the Zetland campaign in the 1970s resulted in museum and lifeboat both being transferred to the RNLI to secure their future.
Michael Hickling
Ziff family
In the Seventies, top footballers and those who ardently wished to play like them, wore Adidas and Puma. Then along came a British brand to tackle the German leaders in the fancy boots league. Stylo signed up a few Match of the Day stars, including George Best, to wear their brand, although most players watching on the sofa at home remained certain that even if their skills were wanting, they looked better in boots with three stripes or the streamlined Puma logo. Stylo, which today sells 240m-worth of footwear a year, is the brand started by Arnold Ziff, who was born in a terrace house in Chapeltown in Leeds. By the Seventies, Arnold had already played a blinder in helping to get Leeds promoted out of the grimy industrial division. He built the Merrion Centre, a temple to shopping, in 1964, which was then Britain's biggest and is still going strong. Local institutions which benefited from his philanthropy included Leeds City Art Gallery, the Yorkshire Cricket School and Roundhay Park's Tropical World.
The Marjorie and Arnold Ziff Charitable Foundation is also one of the biggest contributors to Leeds University, where a new building is named after them. Charitable giving runs in the family and Arnold's son Michael, now chief executive of Stylo, recently received an honorary doctorate for his many contributions to Bradford. The other son, Edward, runs the family's property investment business, Town Centre Securities.
Earlier this year, the weather was blamed for difficulties in the Stylo shoe chain when it reported a pre-tax loss of 7m. It had been too warm for women to buy winter boots. But Michael Ziff forecast to shareholders a win in another fashion arena. He seems to have been spot-on in predicting that platform shoes would rise again.
MH
Zion chapel
Chapels used to be everywhere in northern working towns, their walls and their message a comfort for the neglected poor. Their influence was immense. Harold Wilson famously said that the Labour Party owed more to Methodism than Marxism. John Wesley took a stand against the social ills of his time represented by those famous William Hogarth images depicting where the unbridled urges of sex and drink would lead. Similar scenes are now re-run every Friday and Saturday night in towns up and down the land – although most chapels no longer thunder against them. They are still there but fulfil other roles as cafs, restaurants, carpet stores or temples for other religions. Halifax was a hotbed of Methodism, a town where the itinerant preachers came to spread the word in the outdoors. In 1772, the winter weather was so bad they decided to start building their own church, Mount Zion. Wesley preached here on several occasions. When he died, and Methodists revealed a tendency to fall out and set up rival factions, Mount Zion became the centre for one of them, called New Connexion. It's now the oldest surviving Methodist New Connexion chapel and also houses an historic collection of Methodist ceramics.
MH
ZodiacIn 2000, Jonathan Cainer consulted his stars – he's a Sagittarian. It led him to turn down a contract worth at least 1m to stay with his newspaper employer (a national tabloid) and switch sides to supply his horoscopes column to their deadliest rival. Jonathan Cainer left Allerton Grange Comprehensive in Leeds without an O-level, and nothing in the heavens seemed to foretell the fortune he would make. Cainer went to Los Angeles in the late 1970s with a vague ambition to make it as a musician (ideally as a bass player in a jazz-rock band). He bought an idiot's guide to astrology, which had been something of a hobby and returned to Yorkshire. The crystal ball continues to predict a prosperous future.
Grace Hammond
Zoo
It's certainly changed over the years since it was called the Flamingo Land Zoological Gardens. I went there on a Wallace Arnold coach at the beginning of the Sixties just after a few small fairground-style rides had been introduced. Yes, the pink flamingoes were there, just as they are today. But now, it's the theme-park rides which seem to be the big pull, although the zoo still has a variety of animals and birds, including lions, chimps, giraffes, hippos and kangaroos. You can even be a zoo-keeper for a day (for 99). Stamford Bridge vet Matt Brash put the place on a larger map through his Zoo Vet television series. Matt, along with two other vets, took part in castrating one of the stars here last summer. Ernie, a three-year-old hippo, required the snip to stop him making advances at his mum, Betty, and his aunt, Godzilla, who shared his enclosure. It was the first time such an operation had been attempted in this country. The surgery took six hours and 2,020mg of anaesthetic was needed to put Ernie under – enough to knock out 400 men.
David Overend
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -1 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Light rain
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