Actually, there were 205 …plus three petitions with a total 14,798 signatures – which included 10,642 adult York residents: 13.5% of the then York electorate.

Planning officers are allowed to count a petition as a single objection. If you’re ever asked to sign a similar petition, tell them that they’ll have more impact by getting signatories to write even short unique letters individually to the Planners.

Having attended many infuriating council meetings my parents, along with other members of the Inner Ring Road protest group York 2000, were ready to ruffle some feathers.

Upon hearing that the Queen and Prince Philip were due to travel along the Mount on their next visit to York, people began to wonder if this might be a good opportunity to cause a bit of a rumpus.
My father, who was not prone to placard waving or noisy protesting, came up with a subtle plan.

Knowing that Prince Philip was a nautical man he had the idea of spelling out the words ‘SAVE YORK’ in international maritime signal flags and hang them from the house. It was a great idea because it looked like welcoming bunting to us landlubbers but actually had striking message to a seafarer like Prince Philip.

My father and I had a very memorable visit to Hull to get the flags made. I remember climbing some very rickety old stairs and entered a long, low-ceilinged loft in the roof of a what seemed like a derelict building. Down both sides and tucked right into the eaves were two rows of huge black industrial Singer sewing machines and each one had a blue-rinsed, pinni-clad operator sat buzzing away at high speed.

My father handed over his order of letters (jumbled up so as not to give the game away) and asked when they’d be ready to pick up. “Come back in an hour.” was the reply. The lady laughed when she saw the surprised look on my dad’s face. I think we thought we’d be coming back in a week or two to pick them up. But the lady pointed out that occasionally they might have to do a full set of flags for a ship before the next high tide.

Anyway, the day of the royal visit came and the Queen and Prince Philip passed along the Mount in an open horse-drawn carriage. Prince Philip did look briefly at the flags but I doubt he had time to work out what they spelt.

Each flag indicates both a letter of the alphabet and also a meaning so he may have got stuck on the first flag ’S’ which also means, ‘I’m operating astern propulsion.’ The story of the flags appeared in the Evening Press at the time, so the protest group York 2000 got a bit of useful publicity and they give me a smile each time I trip over them as they now live in a bag in my garage.

Thankfully York Council did a bit of astern propulsion and the Inner Ring Road plan was dropped.

Mike Smith