IN this week, five years ago, Theresa May became Prime Minister after another day of high drama in Westminster.

Making a mockery of the saying “a week is a long time in politics”, Andrea Leadsom’s shock withdrawal from the Conservative Party leadership race the previous day left the way clear for Mrs May, who joined Margaret Thatcher as the only women to hold the position.

The former Home Secretary moved into No.10 after David Cameron confirmed he would stand aside.

The announcement led to calls for a snap General Election from Labour, who said it was “crucial” that the UK had a “democratically elected Prime Minister” at a time of economic and political instability following the vote to leave the EU.

Mrs May had been preparing for the first of nine weeks of hard-fought campaigning ahead of a vote by Conservative party members, but admitted she was “shattered” by a torrid few days of negative headlines since securing her place on the ballot paper.

In the same week, a coach which had been carrying 27 North East schoolchildren and staff just seconds earlier burst into flames.

The group from Middlesbrough’s Trinity Catholic College watched in horror as the bus was engulfed by fire at Woodall Services on the M1, just south of Sheffield.

The secondary school pupils were returning from a day at Alton Towers, in Staffordshire, when the driver looked in his rear view mirror and saw smoke.

He immediately pulled over and everyone was evacuated safely – 30 seconds before the blaze took hold.

Witness Kieron Johnson, 18, from Hartlepool, told The Northern Echo: “The bus pulled up and the smoke was so thick you could hardly see it.

“They got all the students and staff off and it was smoking and smoking, and then you saw the flames just not long after. It spread through the bus so quickly.”

In France,there was a huge outpouring of grief for the 84 people killed in the Nice Bastille Day massacre – with French President Francois Hollande declaring: “France is in tears. It is hurting, but

it is strong.”

And as the world mourned with the French people, details emerged of the man believed responsible for turning a 19-tonne lorry into a weapon of mass murder in the French Riviera resort.

French authorities confirmed that 202 people were also injured, of whom 25 remained on life support and 52 more in a critical condition

Finally, sporting royalty came to the fore at the first day of the 158th Great Yorkshire Show.

Yorkshire royalty in the form of cricketing legend Geoffrey Boycott and two members of the Atlantic rowing mums, the Yorkshire Rows, were there to delight visitors.

The country’s premier agricultural event this year attracted record numbers of livestock entries and saw a total of about 8,000 animals registered to compete at the Harrogate Showground.

Crowds of approximately 130,000 were expected over the three days.