FROM the village shop to the nursery at Coppins, the Buckinghamshire home of the Duke and Duchess of Kent – this is the big step that 19- year-old Elizabeth Hope, of Terrington, took this week.

Elizabeth, daughter of Mr and Mrs Hope of Beechcroft, Terrington, is to be assistant nanny to the two young children of the duke and duchess.

She has been working in the village shop at Terrington and heard about the job from a friend. She wrote off for it last year but was told that it had been filled.

But then another letter arrived asking if she was still interested. Her father, Mr Horace Hope took her to the Coppins for an interview with the duchess and the job was hers.

• OF a total of 1,922 houses in the Pickering rural district, 406 are without a bath, 373 have no toilet and 43 have no sink.

These figures, given in the annual report of the public health inspector, Mr P Pickering, were deplored by Coun Jack Scott, of Wrelton, at Monday’s meeting of Pickering Rural Council.

He said: “In this modern age, it is disgusting to find this number of houses without baths or WCs. There should be legislation whereby those responsible can be forced to comply with modern housing standards.”

Coun Mrs D Macdonald Smith said that if people wanted to live in houses without baths and toilets they should be able to do so. They should not be dictated to.

The public health inspector said the main reason for the lack of amenities was the absence of a sewerage system.

• GAS council tests in the North Riding have upset the North York Moors National Park planning committee.

The committee has expressed ‘great concern’ at the proposal by the council to install processing plants at well heads in the national park.

The council has been informed the planning permission for exploratory boreholes in the national park has only been granted in the past on the understanding that developments at well heads will be restricted to essential processing plants. Recent correspondence, according to the committee, has indicated that the gas council’s intention was to persuade developers to install complete plants.

The council has been told this will not be acceptable in the national park.

From the Malton Gazette & Herald, Friday, March 3, 1967