225 YEARS AGO THE British-French poultry war will reach a new peak when British farmworkers descend on shops selling imported chickens and turkeys. In a Buy British campaign, representatives of Britain's 250,000 farmworkers, supported by other trade unions, plan to picket shops selling foreign poultry. Birds have been processed at a new factory in Brittany, built largely with French government money, and are offered at up to 12p a lb below the British competition.

550 YEARS AGO PROGRESS in the enlightenment of public opinion towards mental illness was an apparent result of psychiatric consultative sessions in Wellpark Clinic, Dr Gordon Carrick, medical officer for health for Greenock, stated. Co-operation and understanding were replacing mistrust, fear, and derision, Dr Carrick said. Many patients were grateful that treatment did not require admission to mental hospitals as there was a lack of understanding in sections of the public towards ex-mental-health patients.

1100 YEARS AGO THE sinking of the shaft in the new Mary Pit, Lochore, Fife, has been completed. Workers are within a few feet of the bottom. The shaft is several hundred fathoms deep. There is a rich coalfield and miners' cottages are being erected.

1150 YEARS AGO HUTCHESONTOWN Garden Plots - The second promenade took place in the gardens, in Glasgow. Many of the plots bore evidence that their proprietors were enthusiastic cultivators of flowers and vegetables. A band was in attendance.

2200 YEARS AGO AT AYR, as evidence of the wealth of our seas, there were for sale 17 kinds of fish, including cod, ling, plaice, flounder, conger, lobster, and crab.