WE looked back at some of the Hexham Courant's headlines through the years, from a decade ago up to 150 years ago.

10 years ago

RAIDERS: Police in Hexham launched a summer crackdown on opportunist thieves, arresting several people as part of Operation Soundwave.

FLOOD ALERT: Haltwhistle was lashed by an intense storm following a heatwave. 

STINK: People complained when farmers spread human excrement as fertiliser on their fields. Public health officials dismissed the idea there was any risk to public safety.

LAVISH: It was confirmed that Otterburn Hall, a former holiday venue, was still on the market with estate agents Savills and a price tag of £2m.

25 years ago

CARNIVAL: Hexham town centre was a riot of colour and music for the Hexham Carnival parade of floats which were led up Battle Hill by the British Legion Pipe Band from Gateshead.

BOOST: Farms and rural businesses in Northumberland which did not have adequate energy supplies were to receive nearly £700,000 in special aid from the Northumberland Electricity for Enterprise Scheme.

CASH HANDOUT: Sele First School was one of five Northeast schools picked by the Government to head the £1.8m pioneering scheme designed to improve education standards.

50 years ago 

SELL-OFF: Hexham Rural Council voted to sell all of its 16 houses at Settlingstones in Newbrough, four years after buying them from Northumberland Estates.

RESCUE: Prudhoe sailor Malcolm Ward, 24, escaped unharmed after the boat he was working on caught fire and had to be abandoned.

75 years ago 

PLEA: Hexham Urban Council called on the Government to make unofficial strikes illegal, saying the burden placed on local ratepayers by council workers' wage demands was in danger of becoming unreasonable.

RECRUITMENT: Hexham Rotary Club was failing to attract members from outside the town and needed to do more to promote itself around the district, new president Percy Portnell told members at a meeting in the town's Abbey Hotel.

100 years ago 

GO: A £750 resurfacing scheme for Fore Street got the green light from urban councillors.

HOSPITAL DASH: An elderly woman was taken to Hexham War Memorial Hospital after being found near the town golf course drinking poisonous disinfectant.

125 years ago 

CHANGE: The Hexhamshire and Haydon Bridge Hunt, which at the time had some 200 subscribers, decided on a change of name and reverted to calling itself the Haydon Hunt.

BLAZE: Fire broke out at Ebchester's Broad Oak Farm, destroying its corn and straw barns and their contents, plus some farm machinery.

150 years ago 

ODD: An unusual egg, consisting of one egg inside another, was laid by a hen at West Land Ends in Haydon Bridge. 

PINCHED: Several items of clothing which went missing after being hung out to dry in Alston were found in a nearby bird's nest.

TRAGEDY: Albert Urwin, a seven-year-old boy, died after becoming entangled in machinery at the Shotley Bridge paper mill factory where his father worked.