For 150 years, Northallerton Town Hall has stood in the centre of the High Street and, despite being sneered at for its squareness, is one of the town’s most readily identifiable features.

Just before Christmas, Looking Back told how it was opened with a concert on December 22, 1873.

However, it may well not have reached its 150th birthday if it wasn’t for the “keen-eyed nurse” who saved it “from almost complete destruction” back in 1968.

Yvonne Mills, 19, was being driven home by her boyfriend, later husband, Colin Narramore, 21, in the early hours of the morning when she spotted smoke coming from the roof of the town hall.

The Northern Echos headline in 1968 telling how Yvonne and Colin Narramore saved Northallerton Town Hall

The Northern Echo's headline in 1968 telling how Yvonne and Colin Narramore saved Northallerton Town Hall

Colin, eyes on the road, didn’t notice anything but Yvonne’s insistence that the “town hall is on fire” made him turn round for a second run past. He, too, saw the smoke, found a phone, and dialled 999.

Firefighters from Thirsk and Northallerton responded. “At one time, two inches of water on the ballroom floor was washing down the hall steps outside,” said the D&S Times’ sister paper, The Northern Echo, in a cutting that Colin has preserved for posterity.

“It was an experience I will never forget,” says Colin, “especially when hot slates slid off the roof and crashed onto a petrol tanker that was passing.”

The Echo praised Yvonne for her vigilance. “But for the quick alert, the old building would have been destroyed,” it said.

Colin remembers: “She received a nice thank-you letter from the town council but she had to face the wrath of a hospital sister for being out so late without a pass.”